Why do classes need to be in session during the hottest part of the year?
USA TODAY Network file photo
Strange days
I’ve never understood the school start dates here after moving 33 years ago from the Northeast, where the school year ended around Memorial Day.
Summer was almost a 90-day break. We had a couple of days off for Thanksgiving and Easter, a week for Christmas and all the regular federal holidays. There was no waiting at the bus stop or canceling outdoor recess for excessive heat, and no strain on the electric grid to cool massive buildings. Students didn’t have activity practices in the heat.
Parents did not have to scramble for childcare or take off from work for weeklong breaks in the school year. We can’t all take time from our jobs or afford vacations every eight to 10 weeks.
– Jeff Marthers, Keller
Unneeded pain
The Trump administration, with the probable backing of our two Tarrant County lapdog Republican representatives, Craig Goldman and Roger Williams, is finding new ways to penalize the needy. (Aug. 6, Edition, “Trump finds new way to hurt Medicare members: Hiking their drug bills”)
The commentary describes how, starting in December, more of the federal government’s Medicare subsidies of drug costs to insurers will be cut and thereby indirectly will be shouldered by the users. The article decries the administration’s actions blunting access to Social Security applicants and penalizing those losing Medicaid coverage.
How those in Tarrant County and throughout our country can stand back and ignore the damage done by this administration is truly beyond me.
– Preston Matthiesen, Fort Worth
A reversal?
In the decades after World War II, the United States repeatedly used military force against communist regimes and communist-backed forces. American troops led the fight in Korea against North Korean and Chinese armies. The U.S. battled in Vietnam and related campaigns in Laos and Cambodia for years.
In 1961, the United States organized and supported the Bay of Pigs invasion in a failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s communist government in Cuba. In 1965, the U.S. intervened in the Dominican Republic to block what was seen as a communist takeover. In 1983, American forces invaded Grenada.
These were costly, sustained efforts involving lives lost and national treasure spent to contain and defeat communist power.
It is a striking irony that today some who openly identify as communists seek elected offices in the very government that once fought those systems so determinedly.
– Dwight A. Heard, Benbrook
Look back
Nostalgia for the sights, sounds and experiences of the past can be more than an escape into yesterday. It can remind us of what we stand to lose.
I remember summers when I played outside without dangerous heat warnings. Rivers and lakes seemed cleaner, and butterflies, birds and wildlife were plentiful. These memories can make climate change personal. They remind us that a livable planet isn’t an abstract goal — it’s something we have experienced.
That nostalgia can become motivation. We can protect the places we love by supporting clean energy, conserving water, planting trees, protecting wildlife and, most important, demanding climate action from our leaders.
The past can show us what is worth saving. If we want future generations to have their own treasured memories of a healthy planet, we need to act now.
– Andrea Christgau, Keller