Letters, April 8

Tipping point

Re: Trump warns ‘A whole civilization will die tonight’ if a deal with Iran isn’t reached (April 7)

Chilling words indeed. That’s U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to Iran. A number of scenarios become apparent because of this threat: Trump will back down and extend his threat, as usual.

Or, Trump will order his military generals to carry out his orders and follow through with his threat. What happens if Trump’s generals disobey his command, refuse to murder innocent Iranian civilians and refuse to commit “war crimes”? Does Trump fire these generals and get other generals to do his bidding?

Does the U.S. military finally overthrow Trump’s government, take charge and restore some sort of normalcy again to the U.S.? All forms of media did not dare toss this last scenario out there. Let’s see what happens.

R. Moskal

Winnipeg

Bracing ourselves

Many of us have been feeling agitated and unsettled, particularly in the wake of headlines like reports of an expletive‑filled threat against Iran. I hope you won’t mind if I share a way of understanding what’s happening that I’ve found clarifying rather than inflaming.

What’s disturbing isn’t just a person or a set of actions. It’s something structural. We’re watching power that was borrowed — from institutions, norms and shared trust — being held in a way that resists release or accountability. When borrowed power isn’t oriented beyond the self, the whole system begins to strain. People feel that strain even when they can’t quite name it.

Naming the structure helps explain why so many of us feel unsettled even when we disagree about details.

That’s why the question “has he no sense of shame?” keeps surfacing. It isn’t really about the absence of feeling. It’s about shame no longer functioning as guidance. When someone defers primarily to self‑preservation or dominance, shame is experienced as threat rather than information. Criticism isn’t received as something to consider, but as something to neutralize. The result is escalation rather than correction.

Honour and shame are paired signals. Honour isn’t acclaim or winning; it’s the capacity to remain aligned with virtue under scrutiny. Shame, when it works properly, points us toward realignment when our orientation drifts from virtue toward self‑centred excess. When that pairing breaks down, everything feels unstable — and our agitation is a reasonable response to that instability.

What helps me is remembering that encouraging, enriching and empowering everyone — including ourselves — is how virtue is sustained when conditions are hostile. I am not excusing anything. This just gives me some bracing: a way to see what is happening without being pulled into the same misalignment and chaos. I lean heavily on clarity, fidelity and reflection to dampen outrage and stay focused and grounded. This way of orienting myself also helps me stay connected to others, because understanding what’s shaping the behaviour we’re observing keeps me calmer and more able to articulate the pattern.

I offer this not as an answer, but as a salve — a way to remain oriented together during difficult times.

Anne Thompson

Winnipeg

History of a ‘freezing island’

Re: Reports of flight stuck on ‘freezing island’ amuse Newfoundlanders (April 7)

How soon people forget! That “freezing island” played important roles in the defence of Britain and defeat of Hitler during the Second World War. Newfoundland being a Dominion within the Commonwealth, Newfoundlanders by the thousands enlisted immediately and joined Canadian and British forces, ultimately to serve mainly in southern Europe and North Africa.

Being closest to Britain, Newfoundland was also a critical refuelling point to fly thousands of planes to the U.K., avoiding them being sent by ship, a much riskier trip given German U-boats in the North Atlantic. Such aircraft and their young pilots were fundamental to winning the Battle of Britain and the ultimate defeat of the Nazis.

Newfoundland also provided sea support to about 25,000 convoys transporting sorely needed supplies to Britain and staffed by at-risk merchant marines recognized much later as military personnel. Moreover, anti-submarine planes from Newfoundland protected the convoys as far as they could.

Although lots of fun, reference to the “freezing island” can also serve to remind us of our history, all-too-often forgotten both here and seemingly abroad, including the importance of alliances like the Commonwealth and later NATO, and the critical role of Newfoundland in a horrific war not yet even a century old.

Jim Clark

Winnipeg

Portents in the CLOUD Act

How many of you have heard about the CLOUD (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act? I’d never heard about it before but there are rumblings that European municipalities and governments are getting away from American software and cloud storage products. The CLOUD Act, enacted in 2018, is a U.S. law that allows law enforcement in the U.S. to access electronic data from U.S. based providers (such as Microsoft, Cisco, Nvidia, Google, Adobe, Oracle, IBM and Amazon), regardless of where the data are stored. That means if the French or any other country for that matter are using Microsoft Office Suites and Microsoft Cloud data services for example, their data can be accessed by the Americans. That means that any citizen on the planet can have their personal data compromised.

Although this law is meant for law enforcement, it would be prudent to accept it would be used in a clandestine fashion against other governments. It could also be used to get information out of foreign manufacturers, i.e. Airbus, MBDA (weapons manufacturer) in France, Saab AB (Gripen manufacturer) and other non-military industrial complexes that would help the U.S. get the advantage in weapons, intelligence and industrial applications.

European municipalities and governments are switching from Microsoft Office to Euro-Office suite which can handle all documents that were created with Microsoft. As well, they are passing laws to make sure secure servers and data centres are European only and not accessible by the Americans. For operating systems, many are going to Linux.

It should also be noted when using Microsoft 365 for example, Microsoft embeds its data storage with the product you are using. The same goes with emails.

It would be wise to investigate origins of a cloud server before storing data to such.

How about it, provincial governments and the federal government? What are you doing about it? It’s time we stop eating from the American chuckwagon and look after our data security.

Gerald Trudeau

Winnipeg

Kudos to the book section

I have, at times, skipped the books pages of the Free Press for lack of time. Since there was no Monday paper on the Easter long weekend, I had time to read it and would just like to acknowledge how much I enjoyed it.

Yan Martel’s book is a “must read” of course, but the other reviewed books are also calling out to me!

Heidi Steven’s article on how reading changes our brain structure resonated with me as well. I have been a reader and a daydreamer all my life, and my mother often told me to get my nose out of my book, which gave me a guilt complex but didn’t stop me.

When I became a university student I told my mother that I now got paid for reading books and suddenly it was OK to read!

Elfrieda Neufeld Schroeder

Winnipeg