Letters to the Editor | Week of June 3-8, 2024

Big boy projects

Promoters pitched “the Statue of Responsibility” to Utah lawmakers recently. The statue would rival the Statue of Liberty at 305 feet tall and would cost $350 million to build.

The project reminds me of a proposal to build the “World’s Tallest Flagpole” in the little town of Columbia Falls, Maine.

For a Bible geek like me, these two proposed projects recall ancient Babylon, where wealthy folks got together to build a skyscraper with a similar patriotic intent and economic motivation.

Small states tend to get lost in the shuffle of big American states doing large things almost every day. That is why Utah was so thrilled to land the 2002 Winter Olympics. That is why we want an NHL team and a Major League baseball team. Utah wants to belong.

Our ardent desire to become a big boy state may even play a tiny role in why the Latter Day Saints church builds so many temples here, there and everywhere.

The Tower of Babel was intended to make the local culture visible, unified and strong, but it yielded the opposite result. Babel lost its language, and became weak, disunified and scattered.

What if Utah’s proposed project doesn’t produce the “responsibility” it sets out to inspire? The 2002 Olympics yielded some $5 billion-$6 billion in local economic benefit, but Utah is now rife with economic greed, divisive politics and social disintegration.

Kimball Shinkoskey

Woods Cross, Utah

No water for pools

There are three public swimming pools under repair so they can open soon. These pools along with other public and private pools need to be filled with water in order to be used. So where does the water come from since we’re under drought conditions and water may be rationed? I’m puzzled.

Caroline Steele

Harlingen

Navarrette draws praise

I find Ruben Navarrette’s opinions on the Opinion page very enlightening.

He has a way of explaining a problem by looking at it in different directions and not just one. At the end of any of his articles I find myself more educated on the subject at hand.

His approach to the college campus protests notes that some people think schools were too firm on students, and others believe they were not firm enough. There are those who feel that university presidents were too quick to call for police assistance to control the unruly crowd.

Some people feel that what we are witnessing is nothing more than young college kids exercising their freedom of speech. There are those who feel that young college students are being manipulated by professional agitators. And everyone is right in feeling that way. There is no wrong answer here.

We need to define the difference between a non-violent protest and a violent anarchy. It seems that we just witnessed a merging of these two on our college campuses today where it became one violent mass of people well organized by “the Shadow” who’s presence remains a mystery; we hear allegations with no solid evidence. There is a there, there, that we need to look at to get to the root of the problem.

Responsibility and accountability need to balance for a society to be successful. No nation can afford to live in a chaotic society.

Rafael Madrigal

Pharr

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