Tanking Tylenol
How horrible that President Donald Trump and members of his administration are again sullying science by claiming dangers of Tylenol that have not been shown to be true. They don’t understand what “gold standard” means, let alone the word science. Now, Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, has to deal with people unnecessarily avoiding its product while watching its stock prices plummet. This also subjects Kenvue to potential lawsuits — especially if they are forced to add a warning label to their product. How many will switch to something that is truly not safe or forgo all beneficial medications? An individual would be subject to lawsuits, but it is very difficult to go after the government for affecting a company like this. For all I know, Trump could have told his buddies he is going to tank the stock prices so they can buy low, then reverse course, as he frequently does, so the prices can rise back to normal levels.
This is wrong on so many levels.
Ted Swirsky,Sicklerville
Missing the point
Mark Fenstermaker’s recent letter bemoaning the attention The Inquirer paid to ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show missed a point or two. The Inquirer certainly reported on the lawsuits filed by state attorneys general against the Biden administration for its effort to control the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 on social media sites. Biden’s rocky foray into First Amendment waters was pretty much a one-off that still received a lot of negative coverage nationwide. In contrast, Donald Trump’s assault on free speech didn’t start with Kimmel, and won’t end there, either. That assault followed other attempts by Trump to suppress free speech, including those on law firms he dislikes, universities he dislikes, federal unions he dislikes, foreign students who support Palestine, and the Associated Press for having the effrontery to continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico. In short, the self-professed champion of free speech targets speech he simply dislikes, not speech that falsely mischaracterizes public health issues, something the president engages in almost daily. It is Trump’s incessant war on the First Amendment that provoked the latest backlash by The Inquirer Editorial Board.
Stewart Speck,Wynnewood, speckstewart@gmail.com
‘Never Again’ transcends
As a Jewish Philadelphian, I was pleased to read in a recent Inquirer article that Eszter Kutas of the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation believes that “There’s a need to really reflect on how [the Holocaust Memorial Plaza] relates to our current time, and what we can learn from the Holocaust to guide us in the future.” However, I’m disappointed that the PHRF, in reality, rejects the goal of those who’ve truly learned from the Nazi Holocaust: Never Again.
The PHRF, with Mural Arts Philadelphia, has just installed a mural with 28 languages, but no Arabic. In community meetings, it refused to engage with those who felt an artwork expressly trying to help viewers learn from the genocide of Europe’s Jews must account for the genocide of Palestinians currently being carried out by Israel, the state whose flag was moved out of alphabetical order on the Parkway so it would fly above the plaza.
The mural’s silence regarding Israel’s ongoing mass slaughter, intentional starvation, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is a disgrace — a shanda — to the PHRF and its Zionist peers who use the Nazi Holocaust as moral ballast to argue that Israel cannot be committing genocide. “Never Again” must mean never again for anyone.
Benjamin Katz Remsen,Philadelphia
I was troubled by the lack of reporting in your recent article about the Holocaust remembrance mural on the Ben Franklin Parkway, as there is no mention that the Arabic language is excluded from the “collage of 28 languages written in 17 scripts.” Arabic is a language that flourishes and is well represented in Philadelphia, and I find it odd that a mural that purports to reflect the diversity of this city instead employs specific linguistic censorship.
Additionally, the article could have given context to the beautiful and haunting protest. During the mural planning process, many voices tried to engage the artist and the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation in acknowledging that a systematic, state-mandated genocide is taking place against the Palestinian people. Your article quotes the artist: “I’m focused on the aftermath of the Holocaust, and what proceeds now and into the future.” The dedication nullified the mural’s message of representing global displacement and discrimination by omitting any mention of the horrific Shoah in Gaza. Instead, the mural is “art-washing” what can never be clean: that Israel, an apartheid state, has killed at least 65,000 people and is systematically starving the surviving population.
Prudence Katze, Philadelphia
Wasted resources
It is such a disgrace to deploy troops to our great American cities, towns like Chicago and Portland, Ore., for absolutely no reason. It is a silly power trip coming from an insecure and ineffective executive in the White House.
We have so many real issues in this country that we could use that man power to solve. We could be taking these troops and deputizing them into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and having them build sea walls across the American South to defend against climate-change-powered hurricanes and tropical storms.
Just the same, we could be putting this kind of man power into solving our nation’s housing crisis. Inexpensive and solid housing could be built across our country using military knowledge and expertise. In the past, we have done so abroad; it’s time to do so at home.
It is reported that deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., costs a million dollars a day. Think about where else we could be using those kinds of resources. It is such a waste.
Alex Palma, Philadelphia
No laws, boundaries
President Donald Trump’s ordering the bombings and deaths of 17 passengers on three alleged drug boats in the Caribbean is not just a crime against humanity. A president, above all, cannot take the law into his own hands. There were no defense counsels, judges, juries, trials, verdicts, adjudicated and fair sentences, or avenues of appeal, let alone any concerns about evidence or justice, just automatic death sentences. The United States should set examples for democracies throughout the world, not set precedents of arbitrary killings for totalitarian regimes.
Now that the United States military has acceded to carrying out legally questionable commands from our commander in chief, precedents have been set for them, as well. With the military being sent into our cities and future concerns about their use against peaceful protesters and political opponents, our democracy is now at greater risk. Where are the boundaries, the concerns, and the outrage?
Gerald Koren,Exton
One is enough
A recent letter writer blames Democrats for his departure from the party, saying we need more Charlie Kirks, not fewer. Most Democratic leaders have publicly decried violent acts, the culture of hate, and the wide availability of guns, all of which contributed to a young father’s tragic death.
However, saying that Kirk only promoted strong fatherhood and Christianity is a deliberate disregard for the majority of his beliefs and narrative. Kirk stated openly that “some” gun deaths were an acceptable price to pay for the Second Amendment, Black people were better off under Jim Crow laws, and that certain Black women (including Harvard graduates) lacked the information processing ability to be taken seriously.
This Democrat says no thanks, one Charlie Kirk was enough.
S. Dilfield, Chalfont