Threats to our elections must be taken seriously

In reference to the Jan. 15 Forum piece, “Stealing Elections Is Part of the Game” by Marc Trachtenberg: I read with interest Mr. Trachtenberg’s admonishment of Americans to get off their high horse about election influencing by outside parties because we have been doing it to other countries at least since 1945. His factual accounts of such I accept without reservation as being accurate. Now, at the risk of being accused by Mr. Trachtenberg of being an arrogant American, I ask, so what?

While I understand the hypocrisy that he points to, Mr. Trachtenberg completely avoids the issue of an untrustworthy election. What is the point of going through the nearly interminable election process without the electorate being assured that the information related to candidates and issues it is receiving is bona fide and free from outside influence? Or without considerable safeguards in place to ensure that the voting systems themselves are incorruptible? It undermines at best and invalidates results at worst as it relates to the democratic process.

Free and fair elections are the bedrock of the American experiment. Lacking that, who are we really? Closer to a third-rate banana republic than a “shining city on a hill.” If ever there were a nonpartisan issue, the dependability of our voting system is it. With regret, I don’t think it is even on Washington’s radar. N. MICHAEL FAZZINI JR.

O’Hara Mr. Hamlet had begun to address three recommendations — updating curriculum, creating a department to oversee data and working to provide teachers with authentic professional development. These are all items that PPS educators have requested for years. I want to commend Mr. Hamlet for his willingness to ask hard questions, to listen to our teachers and to include students, teachers, staff, the school board and PPS families in the work that’s to be done. NINA ESPOSITO-VISGITIS

President, Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers

South Side

Enough! Andrew Swensen’s commentary, “Art Should Hurt Sometimes” (Jan. 15 Forum), furthers the fuzzy logic of the relevancy of politics to art. Admittedly, art can involve political purpose, as was well cited in his essay, but I revile his assertion that “Art cannot and should not be divorced from politics.”

Current art education is awash in political consciousness, so much so that it is possible to receive a graduate degree in studio arts with very little proficiency in use of an art medium. So much attention is given to “intended content” that the products of most studio programs read as but signage. An “aesthetic experience” used to be the raison d’etre of art manufacture. Today, I’m not sure academia even acknowledges

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What a pleasure it was to read Cherisse Tompkins’ piece, “Who’s in the Box? Race Is a Part of Who We Are, But Not the Sum” (“The Next Page,” Jan. 15). If that got an honorable mention, then the standards in the high school prose competition must have been very high indeed. I think it set the bar for musings on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday very high. Thanks for printing it. STAN ANGRIST

Squirrel Hill