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Readers write: Examination of US democracy, Nigerian zoo, Fourth of July coverage

Letters to the editor for the Sept. 24, 2018 weekly magazine.

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J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The Capitol is seen from the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 20, 2018.
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  • By Denis Bujold Monitor reader
  • Juan L. Ugarte Monitor reader
  • Carolyn Roth Monitor reader
  • Margo Wright Monitor reader

 

 

Examination of US democracy

I’m French-Canadian and in an effort to better understand US politics, I always look up The Christian Science Monitor for quality information. The July 27 Monitor Daily article “A system under stress: Is US democracy showing real cracks?” is by far what I’ve found most enlightening on that matter.

Denis Bujold
Montreal

The July 27 Monitor Daily article “A system under stress: Is US democracy showing real cracks?” is a very well-written and thought-provoking article. Keep them coming. We need more intelligent discourse and less dramatic arguments.

Juan L. Ugarte

Pasadena, Calif.

Thank you for this very clear explanation of the problems with our system of government in the United States today. I wish everyone in the country could read it. I also would like to hear more about possible ways to fix it.

Carolyn Roth

Solvang, Calif.

Nigerian zoo; Fourth of July coverage 

Thank you for the July 17 Monitor Daily article “In Nigeria, a zoo that’s a refuge for people, not just animals.” I always gain much from the Monitor Daily. I really enjoy it. The diversity of subjects is informative and interesting. Thank you so much for your excellent, ethical, journalism-as-it-should-be offerings. 

As a side note, the Independence Day coverage was terrific. I shared the special Daily article “What the Fourth represents,” by Martin Kuz, with co-workers – it was a great article. And in the July 3 Daily, the photo by Melanie Stetson Freeman of the new Americans taking their oath is very moving, especially the man from India. I have it up in my office and linger over it daily. It should be required viewing by every American who whines about this country.

Margo Wright

Oklahoma City

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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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