Readers Write (Jan. 22): Cancer, Obama's legacy, race relations, conflicts of interest

I have no argument against Ron Way's focus on prevention as an effective way to fight cancer ("Can we cure cancer? Or just keep up?"), but I wish the medical establishment paid more attention to the proven connection between emotions and physical ailments. I was expected to die of breast cancer in 1987. When I met my oncologist, I told him I got cancer as the result of stress. He dismissed it. The second time I got cancer, a few years later, he said, "The American Cancer Society now says psychological stress can cause physical problems."

I got cancer a third time in 1994, when a radiation oncologist estimated I had four more years to live. Without giving details, I attribute my recovery to my emotional/spiritual work, not to my mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation. If the relationship between the emotions and bodily health exists, and scientists no longer deny this, why does the medical community not use this information to treat cancer?

I don't see the point of the Star Tribune Editorial Board actually putting down in print that there were no scandals under President Barack Obama ("The hits and misses of the Obama years," Jan. 15).

The general definition of scandal is an action or event that brings with it wide disclosure and produces shock or surprise. I read this "no hint of scandal" phrase in Time magazine a few weeks ago. I heard it during a CNN interview. Is this "Let's play pretend"?

Off the top of my head: Benghazi; the IRS targeting of conservative groups; paying Iran for hostages; former Attorney General Eric Holder and "Fast and Furious"; lies about Obamacare; Hillary Clinton's private server while secretary of state; the Secret Service and prostitutes, and trading Guantanamo terrorists for a deserting American soldier. In Obama's final week in office, the administration announced the release of Chelsea Manning, a classified documents leaker, after weeks of criticizing WikiLeaks.

Please, Editorial Board: Have some respect for your readers. They actually have a brain.

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Could it be that both phenomena might be explained by the New-Jim-Crow-Republican Party's decision to obstruct our first black president from day one and at every point? Just two unprecedented examples from dozens:

• Then-House Speaker John Boehner's disrespectful refusal on Sept. 1, 2011, during our worst financial crisis in eight decades, to allow the president to address a joint session of Congress to present his American Jobs Act on a date that conflicted with early Republican presidential debates.

• The refusal of Senate Republicans to fulfill their constitutional duty of advice and consent on the president's March 16, 2016, nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

By definition, bipartisanship cannot exist if one of the two sides refuses under any condition to engage the other, even if the other has the audacity to be born black. Double mystery solved!

Sadly, you may look no further than the ongoing failure to acknowledge these facts in order to understand the election of an incoherent, hate-tweeting "birther" as president, and his appointment of an attorney general named after both Confederate President Jefferson Davis and P.T.G. Beauregard, the treasonous general who bombarded Fort Sumter to start the Civil War.

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To those who think that the slogan "Black Lives Matter" doesn't pay enough attention to other lives, I offer this Flowers' commentary: "Black lives do matter, of course, but so do good manners." Black lives and good manners, equally important and valuable, I guess. Would the Star Tribune print an article that said: "Police lives matter, of course, but so do good manners"? In a single sentence, Flowers epitomizes the intrinsic racism of our society and shows why repeating "Black Lives Matter" over and over is essential if we're ever going to liberate black people from our racist past.

Two Jan. 15 articles deal with related issues: ethics and conflict of interest. Jon Tevlin's interview with Michele Kelm-Helgen emphasized her wish to have a do-over on the use of stadium suites by public officials, their families, friends and like-mined politicians. Dr. Aasma Shaukat's letter to the editor about ethics described efforts in medicine to address conflict of interest, pointing out that similar efforts are needed among public officials.

I served for eight years on the Conflict of Interest Board of one of Minnesota's largest not-for-profit entities, where I observed that good people can do conflicting things because they have not thought their actions through adequately. Ethics, and the definition of conflict of interest (COI), are very complex issues not easily defined or described. However, one simple concept makes it easy to understand: If your actions were published on the front page of this newspaper, would your mother be embarrassed? Successful strategies to eliminate COI include clear, written rules of behavior and expectations, defined penalties (including expulsion) for failure to follow the rules, and regular (annual) review of actions likely to create COI or perceived COI by an unconflicted group of individuals experienced in the field but not selected by the group to be reviewed. Our federal and state elected officials, appointed administrators and their staffs must submit to these strategies to regain public confidence in their activities. Absent such actions, public opinion of our elected leaders will continue to diminish.