Don(t)ation
Recently, The New York Times reported that Fidelity Charitable and Vanguard Charitable, two of the largest donor advised fund providers in the country, blocked their donor account holders from making grants to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), citing a federal indictment brought by the Department of Justice.
An indictment is an allegation. It is not a conviction.
The SPLC has spent more than 50 years doing some of the most consequential civil rights work in American history. They won major legal battles against the Ku Klux Klan, virtually shutting down the largest white supremacy organization in the United States.
They have tracked, named and fought violent hate groups when few others would. What Fidelity and Vanguard have done is like one of us accusing a restaurant of food poisoning before we order. Or asking for a ticket refund prior to a lopsided Giants loss at Oracle Park. Or returning a garment at Vuori in The Village before we actually buy it. Those kinds of things.
Craig J. Corsini
San Rafael
Standard x 2
Per the recent Open Mic column (‘Talk is Cheap,’ April 22, 2026), I want to comment on the unstated premise of the U.S. position on Iran’s nuclear program:
America is imposing a ridiculous double standard on Iran. Why did we even seek a “nuclear deal” with Iran in the first place? The reason is America believes it gets to dictate terms to countries that aren’t even in its sphere of influence, and Iranian nuclear deterrence complicates things for our good friends in Tel Aviv.
I’m going to voice the heterodox but more realistic approach: America’s sovereignty should end at its own borders, and Iran’s sovereignty should likewise be respected at its own borders. If we stop poking Iran and giving Israel what they want while they run roughshod over their neighbors, we avoid the oil shocks, we keep the aluminum and fertilizer flowing. Our maximalist American/Israeli demands are absurd, and we need to wake up and smell the coffee.
Donald F. Barrett
Santa Rosa
