Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Here.

Winter has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere.

Once again the Herald, which endorsed Hillary Clinton, has shown its disdain for our president-elect by continuing to publish articles that are critical of just about every aspect of Donald Trump’s planned administration. Would the Herald have done likewise if Clinton had won? Did it they follow these same policies when Barack Obama was elected?

Isn’t it about time that the Herald acknowledged that millions of Americans were tired of the same failed policies, domestically and internationally, that have jeopardized the security and well-being of this country and gave President-elect Trump a chance? Anything less will only continue to foster a climate of unfounded hysteria and discord at a time when this country must become united.

CHARLES MILLER,

DAVIE

Note from KBJ: The only mystery is why Charles Miller continues to read the Miami Herald. Then again, there is masochism.

I'm baffled by this short essay in Nature magazine.

• First, what is a journal of natural science doing publishing an essay on nationalism?
• Second, how could someone be "baffled" by nationalism? It's many centuries old. One could say that it's the norm for humans. What's baffling is cosmopolitanism.
• Third, the author conflates nationalism and populism, which is embarrassing.
• Fourth, what does authoritarianism have to do with nationalism? Americans are nationalistic, but they aren't the least bit authoritarian. For what it's worth, almost all authoritarians in the 20th Century were leftists.
• Fifth, what does the author mean by "protectionist" and "xenophobic"? Must one be averse to (or afraid of) foreigners in order to want to control who comes into the country? Are women who allow only certain men to have sex with them androphobic?
• Sixth, the author uses the dishonest expression "some have suggested" to say or imply that Americans—or rather, those Americans who voted for Donald Trump—are racist. Who, specifically? Let me give you some advice: When an author writes "some have suggested," he or she is expressing his or her own beliefs, without seeming to do so. It's a way to displace responsibility.
• Finally, what in the world is meant by the final paragraph? Scientists, as such, have no evaluative expertise, so why are they trying to "save liberal democracy"? Get back to studying nature, you arrogant creeps.

This short essay shows precisely why respect for science and scientists is plummeting. Many scientists have entered the political arena, thereby abandoning any authority they once had by virtue of their training and expertise. It's Keith's Law.

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Generation 13 (1995).

To the Editor:

After Monday’s attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said, “I know that it would be particularly difficult for all of us to bear if it is confirmed that this deed was carried out by a person who sought protection and asylum in Germany.”

Mostly, I think, it would be particularly difficult for Ms. Merkel, whose decision to accept vast numbers of refugees from a troubled region increased Germany’s vulnerability to this kind of incident.

A wiser choice would have been to fund properly the refugee camps in countries near Syria, thus avoiding both the issue of economic migrants masquerading as refugees and the unwitting importation of the terrorism that currently afflicts the Islamic world.

Call it humanity with a brain.

JOSHUA P. HILL

New London, Conn.

Note from KBJ: Germans allowed rattlesnakes into their house and now act surprised when the snakes bite them. Pardon me if I experience schadenfreude.

I saw this movie 30 years ago today, in Tucson.

Here.