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Readers write: Global literature coverage, helpful piece about politics, esports phenomenon, Finnish solution

Letters to the editor for the June 11, 2018 weekly magazine.

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Clay Jackson/Herald & Review/AP
Eisenhower High School students play a video game in Decatur, Ill. on May 24, 2018. The school is starting a esport competitive gaming team.
  • By Ann Matthiesen Monitor reader
  • Devon Burr Monitor reader
  • Bob Whittlesey Monitor reader
  • Gail Rekers Monitor reader

Global literature coverage

Thank you for the March 20 CSMonitor.com review of the book “Fisherman’s Blues.” It is wonderful to see consideration of global literature that highlights rarely detailed cultures. We have a very dear Senegalese friend who now lives in the United States. I’ve purchased a copy of “Fisherman’s Blues” for her as well as for me. Please continue this expansive and non-US-centered look at literature!

Ann Matthiesen

Indianapolis

Helpful piece about politics

The March 23 Monitor Daily article “In Trump emoluments case, questions of ethics and constitutional intent” was a wonderfully helpful piece that covered a vitally important topic with balance, specificity, and clarity. Please do come back to this topic.

Devon Burr

Knoxville, Tenn.

Esports phenomenon

Wow! I had only an inkling of the phenomenon that was covered in the March 26 cover story, “A league of their own.” When an episode of the CBS TV series “Bull” featured esports in a story line this past season, I thought it was a reach. But with your incredibly detailed article, I now want to invest in this developing business, even though I’m in my mid-70s. Thanks.

Bob Whittlesey

Spokane, Wash.

Finnish solution

The April 23 & 30 Points of Progress piece, “In Finland, many fewer homeless,” was an excellent article. I would like to have seen a bit more on the money saved as well as the amounts of money spent on emergency room visits and other services compared with the cost of housing and support services for one year. However, the article is excellent.

Gail Rekers

Phoenix

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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