To the Editor:
Re “O Canada, Come Join Us,” by Ross Douthat (column, Jan. 12):
Expensive Mr. Douthat,
We learn your invitation to hitch the American household, and whereas we’re flattered, we should politely decline.
Consider us Canadians as your favourite cousin who loves poutine over burgers and well being care over havoc. We cherish our pleasant rivalry, like beating you at hockey, however residing collectively? Maybe not.
You counsel we abandon our quaint customs like common well being care, beneficiant parental go away and that cute little factor we name gun management. And as a lot as we love visiting your lovely bustling cities, we love our community-focused, syrup-sweet life-style much more.
We’re a modest bunch, albeit a bit smug about our politeness and the way we handle to embrace everybody, from each nook of the globe. Our mosaic is colourful, our winters are white and our hearts — eternally crimson with maple leaf pleasure.
So, whereas we admire the familial invite, consider us because the kinfolk who love household reunions however desire their very own dwelling afterward. In any case, somebody has to maintain the rink lights on.
Be at liberty to go to Canada anytime, Mr. Douthat — no have to convey a casserole, simply an open thoughts and perhaps a hockey stick.
Richard Wright
Hong Kong
The author is a Canadian writer residing in Hong Kong.
To the Editor:
Oh, sure, Canada, do be part of us! We might certainly use your civility down this fashion. Bear in mind, although, that the value of admittance to our republic has turn out to be moderately steep.
You need to pledge fealty — publicly, abjectly — to our incoming expensive chief. You need to abandon all pretense of honesty, which is greatest finished by repeating the identical lie at each public discussion board. You have to be wantonly merciless to immigrants and deal with them like barbarian pet eaters. You need to make nearness to energy your all-consuming quest.
Greater than anything, you have to look the opposite approach! No matter your training, nonetheless densely layered your syntax, you have to by no means acknowledge the world you’ll be ushering in by your silence.
Mark Jacoby
Cherryfield, Maine
To the Editor:
As a Canadian, I’m gobsmacked that an American — Ross Douthat — would confuse widespread dissatisfaction with a federal authorities with a want to fold up the complete nation with a view to merge with one other. By that measure, shouldn’t you might have been knocking on our door to turn out to be our eleventh province years in the past?
Quick-term frustrations apart, we’re tremendous, thanks.
Anthony Wilson-Smith
Toronto
To the Editor:
Regardless of the lengths that Ross Douthat goes to offer his bona fides as a scion of Canada, his essay is a stark instance of one of many United States’ most distinguished social and cultural exports: important character syndrome. Why wouldn’t Canadians need to “take part within the nice drama” and assist “form the imperium”? The higher query is, Why would we?
So we will pay extra for much less accessible well being care? So we will be saddled with extra training debt? So we will be beholden to extra monopolies, with fewer protections? So we will have even fewer political choices?
Possibly as an alternative of preening within the mirror, take a look round you. The “shining metropolis on a hill” is collapsing, and we will hear you arguing about who’s price saving from up right here. Considered from the surface, the “nice drama” of America is extra “Actual Housewives” than “West Wing,” and shaping the imperium clearly has a billion-dollar minimal buy-in.
Dave MacLachlan
Halifax, Nova Scotia
James Carville Is Nonetheless Fallacious
To the Editor:
Re “Why I Was Wrong About the 2024 Election,” by James Carville (Opinion visitor essay, Jan. 6):
Mr. Carville remains to be incorrect. He sees all the pieces via the prism of the Nineteen Nineties Clinton years. This election was not some complicated thriller that Mr. Carville needed to ponder, in search of hidden truths. It was purely concerning the candidates, and about underlying racism and sexism.
The roles reviews have been nice, fuel costs are down, the inventory market was booming and inflation was lowering. None of that basically mattered to voters it doesn’t matter what they could have mentioned in exit polls. I imagine that the overwhelming majority of Trump voters wouldn’t vote for Kamala Harris or anybody like her below any circumstances. No quantity of political messaging can change fundamental human nature.
Donald Trump appealed to the worst in us, and nearly half of voters fell for it. Sadly, we should face the truth that a big portion of American voters harbor a substantial amount of racism, sexism and xenophobia.
Nathan P. Carter
Winter Park, Fla.
To the Editor:
James Carville writes, “Denouncing different Individuals or their chief as miscreants isn’t going to win elections.” Sadly, it appeared to work fairly nicely for Donald Trump.
Jeremy Pressman
West Hartford, Conn.
Serving to the Hurting
To the Editor:
Re “When Grief Comes to Your Mailbox” (Opinion visitor essay, Jan. 5):
Sloane Crosley writes concerning the onslaught of letters she acquired after she wrote concerning the suicide of a pal. She did her greatest to reply, though, as she put it, “On prime of not being a grief counselor or somebody keen on duties, I’ve an allergy to earnestness.”
I could also be too earnest. When my first e-book, “Girltalk: All of the Stuff Your Sister By no means Instructed You,” got here out, I used to be 28 and completely unprepared for all of the reader mail about melancholy, issues and stepfathers who entered bedrooms. However I wrote everybody again, hundreds of handwritten letters. I didn’t see how I might do in any other case.
E mail made correspondence simpler, and the web has given women extra locations to share emotions and search data. However I nonetheless obtain letters and nonetheless write again. I do know that sort phrases are a robust balm.
Ms. Crosley explains that many people “refuse” arduous conversations as a result of we concern “less-than-perfect articulation” of turmoil or condolences.
True. However when you realize somebody is hurting, saying one thing beats staying quiet. Even simply texting “Pondering of you” lets the opposite individual really feel your affection and put a coronary heart on it. If you happen to can say extra (you, not A.I.), higher nonetheless. While you present you care, less-than-perfect phrases add gentle to darkness.
Carol Weston
Armonk, N.Y.
The author is an recommendation columnist at Ladies’ Life.
Why I Don’t Fly
To the Editor:
I applaud “Green Air Travel Is Still a Fantasy,” by Mark Miodownik (Opinion visitor essay, Jan. 2).
Once I inform folks whom I do know to be in any other case involved about local weather change that I’ve, for years, not indulged my love of journey via jet transportation due to its extraordinarily disproportionate and damaging affect on the surroundings, they stare at me as if I’ve two heads or sheepishly look away.
Sadly, for many, the journey bug trumps the looming risk of environmental collapse, underscoring the boundaries of most individuals’s willingness to sacrifice their self-enjoyment whatever the environmental prices or to behave as shoppers via flight boycotts to power modifications within the dangerously polluting aviation trade.
Mark Bierman
Brooklyn
