War started with 1979 hostages
This battle with Iran is not a new war. By international law, an embassy is sovereign territory. An attack on an embassy is equivalent to an attack on a country’s homeland and is an act of war. When Iran took over the U.S. embassy in 1979 and held our staff hostage for 440 days, they declared war upon us.
A peace treaty has never been signed between Iran and the U.S. Today’s military action is a continuation of that 1979 war and does not require a declaration of war by Congress because Iran made the declaration by attacking our embassy.
Ed Zingone, Temple
That building is ugly
Re: The case for saving City Hall — Dozens of speakers stick up for I.M. Pei’s building and win a reprieve,“ by Mark Lamster, Sunday Arts&Life.
As I did with David Dillon, former architecture critic for The Dallas Morning News, I loyally follow Mark Lamster’s columns. I don’t recall disagreeing with him — until now.
Opinion
Dallas City Hall is ugly. Few know its fabled designer, and it provides little value to the city. How is it possible a building opened in 1978 needs hundreds of millions to meet code?
Dallas is facing a critical decision: save downtown or save City Hall. The only answer is the former. This city let the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers slip out of Dallas’ grasp. So, too, AT&T. Up next are the Dallas Stars.
Wake up, Dallas. Don’t let saving a brutalist building come at a brutal cost for the city.
Guy Mercurio, Dallas
Let landlord do maintenance
NorthPark Center opened in 1965. Dallas City Hall was dedicated in 1978. That makes NorthPark about 13 years older than City Hall. The newer City Hall building is falling apart, while the older NorthPark is still in great shape.
The difference in condition between these two properties is their caretakers. The private caretakers of NorthPark looked after their investment. The public guardians of City Hall have no investment in their building. The occupants of City Hall should be moved into a leased space in downtown Dallas. The City Council won’t have to bother with maintenance because the building owner will provide it.
Joseph Hunter Betts, Plano
Legacy of neglect
I’m struggling to decide which is the best choice for Dallas: repair City Hall or tear it down. Both sides argue compelling points of view.
City Hall is hardly the only building designed by a world-famous architect that the city has neglected into disrepair. The Kalita Humphreys Theater, the only theater designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, another I.M. Pei treasure, have also suffered badly from Dallas’ neglect.
If we choose to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to repair City Hall, what guarantee do we have that the City Council will repair itself and put an end to its legacy of neglect?
Paul Sokal, Dallas
Think toward 2050
Just a message to DART’s board chairman, Randall Bryant. Now that the hard work is over, the real work begins herding 13 yellow alley cats in unison.
The future for DART is building an inclusive North Texas mass transit system and looking northward toward 2050. Without that north star, DART will end up with stranded assets, and the service population will be 50 miles north of Dallas. My suggestions for Bryant: Don’t plan on taxing your way out of the current problem, build a system that is safe to ride way after dark, and build it right and the riders will come.
Jim Sherrard, Plano
Trump not learning
Re: “What’s next for Ayatollah and the gas pump?” by Robert Jordan, Sunday Opinion.
In this article about the effect on gasoline prices of our warlike operation in Iran, I mostly agree, with one big exception. The quote I disagree with begins, “Trump is learning … .”
I spent the bulk of my career teaching adult technicians. In all of my work and my studies of education, I found this to be absolutely true: To learn, a person must accept that they have a lack of knowledge, and they must have a desire to learn.
As we are seeing in President Donald Trump’s words and those of his loyal, inexperienced, unqualified cabinet, Trump already knows more about everything than American experts in their fields of study know.
The idea that Trump is learning from his experience as president goes against all of the evidence presented by both right-wing and left-wing news organizations.
Kenneth Mathias, Grand Prairie
Stuff to brag about
I have long been a supporter of John Cornyn, who has served 23 years in the U.S. Senate. Given that length of service, Cornyn has a substantial list of accomplishments; however, during the primary, all I heard was fear-mongering against Muslims and Shariah.
Now in the runoff campaign, all I hear is personal character attacks against Ken Paxton and faith-based attacks against James Talarico. What I would love to see are campaign ads telling me why I should vote for Cornyn rather than attacks on the other candidate.
You would think that after 23 years, he would have a pretty long list of bills and policies to brag about.
Larry Compton, Frisco
We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here.
If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at letters@dallasnews.com