Hope for US midterms?
I hope the US midterm congressional elections do turn out to be a step towards ousting Donald Trump from the White House, as your somewhat sanguine editorial suggests (A test for Trump and for a nation, 17 August). But I’m not holding my breath.
In the current political and wider social climate, we can’t be sure that a majority of Americans want such a civilised electoral result. And even if they do, the capacity of a very troubled American democracy to deliver such an outcome is far from certain. If the Turkish economic crisis does indeed trigger a global economic collapse – or some other calamity occurs – it could go either way when it comes to ridding ourselves of the Trump menace.
Fingers crossed for America – for all of us – on this.
Terry Hewton
Adelaide, South Australia
Liveability list is suspect
Thanks to Chibundu Onuzo for confirming a bias I have long suspected (24 August). As a denizen of Melbourne, at least three-times leader of the liveability list, I am regularly staggered by congestion, environmental horrors and the unbelievable expense of everyday living. I do not know Lagos, but I did work in Ghana many years ago, and often visited Kumasi. This city certainly had its problems: but it had a cultural vitality and human pulse that I’m sure Onuzo would find familiar.
Who compiles the liveability data, and do they ever venture far from their hotel rooms?
Chris Bailey
Melbourne, Australia
Tourists and immigrants
“Riding my bike, I don’t feel Amsterdam is being taken over by tourists: I simply don’t feel that I am in Amsterdam at all.” I am sure that many Guardian Weekly readers can sympathise with Joost de Vries (17 August). But perhaps this helps us to understand the feelings of those we label the far-right: that their cities and their countries are being taken over – not by tourists – but, worse, by immigrants who are not going to go away. It is this very sense that we are not living in the same town as we used to that lies behind the vote for Brexit and the new regimes in Italy and Hungary, and the hardening of attitudes towards outsiders in even liberal, tolerant Denmark.
So much of what De Vries says about the way in which mass tourism is destroying our social fabric is true also of immigration. If we need to take steps to stem this tidal wave of tourism, we also need to reflect on mass migration.
Martin Down
Witney, UK
Sharing the joy of books
I can’t remember precisely when I’ve read such an upbeat, cheerful editorial as The joy of books (10 August) and the “guiltless pleasures” thereby rewarded to summer readers “gorging and feasting with abandon” on books – not ebooks – but real tangible hardcover and paperback books with “words on a page”. Nary once in your editorial did you even hint about the possibility of taking an ebook with you to the beach, even to shield your eyes. In fact you repeat the beautiful but perhaps rapidly-becoming-anachronistic word “book” or “books” eight times, and throw in “heavy classic” and “volume” for good measure.
In a day when I’m seeing huge recycling bins full of unwanted books at libraries and charity shops, my heart beats faster when I hear of the “pure pleasure” that can still be derived from these discarded but still tactile, readable treasures left to us by once well-known authors now apparently, and sadly, forgotten.
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
ET won’t be calling
Jim Al-Khalili’s piece explains: “we still do not properly understand how life originated here on Earth” (8 July). Among the so-called Goldilocks factors that made life possible may be that the Earth is tilted on its axis, which causes the seasons; that it has a moon that causes the tides; that it was formed from the debris of an exploded sun in a process that determined its composition (32% iron, 30% oxygen, 15% silicon etc); that the same debris hits Earth as meteorites; that our solar system has a giant planet (Jupiter) at its edge that protects Earth from most of that debris; that Earth’s molten core gives it a magnetosphere that protects it from the sun’s radiation.
We can only speculate about what these Goldilocks factors are, but if there are 80 (for illustration), and each had to be present for life to occur, then the chances are equivalent to tossing heads 80 times in a row.
ET won’t be calling.
James Phelan
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Briefly
• The revelation in Bollygarchs (27 July) that “India’s top 10% of earners take 55% of all natural income” makes India a disgrace to the Commonwealth. The only way to rectify this gross injustice is for the Indian government to make the top 10% of its income earners pay 55% of taxes.
Chris Ryecart
Weinberg, Austria
• In his Canada diary (3 August), Greg Mercer refers to Ontario as Canada’s largest province. Has he never heard of Quebec, which covers almost 50% more territory?
Barry Munn
Nanoose Bay, British Columbia, Canada
Send letters to weekly.letters@theguardian.com. Please include a full postal address and a reference to the article. We may edit letters. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions.
