Chaos on the island

On a recent January afternoon, my husband noted a voicemail from his son. He and his family live on the big island of Hawaii. “I love you, Pop,” he said. His wife and children were scattered on the island while he was captain of a boat offshore. He continued that he didn’t know what would happen, but he loved his father.

This family lived for 34 minutes in which they expected to die momentarily. They believed they were breathing their last breaths, the granddaughters only 11 and 13. They did not deserve this terror which they will never forget.

And what brought about this horror, this chaos? A state agency tasked with warning the islands of immediate missile attack. And what brought about this agency’s task? Threats from an erratic, egotistical dictator armed with nuclear missiles capable of striking Hawaii. And what brought about these threats? Threats from an erratic, egotistical wannabe dictator armed with nuclear missiles capable of striking North Korea. And what brought about these threats? The infantile needs of puffery by the sitting president.

This brinkmanship is a vestige of a dangerous historical past and encouraged by the puddled drool of the assortment of characters surrounding him. They have presented him with a strange brew to shill as it seems Trump himself is an intellectual lightweight, a nonreader, merely acting in the role of salesman.

One must hope in the next election that this vulgar lout is turned out before his self-aggrandizement further stains the office of the presidency and results in a future too awful to contemplate. SUE JOYCE Little Rock