Children in need of rescue
The world held its breath awaiting the fate of 12 children and their coach trapped deep in a cave in Thailand. Each morning I awoke to the joyous news that more were safely out. Closer to home, we await the rescue of children separated from family members in the ordeal of migrating to safety. What can we do to harness the resources to swiftly address the morass these children are trapped in — deep in the bureaucracy of one of the world’s richest and most humanitarian countries? Let’s free up our country’s best and brightest to work on the enormous challenges of sorting through sketchy documentation, lost records, lost families.
Migrating, separated children don’t need a miracle — they need the science of a government that cares and that will devote the resources to protect them and reunite them with loved ones. The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy has failed to respond to the needs of these vulnerable children, to address their health, safety and basic humanitarian needs. Cristine Marchand
Santa Fe
Living with Los Alamos
I am concerned that not enough attention was paid by the Santa Fe New Mexican to the two-day symposium that provided a lively and compelling context for the Santa Fe Opera’s long-awaited production of Doctor Atomic. The protesters at the doors of the New Mexico Museum of History completely misunderstood the purpose of the event. It was not to “celebrate” the bomb. Rather, it offered a range of perspectives from artists, historians, anthropologists, scientists and activists on what it means to be living in a world bequeathed to us by the Manhattan Project.
As a historian who has taught courses on atomic energy for many years, I can only add that each of the panels sparkled with new insights and perspectives that raised questions, provided (some) answers and unquestionably offered eloquent testimony to the purposes and hard work of those who organized the symposium. James K. Hopkins
Santa Fe
As good as it gets
What utter nonsense. Human overpopulation is destroying life on this planet. Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan (“Bright future for war on global poverty,” Looking In, July 24) write from the myopic and unfortunate perspective of only the human condition and even then ignore important factors. Humans are despoiling the environment and destroying thousands of species. That some people are enjoying more “modern” conveniences ignores that we are destroying oceans, air quality, forests, polar ice, etc., ad nauseam to that end.
There never will be enough jobs or resources for our ever-expanding population, but no politician has the courage to address this. The problem is that those of us old enough to remember when airports and roads and virtually everything else weren’t perpetually jam-packed are dying out. The new generations won’t have anything to which they can compare their life quality. MacKenzie Allen
Santa Fe
Coming and going
Kudos to the Santa Fe park-and-ride shuttles, which provided free shuttle service to and from the park-andride locations and the International Folk Art Market. The service was exemplary and, in my case, extraordinary. I had parked my car at the South Capitol (Sun) lot but inadvertently got on a return bus to the Moon (PERA) lot. That’s a long walk between the two, as I pointed out to the supervisor at the Moon lot who then, in effect, commandeered an empty bus about to return to the market and directed the driver to drop me off at the South Capitol lot on his way. I had the bus to myself and felt like royalty. Many thanks to the supervisor and bus driver who went above and beyond the call of duty for a weary local. Kay Lockridge
Santa Fe
Return to normalcy
It is time to forcibly remove Donald Trump from the White House and install Hillary Clinton into the presidency. The 2016 election was stolen from the American people. Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million votes. Let us install Al Gore as our environment minister as well, for the election that was stolen once again from the American people back in 2000. Steve Jones
Taos