To the Editor:
Re “The Overlooked Truths About Biden’s Age,” by Frank Bruni (Opinion, March 30):
Mr. Bruni was absolutely right to point out that the presidency is not a one-person job. When we go to the polls in November we are electing a general manager/captain/coach. His job is then to get the team assembled and come up with a plan. That is what our executive branch is about.
The president needs the right people under him and around him. Joe Biden put together a great cabinet and other advisers quite quickly three and a half years ago. Seven and a half years ago, Donald Trump put together a band of conniving circus performers.
The country needs a team that will offer support as well as alternatives and criticism to the president and will keep us all safe “from sea to shining sea.” Let’s not focus on the speed of Mr. Biden’s gait or the loudness of his voice. We need to keep our sights set on his sanity and on his mental abilities, which are still functioning quite well.
Janis Delson
New York
To the Editor:
Like President Biden, I turn 82 this fall. As I imagine is true for us both, the stairs have gotten steeper, the newsprint smaller, sleep more interrupted. And, yes, we sometimes experience brief memory freezes as the memory bubbles surface more slowly through our brain’s molasses. As fellow old men, we understand the difference between forgetting a name and dementia.
Yet my profession — psychological science — documents that we octogenarians retain or grow three important strengths, which, to affirm Frank Bruni, “get too little consideration”:
Crystallized intelligence. Our knowledge and the ability to apply it crest later in life. Thus many historians, philosophers and artists produce their most noteworthy work in late career.
Wisdom. With maturity, people can better take multiple perspectives, offer sagacity amid conflicts and appreciate their fallibility. The wisdom to know when we know a thing and when we do not is born of experience.
Emotional stability. As the years go by, our feelings mellow. With age, we find ourselves less often excited, but also less often depressed. Compliments produce less elation; criticisms, less despair.
So, yes, the president will sometimes misspeak or forget. But he will also benefit from the maturity that enables his navigating the “battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses” (his words).
David G. Myers
Holland, Mich.
The writer, a Hope College social psychologist, is the author of “How Do We Know Ourselves: Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind.”
To the Editor:
Our Constitution mandates that a president must be at least 35 years old. Given the advanced ages of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, coupled with rampant dissatisfaction on all sides of the political spectrum, this may be the ideal moment to amend the Constitution.
If we require a minimum age, why not a maximum age limit, perhaps 75? Like many older voters, I value the contributions of our generation, but it’s time to pass the torch.
Judith Bishop
New York
To the Editor:
Frank Bruni has it about right in citing Joe Biden’s positive presidential attributes and the importance of the team around him in defending him against attacks based on his age. But the best summation I’ve heard thus far came from an independent voter interviewed after voting in a primary, who said, “I’d rather vote for a guy who has 81 years behind him than a guy who has 91 felony charges ahead of him” (recently reduced to 88).
David Rubin
Canton, Mass.
Investing in Ukraine
To the Editor:
Re “Speaker Floats Possible Terms for Aid to Kyiv” (front page, April 2):
The U.S. Congress has to understand that support for Ukraine is an investment in the freedom and independence of a sovereign nation that was invaded by Russia.
Investing now in victory for Ukraine will avoid the need to spend billions to counter aggression by the autocratic regimes in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which will see weakness and take steps to exploit it.
Ed Houlihan
Ridgewood, N.J.
A Worthy Betrayal by García Márquez’s Sons
To the Editor:
Re “Gabriel García Márquez Wanted His Last Novel to Be Destroyed,” by Álvaro Santana-Acuña (Opinion guest essay, March 17):
At first, I was quick to condemn the sons of Gabriel García Márquez, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. García Márquez died 10 years ago, and against his wishes, Rodrigo and Gonzalo have now published “Until August.” For shame! Such greed!
Yet I was swayed by Mr. Santana-Acuña’s excellent guest essay. He argues that “Until August” is the “unpolished work of an aging master” and “should be read as such.” He reminds us that Franz Kafka ordered his friend Max Brod to burn his unfinished works — but Brod did not: “This betrayal changed the history of literature and the life of a young man who, after reading ‘The Metamorphosis,’ decided to become a writer.”
Indeed, as García Márquez told The Paris Review, when he read that Gregor Samsa awoke as a gigantic insect, “I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago.’”
I recently borrowed “Until August” from the library. In the preface, Rodrigo and Gonzalo question whether “the fading faculties” that kept their father “from finishing the book also kept him from realizing how good it was. In an act of betrayal, we decided to put his readers’ pleasure ahead of all other considerations. If they are delighted, it’s possible Gabo might forgive us. In that we trust.”
I for one was delighted to hear the great writer’s voice again.
Carol Weston
Armonk, N.Y.
Our Gun Culture and Mass Shootings
To the Editor:
Re “Toxic Gun Culture Begins at Home,” by Elizabeth Spiers (Opinion guest essay, March 28):
Ms. Spiers writes about “how the Crumbleys’ attitudes and actions reflect an increasingly insidious gun culture that treats guns as instruments of defiance and rebellion rather than as a means of last resort.”
She was referring to Ethan Crumbley, who shot and killed four students and wounded seven others at Oxford High School in Michigan in 2021, and to his parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, who were convicted separately of involuntary manslaughter in the massacre by their son, then 15 years old. The Crumbleys were the first parents in the United States to be directly charged for the deaths caused by a child in a mass shooting at a school.
As the father of two children who survived the Oxford High School shooting, I have reflected very often on this tragedy over the last two years and believe that Ms. Spiers’s essay strikes at the heart of a difficult truth about our nation’s relationship with guns.
It is obvious that the Crumbleys could have taken simple steps to prevent this tragedy. It is true that legislation matters and will make a difference. However, the hard reality is that until we come to terms with these deeply rooted aspects of gun culture in the suburbs and exurbs, where many of these mass shootings occur, we will regrettably experience more of these tragedies.
George Stoffan
Oxford, Mich.