Re: “How do we survive?” July 19 news story

Sunday’s front page article is like a headline from The Post in October 1929, a time when the rich lost control of their stock market. Assume, since private companies don’t report executive salaries, that Cargill’s CEO makes a modest $10 million to $50 million a year like many of today’s CEOs in publicly traded companies. And yet, the company isn’t willing to pay an hourly wage that exceeds the inflation rate. This means more workers can’t pay for healthcare, college, food, housing, energy and are being deprived of the “pursuit of happiness” cited in the Declaration of Independence – the people’s independence. No wonder terms like “democratic socialism” are fashionable, which is regulated capitalism as espoused by Adam Smith.

Steve Morrow, Denver

Re: “Don’t give Alex Marrero an early exit from DPS,” July 19 editorial.

I was disturbed by your editorial suggesting that the current Denver Public School board allow Alex Marrero to continue as superintendent until his contract expires in 2028. You correctly assert that Marrero wants out of Denver. His recent job applications to Chicago and Miami are proof of that.

In this case, two things cannot be true simultaneously: 1) clearly wanting out of a job, and 2) doing that job well when you haven’t done so previously. What the editorial does not address is that five of the current seven DPS board members never voted to hire him or to extend his contract. Thus, our current board now has one job to do with their one employee, Alex Marrero. Fire him.

While he has played the role of a superintendent to his own benefit, he has clearly demonstrated, in my view, that he has not done the actual job, as your insinuations about his extensive travel point out. And don’t get me started on the abysmal literacy and math proficiency rates among our students of color. Will it cost some money for DPS to remove Marrero now? Probably. Will it be worth it in the long run? Absolutely.

Jeffrey Wein, Denver

Re: “Remembering Pat Oliphant’s legacy in Denver,” July 19 guest commentary.

I think of Pat Oliphant and instantly recall one thing — and it’s not any of the cartoons he drew over the decades that included the Watergate era, when he skewered Richard Nixon with relish and precision every day. This was the early 1970s in the old Denver Post building at 15th and California streets where Pat drew from a corner-window perch on the second floor overlooking the Denver Dry Goods Co. I was a clerk in the mailroom and twice a day delivered mail around the building. Occasionally, I would sneak a glimpse of the man when dropping mail off to Isabelle Truscott, the editorial department secretary. It was the smell of his pipe smoke that I remember, immediately and every time I encounter his memory. Very pungent, not sweet or fruity — it was nose-wrinkling, initially icky and instantly recognizable. When his book of Watergate cartoons was published, I took it to him and asked for his autograph. He signed it with a flourish, the inkblot dot over the letter “i” in his name particularly bold.

RIP Pat Oliphant.

Julie Hutchinson, Denver

Re: “ICE signs contract on $529M prison,” July 14 news story

So, we are going to have another ICE detention center near Hudson, northeast of Denver. Why don’t we call these facilities by their real names, “concentration camps.” This is essentially what we have asked for by electing an anti-democratic and anti-American felon to the highest office in the land.

Robert Ward, Highlands Ranch

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