To the Editor:
Re “G.O.P. Weighs How A lot to Combat a Black Feminine Supreme Court docket Choose” (information article, Feb. 3):
The listening to on President Biden’s potential Supreme Court docket nominee could show to be a kind of rare events on which Republicans could be smart to take a web page from the Democratic playbook.
As essentially the most opportunistic and self-serving amongst them may fail to recall (and I’m taking a look at you, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley), the Democrats took a principally low-key method to the listening to on the nomination of essentially the most lately appointed justice, Amy Coney Barrett. After all, this was as a result of they realized they’d little to realize and probably a lot to lose from doing in any other case beneath the circumstances.
As your report suggests, if any Republicans go scorched earth on the listening to on the primary Black feminine nominee to the Supreme Court docket, will probably be at their peril.
Michael Silk
Laguna Woods, Calif.
Toxic Gerrymandering
To the Editor:
Re “Nothing’s Extra Enjoyable Than Selecting the Subsequent Supreme Court docket Justice” (The Dialog, Feb. 1):
Of their good-natured backwards and forwards, Gail Collins and Bret Stephens wrongly instructed that tit-for-tat gerrymandering by each events cancels out its toxic impact.
The plain function and plain impact of gerrymandering is to create protected districts for politicians of each events. Incumbents in these districts don’t have any incentive to work collectively for compromise options. Doing so merely places their jobs in danger in main challenges within the always-looming subsequent election.
Historical past will choose harshly the Supreme Court docket’s refusal in 2019 to determine bright-line limits on the observe with proposed formulae that had been Dick-and-Jane easy to anybody who had taken a fundamental course on statistics.
Chief Justice John Roberts turned his again on an infinite alternative to assault the toxic partisanship he professes to lament.
George Vernon
Monroe, Wis.
The author is a retired lawyer.
Why Masks in Faculty Make Sense
To the Editor:
Re “Will a Masks Debate Break up Blue States?” (column, Jan. 30):
Ross Douthat has it improper. Requiring schoolchildren to put on masks just isn’t merely to stop them from buying what is commonly a minor sickness, Covid-19, on the expense of appreciable inconvenience. It additionally represents a public well being measure, to scale back the unfold of the illness to the extra susceptible adults the youngsters are available in contact with, for instance dad and mom, lecturers and grandparents.
The widespread perception that getting vaccinated or carrying a masks ought to merely be a matter of non-public choice is mostly a perception that people don’t have any duty to society as an entire or, apparently, even to these near them.
Elizabeth Wall Ralston
Los Angeles
In Protection of Meat
To the Editor:
“Meet the Individuals Getting Paid to Kill Our Planet” (Opinion Video, Feb. 1) portrays meat consuming as an ignorant, even egocentric, and ecologically reckless act. However nothing may very well be farther from the reality. Meat is a healthful, uniquely nutritious meals. And animals are important to environmentally optimum farming.
Newer analysis has revealed myriad important ecological advantages from well-managed grazing, together with enhanced biology in soils, improved water-holding capability and the ability to attract down carbon from the environment to the soils, the place it helps life moderately than harming the local weather.
Customers are rightly involved about the place and the way meat (and all meals) are grown, however this isn’t a motive to keep away from meat. In search of well-raised meat is a way more highly effective act of social protest. “It’s not the cow, it’s the how.”
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Bolinas, Calif.
The author is a rancher and the creator of “Righteous Porkchop” and “Defending Beef.”
Arduous Truths About Playing
To the Editor:
Re “Price of Habit Predictably Rises With N.F.L. Wagers,” by Kurt Streeter (Sports activities of The Instances, Jan. 31):
I’ve taught faculty programs on playing and video games of probability. In most programs the emphasis was totally on the mathematical evaluation of video games, however some had been on the extra normal world of playing.
On just a few events my colleagues would categorical discomfort over a course. I might level out that my course wouldn’t encourage playing and if something would discourage it.
The arithmetic of on line casino video games will be studied very simply with fundamental likelihood. The prospect ingredient is launched by taking part in playing cards, cube or some revolving wheel. It’s moderately simple to exhibit why a scholar’s “profitable system” wouldn’t achieve success.
Dostoyevsky created a system for roulette. When he gained, he believed that it proved his system labored; when he misplaced, he believed that it proved that he didn’t comply with his system effectively sufficient. He was by no means my scholar, or he would have recognized higher!
Sports activities betting has a luck ingredient launched by efficiency (human, horse, canine), accidents, climate and different components. It was a lot tougher to persuade a scholar that his or her fantastic betting system didn’t work. The mathematical evaluation can not compete with the human ego.
Julian Laderman
Bronx
The author is a retired arithmetic and laptop science professor at Lehman Faculty, CUNY, and the creator of “Helpful Chance for Bridge Gamers.”
Supply: NY Times
