Every week, The Post runs a collection of letters of readers’ grievances — pointing out grammatical mistakes, missing coverage and inconsistencies. These letters tell us what we did wrong and, occasionally, offer praise. Here, we present this week’s Free for All letters.
Weed workarounds
The April 5 Metro article on the D.C. bill to fine “pot-gifting” businesses, “District may target businesses ‘gifting’ pot,” failed to mention what makes marijuana gifting popular as well as important because the businesses involved are mostly Black-owned: the ridiculous hurdles of making purchases from D.C.’s medical marijuana dispensaries.
Most cumbersome are the temporarily waived fee of $100 and the time required, first for an initial visit to fill out forms and pay fees, followed by several weeks or longer before receiving a marijuana card, and then a second visit to obtain products, with possible wait times of an hour or more for each visit.
On trips to Colorado and California, I have purchased low-dose THC lozenges by simply walking into a dispensary and showing my D.C. driver’s license. We all win: The dispensaries make money, the states collect taxes, and I sleep better on those nights when I add a little THC to my melatonin — inspired by a California friend whose physician prescribes her a melatonin-THC combination for sleep. (Federal law prohibits mailing these or bringing them home on airplanes.)
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson’s (D) support for this bill, which would impose a $30,000 fine for offenders, looked suspiciously like another White lawmaker discriminating against Black entrepreneurs.
Mary Carpenter, Washington
Though the March 26 Metro article “Motivation and a bit of weed” was accurate in terms of how some individuals chose to exploit D.C.’s Initiative 71, an article looking to fully inform readers about D.C.’s recreational marijuana industry would have also profiled any of the number of legitimate business operators in this space — businesses with retail business licenses that pay D.C. and federal taxes. Spotlighting a “business” that sells motivational speeches as representative of all Initiative 71 businesses was irresponsible. Many I-71 business owners in D.C. would have been more than happy to have had the opportunity to have been included.
Laura Simmons, Washington
Humanize all migrants
Those seeking asylum are human beings, something apparently forgotten in the April 2 editorial “The coming chaos at the border.” In using words such as “surge” and “tsunami” to describe Black and Brown migrants seeking refuge in the United States, the editorial was reckless and irresponsible.
Title 42 has been an unnecessary, evil policy using the guise of public health to deny people’s right to asylum. More than 1 million people, many of them Black immigrants, have been denied their legal and moral right to make an asylum claim and expelled to face persecution, climate disasters, lack of access to clean water and food, and sometimes even death.
People will always move. As a country, we have a responsibility to live up to our values of welcoming everyone seeking asylum with dignity and humanity. Though some Ukrainians have been able to experience this reality, those fleeing life-threatening disasters from Black and Brown countries have instead been met with racism, xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Words are powerful, and the words used in the editorial further dehumanized Black and Brown people seeking asylum.
José Alonso Muñoz, Washington
The writer is deputy communications director of United We Dream.
In defense of ‘Doonesbury’
I was surprised by the April 2 Free for All letter “ ‘Doonesbury’s’ time should be over” calling the “Doonesbury” comic strip too dated to be worth retaining. I don’t read all The Post’s comics, but I never miss “Doonesbury.” As a satire, it hits targets that stay perennial: corrupt corporations, kleptocratic dictators, narcissistic media hounds, hapless deans and even former president Donald Trump, about whom Garry Trudeau showed himself truly prescient. As a very long-running novel of manners, it follows the lives and loves of the Walden College crowd with a clear-eyed but affectionate bemusement.
I can think of a dozen of The Post’s strips — newly hatched, not reruns — that are less fresh and relevant than “Doonesbury.” Please keep “Doonesbury” coming.
Peg Hausman, Vienna
To grasp covid, cover chronic fatigue
Each day, I scan the headlines and read with great interest about those dealing with long covid. Though I am thrilled that the medical community is starting to wake up to the value of tracking patients with long covid, let’s not forget about the thousands like me already out there with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). We also are a great source of information and should be valued.
As a collective, we were given a terrible label: chronic fatigue. A name that leads to more judgment — we’re just lazy — rather than any empathy. As we move forward to try to uncover the root cause of the shared conditions, I ask that reporters keep CFS in the headlines. The March 28 front-page article “Brain changes after covid, chemo could be similar” at least included CFS.
Caroline Niederman, Portland, Maine
Events returned. So should the covid chart.
I am disappointed that The Post discontinued its daily chart showing the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases, deaths and vaccinations. The April 7 Style article “Outbreak of covid follows the Gridiron,” about an outbreak of coronavirus infections after the annual Gridiron Club dinner, at which a large crowd of unmasked people stayed close together for hours without socially distancing themselves, tells everyone that it is still unsafe to stay together for long periods of time in theaters, concerts and other large gatherings.
I looked at that chart every day to determine whether it was safe to go outside unmasked: It is not yet. That chart was a great public service. Please, bring back the chart so that people may follow the numbers.
Joseph Scafetta Jr., Falls Church
The harm in burying the lede
The emphasis in the April 1 front-page article “Pregnant at higher covid risk among vaccinated” exemplified weaknesses of science reporting in the public media. As written, it contributed to public confusion about vaccination. Some might misinterpret the reported “findings” as a reason not to vaccinate, a disastrous choice for pregnant women.
The truth was buried on Page A16, more than 20 paragraphs deep into the article: The study’s methodology does not allow conclusions that pregnant women are more at risk of breakthrough infections. The study “asks this question but doesn’t answer it.”
Long before the writers get there, readers with short attention spans, appetites for clickbait or a hankering for anti-vaccine malfeasance will have stopped after the first three paragraphs on the front page. There, paragraph 2 includes the words “the analysis . . . found that pregnant people who are vaccinated have the greatest risk of developing covid.” Paragraph 3 follows up with a reference to unrelated research that pregnant and postpartum women are more prone to serious illness and complications from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but doesn’t mention that this finding was for unvaccinated women.
Science reporters need to be aware that their reports can be misinterpreted, sometimes willfully, with potentially serious consequences. Please avoid sensationalizing science studies and seek to dispel clouds of ignorance, not deepen them.
Alan Brody, Alexandria
The Grammys’ local angle
The last time I checked, this paper was still called The Washington Post. How could it be then that The Post failed to mention that a local group just won a Grammy for best reggae album?
Arlington’s own SOJA brought home that honor but was not covered with an article, as the band should have been. Only on a long electronic list was the band listed. The print edition list didn’t even do the band the courtesy. Come on Post, do the journalistic work and cover our local award winners, whoever they may be!
Jack Koczela, Washington
The beauty in talking about weather
Veteran reporter Martin Weil is to be commended for applying his literary gifts to a subject that can be regarded as mundane: the day-to-day weather. Writing in the April 4 Metro article “First weekend in April winds down with wind” he described the previous day’s winds this way:
“Pedestrians ambling along with that breeze at their backs could feel buoyant and lighthearted. They might have congratulated themselves on their ease of locomotion. Heading into the teeth of the wind told another story. The wind blew forcefully enough to impede progress, and at moments, even to challenge equilibrium.”
How refreshing it is to find Weil’s poetic prose as counterpoint to Metro section articles about political strife and untimely deaths.
Maurice Fliess, Reston
No missing explanation
In his April 3 op-ed, “For the Thomases, a kerfuffle over appearances,” George F. Will wrote that the Supreme Court “without written opinions, refused 8 to 1” to block release of Trump White House documents to the Jan. 6 committee. Actually, the court did issue a written one-page statement — and a 2½-page statement by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh — explaining the decision.
The custom of the court is not to label statements as “opinions” when disposing of an interlocutory matter, which this was (whether to block the delivery of the documents, pending review of the case). If, according to Mr. Will, one should presume that Justice Clarence Thomas had good “jurisprudential convictions” underlying his “lonely dissent,” one wonders why he did not state them. Usually justices, including Thomas, are compelled to explain their dissents when they believe the majority explanation is jurisprudentially wrong.
Jerold D. Cummins, Arlington
Good luck, Baltimore
I was pleased to read in the April 7 Sports article “Washington, Baltimore eye joint World Cup bid” about a possible joint bid until I realized that if The Post treats matches played in Baltimore the way it treats the Orioles, we’ll be lucky to learn the scores.
Stephen Meskin, Columbia
Don’t neglect your local audience
I appreciated receiving the March 30 Green Homes section, but I must note that one article was about a home in Tallahassee, Fla., one was about a home in Colorado, another about homes in California and another about Phoenix. Though I recognize the paper’s national status, it would have been much more helpful to have had the section focus on green home solutions that are appropriate for those of us who reside here in the D.C. metropolitan area.
Andy Gefen, Bethesda
What was he wearing?
I just read the April 4 Sports article on the South Carolina-University of Connecticut women’s basketball final, “Top-seeded Gamecocks dominate the Huskies for second national title.” I’m glad to learn what South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley was wearing during the game. That added so much to the article. So, what was U-Conn Coach Geno Auriemma wearing?
Bob Dardano, Washington
What a yoke
While reading an otherwise enjoyable article about the National Arboretum’s pair of bald eagles, “National Arboretum’s bald eagles are about to land their first hatchlings” [Metro, March 26], I was brought up short by two basic words that were misspelled. Given the context of the article, I am assuming that the writer meant to say “yolk sac” rather than “yoke sac” and that the eagles “have learned to adapt” rather than “adopt” to urban life. Basic errors such as these are not what a reader would expect from an award-winning national newspaper.
Priscilla C. Marsh, Alexandria
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