To the Editor:
Re “G.O.P. Weighs How Much to Fight a Black Female Supreme Court Pick” (news article, Feb. 3):
The hearing on President Biden’s prospective Supreme Court nominee may prove to be one of those infrequent occasions on which Republicans would be wise to take a page from the Democratic playbook.
As the most opportunistic and self-serving among them might fail to recall (and I’m looking at you, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley), the Democrats took a mostly low-key approach to the hearing on the nomination of the most recently appointed justice, Amy Coney Barrett. Of course, this was because they realized they had little to gain and possibly much to lose from doing otherwise under the circumstances.
As your report suggests, if any Republicans go scorched earth at the hearing on the first Black female nominee to the Supreme Court, it will be at their peril.
Michael Silk
Laguna Woods, Calif.
Poisonous Gerrymandering
To the Editor:
Re “Nothing’s More Fun Than Picking the Next Supreme Court Justice” (The Conversation, Feb. 1):
In their good-natured back and forth, Gail Collins and Bret Stephens wrongly suggested that tit-for-tat gerrymandering by both parties cancels out its poisonous effect.
The obvious purpose and plain effect of gerrymandering is to create safe districts for politicians of both parties. Incumbents in those districts have no incentive to work together for compromise solutions. Doing so simply puts their jobs at risk in primary challenges in the always-looming next election.
History will judge harshly the Supreme Court’s refusal in 2019 to establish bright-line limits on the practice with proposed formulae that were Dick-and-Jane simple to anyone who had taken a basic course on statistics.
Chief Justice John Roberts turned his back on an enormous opportunity to attack the poisonous partisanship he professes to lament.
George Vernon
Monroe, Wis.
The writer is a retired lawyer.
Why Masks in School Make Sense
To the Editor:
Re “Will a Mask Debate Split Blue States?” (column, Jan. 30):
Ross Douthat has it wrong. Requiring schoolchildren to wear masks is not merely to prevent them from acquiring what is often a minor illness, Covid-19, at the expense of considerable inconvenience. It also represents a public health measure, to reduce the spread of the disease to the more vulnerable adults the children come in contact with, for example parents, teachers and grandparents.
The widespread belief that getting vaccinated or wearing a mask should simply be a matter of personal preference is really a belief that individuals have no responsibility to society as a whole or, apparently, even to those close to them.
Elizabeth Wall Ralston
Los Angeles
In Defense of Meat
To the Editor:
“Meet the People Getting Paid to Kill Our Planet” (Opinion Video, Feb. 1) portrays meat eating as an ignorant, even selfish, and ecologically reckless act. But nothing could be further from the truth. Meat is a wholesome, uniquely nutritious food. And animals are essential to environmentally optimal farming.
Newer research has revealed myriad vital ecological benefits from well-managed grazing, including enhanced biology in soils, improved water-holding capacity and the power to draw down carbon from the atmosphere to the soils, where it supports life rather than harming the climate.
Consumers are rightly concerned about where and how meat (and all foods) are grown, but this is not a reason to avoid meat. Seeking well-raised meat is a much more powerful act of social protest. “It’s not the cow, it’s the how.”
Nicolette Hahn Niman
Bolinas, Calif.
The writer is a rancher and the author of “Righteous Porkchop” and “Defending Beef.”
Hard Truths About Gambling
To the Editor:
Re “Cost of Addiction Predictably Rises With N.F.L. Wagers,” by Kurt Streeter (Sports of The Times, Jan. 31):
I have taught college courses on gambling and games of chance. In most courses the emphasis was primarily on the mathematical analysis of games, but some were on the more general world of gambling.
On a few occasions my colleagues would express discomfort over a course. I would point out that my course would not encourage gambling and if anything would discourage it.
The mathematics of casino games can be studied very easily with basic probability. The chance element is introduced by playing cards, dice or some revolving wheel. It’s rather easy to demonstrate why a student’s “winning system” would not be successful.
Dostoyevsky created a system for roulette. When he won, he believed that it proved his system worked; when he lost, he believed that it proved that he did not follow his system well enough. He was never my student, or he would have known better!
Sports betting has a luck element introduced by performance (human, horse, dog), injuries, weather and other factors. It was much harder to convince a student that his or her wonderful betting system did not work. The mathematical analysis cannot compete with the human ego.
Julian Laderman
Bronx
The writer is a retired mathematics and computer science professor at Lehman College, CUNY, and the author of “Useful Probability for Bridge Players.”
