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Re “Biden and the Messiness of Being Human,” by Patti Davis (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 30):
In America, we still often refuse to acknowledge that aging and death are inevitable. As long as we continue to insist that we are “just fine,” and of course we will have good days and bad days, we do ourselves an enormous disservice because we don’t plan for what happens as our capabilities diminish, not to mention what happens after we’re dead.
In the case of President Biden, this denial has put our entire country, and by extension the world, in jeopardy. I have a hard time feeling compassion for Mr. Biden and his “handlers” under these circumstances, and I’m trained in the art of gentleness and compassion.
While I personally wish Mr. Biden all the best, I am mad at him, too. He has done our country an enormous disservice.
Mitzi SchwarzLos AngelesThe writer is a hospice chaplain and a cantor.
To the Editor:
Patti Davis’s essay about President Biden was so sensitive and so beautifully written that I felt tears welling up within me as I read it. I am a Biden admirer, but have been churned up by his denial of the realities of his situation — and even more so by the apparent blindness of his family relative to what seems to me a clearly accelerating decline in his mental acuity and his physical stamina. Patti’s words make me more empathetic.
Suzanne FarnhamBaltimore
To the Editor:
I don’t blame President Biden. He’s behaving normally for someone declining as he ages. I blame journalists for not investigating the rumors, which were well known, about his decline.
The media chose to cover these rumors as G.O.P. smears and/or excuse him as just a kindly older gentleman who has minor memory lapses. This portrayal effectively hid his decline from Americans, who relied on the media to inform them honestly.
Among national universities, Princeton was ranked No. 1 again, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. Stanford, which tied for third last year, fell to No. 4. U.S. News again judged Williams College the best among national liberal arts colleges. Spelman College was declared the country’s top historically Black institution.
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