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

Donald Trump's approval rating is 49%. Barack Obama's approval rating at the same point of his presidency (12 October 2012) was 50%.

A former student who graduated in 1975, and had seen Leni Riefenstahl’s terrifying 1935 propaganda documentary “Triumph of the Will” in my class, wrote to thank me after seeing Donald Trump descend in his helicopter to the White House lawn on Monday. The student’s flashback to Riefenstahl’s opening scene of Hitler’s descent by airplane into Nurenberg for the Nazi Party Congress suddenly had additional meaning for him. Learning never stops.

Sol Gittleman

Lexington

The writer is a professor emeritus at Tufts University.

Note from KBJ: How does it feel to be an imbecile, Sol?

Republicans must state loudly and clearly that WE are going to provide much better Healthcare at a much lower cost. Get the word out! Will always protect pre-existing conditions!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2020

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So, Donald Trump the millionaire paid only $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017, and nothing at all for years before that. Yet all the while, hardworking middle-class Americans paid far more than that every quarter.

Clearly Mr. Trump is not only a terrible businessman, but now we have proof that he also cheats the U.S. government out of millions of dollars by dodging his taxes. The richest people need to pay their fair share, not get richer on the backs of the rest of us. Time to tell Mr. Trump that he’s fired.

SARAH GAFFEN

Mt. Lebanon

Note from KBJ: Is he supposed to pay more than he owes, Sarah? Do you pay more than you owe? Stop being an idiot.

Biden evades “Court Packing” question. @FoxNews Because his puppet masters are willing to destroy the U.S. Supreme Court. Don’t let this, and so many other really bad things, happen. VOTE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2020

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Yesterday evening, Katherine, 13-year-old Lukas, and I watched Stand and Deliver (1988), which I own on DVD. I saw this movie many years ago and enjoyed it very much. It stars Edward James Olmos (who played Lieutenant Martin Castillo in Miami Vice) as a math teacher in East Los Angeles who refuses to accept mediocrity from his students. He whips them into shape the way a drill instructor whips raw recruits into shape in boot camp. It's inspiring.

I was continually shocked by the familiarity shown by the teacher toward his students. He made references to their appearance and relationships; he went to their homes; he welcomed some of them into his own home; and he even touched some of them. (He hugged a disconsolate female student, for example.) Nobody would dare do such things these days, for fear of being sued or fired. It shows the changes that have taken place in education in the past three decades.

Here is a trailer.