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Readers write: Understanding thinking in Taiwan, both sides of the issue, women pursuing professions

Letters to the editor for the June 18, 2018 weekly magazine.

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Andy Wong/AP
Lightning strikes a skyscraper in Central Business District during a rainstorm in Beijing on Sept. 7, 2016.
  • By Edyth Roberts Monitor reader
  • Brad Waterman Monitor reader
  • Robin Kadz Monitor reader

Understanding thinking in Taiwan

The April 16 Focus story, “Beijing’s bid to win over young Taiwanese,” gave a very comprehensive account of what is going on in Taiwan, providing the background needed to best understand the thinking of its people.

Edyth Roberts

San Francisco

Both sides of the issue

Regarding the March 22 Monitor Daily article “For these gun owners, a core belief: Guns make us safer”: I think that it is exceptional that you are looking at the other side of the issue with an open mind. 

I live in a rural area where it would take the police well over half an hour to get to certain parts of the county. 

Many residents feel they absolutely need guns for protection – protection from wild animals in addition to lawless people. Quite often you hear of people shooting cougars or bears (occasionally even grizzlies) to protect themselves or their livestock or pets.

Brad Waterman

Newport, Wash.

Women pursuing professions

Thank you for the insightful March 26 Monitor Daily article “For women in science, busting barriers is just part of the job,” about the recognition of women’s credibility in the field of science. As a former real estate agent with a parent, a daughter, and friends who are or were teachers, I find it curious that women have been consistently sought after and revered in these two very valuable and challenging fields in which judgment, knowledge, and people smarts are constantly at play. 

It might be interesting to pursue the question of why this is true. Why has it taken so long for women to be valued in some fields while they were always valued in others?

Robin Kadz

Laguna Hills, Calif.

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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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