A comment about the front page of the Jan. 4 Valley News: Was it necessary to print the depraved details of the activities of the person after he broke into and torched the church in Lebanon? Wouldn’t it have been enough to say that he broke in, vandalized and set fire to the church? Just because we lucky Americans have freedom of speech, do we have to say or print it all?
Kevin GarrisonLebanon
Since the successful campaigns in the early 1980s to reduce the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, we Americans have tried to ignore the possibility of nuclear war. That changed recently with presidential candidates questioning the mental stability of others, and the president-elect reportedly asking, “if we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them?”
It reopens the question: Should any individual have the authority to launch weapons capable of destroying civilization as we know it? The impressive reductions in warheads over the last 35 years, from 70,000 to 15,000, has slowed to a crawl. The U.S. has committed $1 trillion to “modernizing” our nuclear arsenal, which many experts say will make the weapons more likely to be used. Neither Russia nor the U.S. has repudiated the strategy of using a nuclear weapon as a “first strike.” A miscalculation with an accidental launch would be followed by a massive retaliatory strike.
Even a “small” regional war between India and Pakistan could cause worldwide climate change. On Oct. 27 of last year, 123 member nations of the U.N. voted to begin negotiations to ban nuclear weapons. While most of the nuclear powers voted against doing so, the non-nuclear nations spoke for the majority of humanity …the world would be safer without nuclear weapons. They need our help.
Please write to your federal legislators to express your support for the United Nation’s attempt to ban nuclear weapons.
John Reuwer Burlington Paul ManganielloNorwich Members of Physicians for Social Responsibility
Those interested in affairs of state might be interested in reading the Mayo Clinic website’s explanation of Narcissistic Personality Disorder at mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20025568.
It explains that those with the disorder may seem “boastful or pretentious.” It notes that many experts and insurance companies use the criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association to diagnose mental conditions. Those criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder include having an exaggerated sense of self-importance, exaggerating your achievements or talents, requiring constant admiration, expecting unquestioning compliance with your expectations, taking advantage of others to get what you want, being envious of others and believing others envy you and behaving in arrogant or haughty manner. Perversely, one with the condition may not want to think anything is wrong because that would be inconsistent with his or her self-image.
Arthur Z. Gardiner Hanover
Could there be a better stage for domestic and foreign mischief than the assets owned by the president’s family?
Hotels, golf courses and buildings emblazoned with the Trump logo will become terrific backdrops for protests of all kinds, any of which could quickly turn confrontational or even violent. I can also imagine efforts to harass patrons, strew garbage and trash around fairways, deface buildings with graffiti, and damage property through acts of vandalism.
And then my imagination turns dark. Wherever in the world Trump assets are located, they will have high symbolic value for extremists, terrorists, lone wolves and killers of all stripes. I can imagine bombs exploding at Asian shirt factories, tampering of Trump-branded products, beheadings on Mideast golf greens, sniper shootings at Florida clubhouses, hostage-taking at a D.C. hotel, poisonings at a New York restaurant, and the slaughter of tourists at a Las Vegas casino by a truck.
Lest you think I am being unnecessarily alarmist or patently ridiculous, watch the evening news or read any newspaper — they are a compendium of such acts. And just think how attention-grabbing a violent attack on an asset owned by the president or his family would be.
The Trump family must divest all its assets immediately. Donald Trump promised the American public jobs, not blood on our hands.
Peter C. PaquetteHanover
Some merchant leaked my credit card number to the underworld, again. The bank reversed the charges, but I had to change credit card numbers, again. I had to notify every trusted vendor that regularly used my credit card number to change their records, again.
With chip cards or Apple Pay on your iPhone, the merchant does not ever know the credit card number, so fraud is much less likely. If you lose your iPhone, since paying with your Apple Pay also requires your fingerprint or lock code, fraud is unlikely.
However, if you lose your chip card, a thief can use it because merchants don’t check signatures much, and no PIN code is needed. The chip card technology could require the additional security protection of a PIN code, as European banks require, but U.S. credit card issuers opted not to bother to provide this protection to us.
Be careful shopping. Chip cards are more secure than mag-stripe cards. Apple Pay is more secure than chip cards.
Robert HargravesHanover