Tucson Speaks Out: August 30

National shame

Since President Trump, in a fit of pique against Canada, just signed an executive order to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, we will have to change the mnemonic every school child learns to remember the Great Lakes. Instead of HOMES (for Lakes Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior), it will now be SHAME. How appropriate!

Keith Dveirin

Northeast side

Golden rule

Growing up, most of us probably got a bit of theology espoused by many world religions when folks invoked the Golden Rule. Maybe we didn’t even know it was Biblical, but we were taught to live by the rule that you should do to others what you would want them to do to you. The idea was to treat your neighbor with kindness and compassion. In a number of conversations lately, I’ve spoken with friends who mourn that our actual President instead encourages us to hate those who are different from us, even if they are our neighbors! How MAGA can pretend any Christian basis with hate as foundation is beyond me. I think Trump follows a different Golden Rule: to use his position to make as much money as possible for him and his cronies and family members. Save our country from the hate, corruption and greed, folks, and in the elections ahead vote for people who will actually live into the Golden Rule.

Melinda Sims

Catalina

Can Trump focus on Americans?

Congrats MAGA. DOJ lawyers were in court defending the need to place Trump's name on the Kennedy Center, despite the court ruling it was a Congressional dedication to the late President Kennedy. NOW, with nothing else to occupy himself, President Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America — seriously? Did you really vote for this kind of insanity?

Norman Patten

Midtown

Rename this!

Let’s issue a patriot order to rename that Secret Service resort in Florida as Mar-a-Felon. I’m hoping the name change can be completed so it doesn’t have to be torn down. Raze it to save it.

The recent tantrum-inspired “na na na” while renaming Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico should not go unrewarded. Another club could be re-themed Whineminster, because the owner is always saying how life is so unfair. For him. “Help me! Vote for my guys or I’ll get called to the principle’s office. Again.”

The family money machine could be renamed the In-Someone-Else’s-Pocket Organization. Maybe their assets, money laundered or not, can be donated for some public good: Something useful, like buying books for children. The man-child has shown one can pretend to admire those who are the complete opposite.

Bruce Kaplan

Northwest side

When a statistic becomes a lie

President Trump says America is “losing” $ 62 billion a year to Canada. The number may be real. The conclusion is manufactured.

Trump takes the U.S. trade deficit in physical goods, strips it of context, and rebrands it as money America “loses.” That's the mechanism by which a statistic becomes a lie, by forcing it to mean something it doesn't.

Most of that deficit is Canadian oil, natural gas, and electricity, which Americans buy to power their homes, vehicles, and industries. Strip out energy, and the United States runs a goods trade surplus with Canada. The claim also erases trade in services entirely, convenient since that's where America wins.

If I buy a $50,000 car, I haven't “lost” $50,000. I traded money for something I wanted more than the money.

Presidents may argue for tariffs, protectionism, or a different trade posture. That's politics, and it's fair game. What they don't get to do is dress up arithmetic as victimhood and sell it as fact.

Lawrence E. Mazin, Ed.D.

SaddleBrooke

Let’s fund the Kennedy Art Center together

With President Trump trying every way to blackmail his name/image onto everything, we should start a “Go Fund Me” to pay for the renovations to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Thus robbing the President of his insatiable desire to attach his name to everything, especially things he knows nothing about (which is immense). I doubt he has ever attended a symphonic performance, play, art exhibition or even read a book. I do not know how to do this, but I would be very willing to help with a donation.

Gary Benna

Midtown

Quitobaquito Springs

The beautiful Opinion piece by Jane Conlin concerning the double border wall project that is destroying the ancient Cottonwoods near Lochiel was so tragic. Equally tragic is the destruction of Quitobaquito Springs, which are both culturally important to the Tohono O’odham people, as well as home to a number of endangered species. In recent days, armed federal agents and border wall contractors have entered the Tohono O’odham Nation illegally to begin wall construction, and the Tohono O’odham Nation is struggling to keep its land intact and protect Quitobaquito Springs. We need to support our elected officials who are protesting this madness.

Katy Garmany

West side

Discrimination and bigotry, alive and well

The Republican Party bears no resemblance to the party of Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony. It would seem the Emancipation Proclamation that Lincoln wrote in 1863 and the 19th Amendment that Anthony helped put forward in 1920 are just ancient history.

This is especially evident in our military, where the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth refuses to promote black men and women and, in some cases, forces them out of the military. We are in the sixth month of the Iran War, and some of our most talented, brightest and qualified of our military can not lead due to the color of their skin or gender. Maybe if we had their leadership, we wouldn't be so low on strategic missiles and munitions.

What Congress needs to do is to impeach the Secretary of Defense so he can return to his true calling as a TV personality.

Fred DiNoto

Northwest side

Re: 'Men of considerable means ... '

Enes Kanter Freedom is serious as he challenges the WNBA's official guidelines for "women" to play in their league. He has identified as a woman, and that's all it takes for a man to change his gender and play in the WNBA. Let Freedom play, and the absurdity of biological men playing on the women's teams will shatter the illusion of transgender equality. A "woman" that big can guarantee a 44-0 season and a WNBA Championship.

The United Nations says transgender women competing in women's athletic events have won nearly 900 medals over their biological women opponents. The International Olympic Committee has banned transgender women from competing in biological women's events. IOC President Kirsty Coventry said: "… it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category." How far do we have to go to expose the insanity of transgender equality?

Daniel Pryor

West side

The art of the name

I have always been impressed by DJT’s wit and eloquence, but he did poorly in renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” After all, Canada is part of North America (I looked at a map!), and I don’t think it’s disparaging enough. I know a genius like Donald can do better — how about “Lake Untario,” “Lake Tariff,” or “Lake Take That!” Of course there’s the ever popular “Lake Donald J. Trump.”

And what’s with Lake Michigan? If they don’t come through for the MAGA crowd in November, folks in Michigan will be sailing on “Lake Florida” by December. His Royal Wetness has many weapons ... and there are so many lakes.

Norman Epstein

Midtown

Hundreds protest 5,000 acres of solar panels

Some scientists believe we are living Earth’s sixth extinction. They say a possible cause is climate change caused by our use of fossil fuels. An example affecting our existence is the Colorado River drying up because of fossil fuel-caused climate change. Without water, farmers have trouble feeding the beef we eat or, in California, growing 40 % of the fruit, vegetables and nuts we eat.

I researched what energy sources TEP uses to produce the electricity to charge my all-electric car only to find out 69% of that electricity is produced from fossil fuel. 19% is from wind and solar farms.

Allowing solar farms cuts back our need for fossil fuel that produces the electricity we use when we turn on our lights at night or our air conditioners each day, and causes climate change that is affecting the water we get from the Colorado. We all need to change our behavior, or we are for sure on our way to Earth’s sixth extinction.

Linda Olsoe

Green Valley