To the editor:

World War II was ending as round-the-clock bombing continued the obliteration of German cities. The relentless rock of Russian armies was pushing in from the east against the hard place of Allied tanks that had forced their way across the Rhine. In stifled silence Nazi elites held bizarre bacchanals, while deep in his bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery, Hitler moved imaginary armies on maps and fantasized that super weapons would miraculously flip an outcome that long before had become too obvious. They could not lie their way out of this one, nor distract with their usual bluster and bombast. Those who were able would flee through subterranean channels landing elsewhere in the world as best they could.

Facts are facts. Stopping testing will not quell the spread of the virus. The economy won’t recover until people feel safe going back to work and school. Photographs show the size of the 2017 inauguration crowd. We see a president not welcome at funerals of a national hero, John McCain, and a cultural saint, John Lewis, making no effort to attend either. It may take a while after the jumper jumps before he hits the ground, but both science and the empirical experience of lived life teach that on earth no miracle ever interrupts gravity’s inevitable pull. We who are staying take no joy in the tragedy, much less the spectacle, but are nonetheless anxious to get on with the task of cleaning up the mess.

William Skepnek,

Lawrence