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Readers write: Bernie Sanders feature, new design, a veteran’s preference, ‘Home Forum’ appreciation

See what our readers have to say about our Bernie Sanders cover story and more.

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Donna Light/AP/File
Readers respond to our June 3 cover story, “The Making of Bernie Sanders.”
  • By Monitor readers

Bernie Sanders feature

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the June 3 Weekly cover story, “Roots of Bernie’s revolution,” by Christa Case Bryant. It was so well written and informative. 

I like the way Bernie Sanders voices his views, but the feature article gave him a persona I did not know: taking time en route to an event to cross frozen water and chat with ice fishermen, for example. 

Almost everyone in the state of Vermont “has a Sanders story.” This article detailed his early years in office and showed his administrative, practical, and even tough side.

Ann Carter
Connecticut

New design

The new Monitor Weekly design is much easier to read than its predecessor. The “Points of Progress,” with its new white background, has been made much clearer. I appreciate that change! 

But I miss the large map on the “Points of Progress” page so much because I’m a retiree who needs to have my geography skills sharpened. I hope you bring this back once in a while.

I feel very close to your publication and value it so much.

Jayme Fantl
Chicago

A veteran’s preference

The May 23 Daily article “What veterans want in a commander in chief” is rich with thoughtful insights. As one who served for 20 years (1959-1979), well before the 9/11-era veterans interviewed in the article, I would like to add my must-have qualities for a commander in chief. The article mentioned humility, integrity, and compassion. I absolutely agree.

I also submit these as requisite qualities: honor, intelligence, bravery, charity, fidelity, loyalty, and patriotism. My view is that these qualities are gained or proved in countless professions and forms of service to others – not just in military service.

David K. McClurkin
Beachwood, Ohio

‘Home Forum’ appreciation

Thanks to Murr Brewster for the hysterical essay “In which I discover that coleslaw is not so simple” in the May 27 Monitor Weekly. Considering adding ice cream was the cream on the cake (or the coleslaw). I am having such a giggle. 

Shirley Sacks
Beverly Hills, California

“I was 3 for 10” from the April 22 & 29 issue was a fine and fun essay. Chuck Wilcoxen gets a rave review. He should write more!

Donna Hunsberger
Fitchburg, Massachusetts

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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