Tucson Speaks Out: October 13

I am 101 years old. I cried when I read Tamara Moots’ op-ed last week about the Grandmother cottonwood. I felt her anger, and underneath her agony, I felt her humanity. What will it take to recognize kindness and face these common dangers to us all? Is there any empathy left, any understanding? Are we just going to kill each other off by any means?

Years ago, when I was teaching little children, I felt close to God every day. Now we don't seem to care enough. Have we learned anything at all?

We are going to lose our free way of life if we don't stand up for truth.

Alice Treiber

Midtown

Lochiel Grandmother tree

Driving around town, I and my geriatric eyes mistook a young saguaro for a girl in a green jumpsuit, hitchhiking.


I don’t believe in the soul.

I do believe, to paraphrase Ed Abbey, “sentiment without action rots your soul.”

What’s left of me and my soul camps out in the heart of this 200-year-old cottonwood, the last of the grandmother trees still standing 
in the path of the new border wall,
her sisters chainsawed into trash.

I’ve got water and enough 
trail mix to last a week; I’ve got a harness, rope, my old jackknife and hard rubber climbing spurs for scaling the trunk
when the agents of the state, their gloves sparking, arrive to arrest me.

Smiling, I imagine them
chasing this aching grandpa body
up through the leaves and into the unbelievable, breathable air.

Jefferson Carter

Midtown

‘None so blind …’

The letter "November election" provided a window into the fantasy world of MAGA. It made me ponder what it's like for the 30% going through the world wearing virtual reality goggles. The author tells us how Trump "works every day" — meaning when he's not sleeping through meetings or working on his next AI/photoshop project, like when he depicted the Obamas as apes. Yes, he's working very hard — to enrich himself and his family at every turn, at our expense. The letter writer claims that Democrats in Washington "meekly do whatever the leaders say.” No bigger silent sheep exist in Washington than the Republicans. The president has told Republicans to "cheat like hell" to prevail in November. Such integrity! He's told Iran to go ahead and nuke L.A. and San Diego. Worry about your freedom? Ask those citizens killed by ICE, who lost a lot more than their freedom. Just another day in Trump land.

Deb Klumpp

Oro Valley

To each his own

The article that former First Lady Michelle Obama is extremely opposed to changes made by the current president to the White House is ridiculous. Personally, I think the helicopter pad is a much better and more useful idea than the basketball court her husband had constructed. Almost every president put his own touches on the residence he inhabits for at least four years. Besides the basketball court, the Obamas made changes to the State Dining Room, the Old Family Dining Room, added more solar panels and made other visible refurbishments. Why does this even matter to her?

Martha Cunningham

Northwest side

I gotta agree

Fulsome thanks to Bruce Johnson for his letter to the editor on Oct. 7, "I gotta vent," for excoriating the shameful and indefensible behavior of the news media and people of this country toward President Joe Biden. All true: the "threats insults and humiliation" directed at his wife and children. All true: the press attacks, "24/7 being drawn and quartered, every sentence dissected, constantly pressured to do this or that, without an ounce of moral support.”

Honest people remember all of that scurrilous, undeserved treatment. Too bad Mr. Trump hasn't had to face any of that from the press and public.

Gary Susko

Midtown

Execution methods — an alternative

Lethal injection, firing squad, electric chair, gas chamber, hanging. All have been considered in recent editorial and expert commentary. But there is an alternative: the French alternative. No, not that one: what they do now. They don't execute anybody.

(This fits with my church's teaching, which has gone on record at almost every one of its general conventions since 1958 advocating the abolition of the death penalty.)

John Leech

Foothills