Month: September 2020

I read the Letters to the Editor in the daily paper.  These can be interesting observations, funny anecdotes, elaboration on a news item or political advocacy.  The only limits are those imposed by the editorial staff of the newspaper.   Many letters, however, do follow a specific template.  The writer is usually indignant about some outrage which he/she finds offensive when held up against some value or principle which is assumed to be universally accepted (or at least that which the reader finds so obviously critical that it should be universally accepted).     These letters often take this form:   How can we…

In a recent Los Angeles Times article, the Chilean leftist author Ariel Dorfman commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the election of Salvador Allende to the presidency of Chile.     A brief historical recap:  after years of effort, the Chilean left in 1970 won the presidency in a three-man race between an old-line oligarch, a centrist social democrat and socialist Allende. In such a winner-take-all contest, the margin of victory can be as slim as 34/33/33.  Allende did not do much better. With his opponents evenly split, he garnered 36% of the vote.  As he was not the centrist candidate, two-thirds…