Dusting Off My Keyboard

Tax day has come and gone, so I'll dust off my keyboard again. There are a number of items to comment on.

First and foremost, my sincere thanks to Merry McDonnell [Teaching Is a Great Job, March 22] and Jennifer Hurley [Why I Can't Teach, March 22] for their excellent submissions. I especially commend Ms. Hurley for presenting the position of teachers, point by point, without denigrating a single person or profession, without negative comparisons, and without any blatant bitterness—while making clear the frustrations and disappointments encountered in her teaching career. Bravo! On the flip side, my thanks and commendations to Ben Davidson [But I Deserve …, March 29] for a succinct indictment of public education and the product it turns out. Sometime soon, if nobody else is willing to attempt it, I may actually explain the strange dichotomy between "education" and its often poor results versus "teaching." And sometime soon, I'm going to explain to Mr. Valenti [The Challenge Still Stands, April 5] how teachers can attain the same pay level as physicians.

Have ya ever heard or read someone state that "everything is relative" and cite Einstein as their authority? Betcha have, and it almost certainly wasn't in regards to a scientific matter, because that statement is utterly false. The theory of relativity does state that certain things we commonly consider to be absolutes (distance, time, mass) change relative to the condition or perspective of the observer, but these changes occur because the constant "c" has an absolute value. I've also encountered misuse of the uncertainty principal, the theory of evolution, and other scientific principals and hypothesis. Over time, I have developed a large dislike for this sort of pseudoscientific misuse.

However, upon reading the March 8 issue of The Voice, I discovered that I owe Noel F. Ambery [Mythology Gone Crazy] an apology. I had incorrectly interpreted in that same issue [A Few Reactions from the Past Month] as just such a misuse an unsupported statement in Noel's January 25 letter [Try to Top That] that "according to modern astronomy and astrophysics, there was no beginning." Oh, I could protest that the cosmology Noel got around to citing in "Mythology Gone Crazy" should have been included in "Try to Top That," but that would be mere quibbling. I could argue the extent to which certain works cited in "One Man's Codswallop" [March 22] fail to support Noel's assertion or opine that steady state cosmology is as likely as creationist theory. I can state my preference for multiple event horizon interference as the big crunch termination leading into a "big fizz," in which each "re-creation" may have distinctive "c", "h", etc.—making each a wholly "new" universe. But all such is merely cosmological debate. I made a mistake, Noel, and I apologize.

On the other hand, while I appreciate your supporting my point regarding who invented what gods, I hafta wonder—why lecture me? Mr. Carlotti's been using the phrase "God invented by the Israelites" for the past year; I just tossed it back to him. By the way, a thousand years before Abraham (who may be as allegorical as his Genesis genealogy, but might be historical), the "God" in question was simply El or Eli—which evolved into both Allah and Elohim (the root of "Eloi, Eloi …" from Yeshua's reported exit line).

In March, in accordance with EPA regulations, U.S. oil refineries began to switch over to production of summer-blend gasoline. Of course summer blends are more energy intensive and produce less usable product from the same amount of raw material. (This is particularly true in the Midwest where—per Prez Bush's insistence—the summer blend must include ethanol.) But I've already seen the first article asserting that the petroleum cabal is raising prices on the excuse that there's trouble in the Middle East. In the next month I expect "wrecker Ralph" will claim it's all a consumer rip-off, and by June our very own Senator "Electric Boat" will make his annual demand for an investigation.

I loved the Fox news broadcast I saw on the fate of the American Lung Association's request for a four cent a pack levy for smoking cessation classes. The "talking head" quoted Governor Rowland as saying, "Smokers are on their own." She also quoted a "legislative leader" as declaring, "Helping smokers to quit would be fiscally irresponsible." Yep! All the politicians and attorneys general who claimed smoking was costing governments money are finally admitting what the studies have been revealing for years: between the taxes they paid for cigarettes and their earlier demise (usually without expensive lingering), smokers are a great source of profit for the professional politicians and their hacks. Of course I'm not certain I trust that newscast—they twice noted that the Gov's mommy smokes, once stating she smokes a pack a day and at another point saying three packs a day. Hmm?

And talking about "truth"—I completely approve of the anti-tobacco ad with dudes putting signs on hotel room doors stating that tobacco kills more people each day than are in this hotel. Yep, each day tobacco is a causative factor in the deaths of more people than will be found in at least 99.997% of hotels. But have ya seen the ad where someone in a rat suit crawls out of a subway? This ad states that cigarette smoke contains cyanide; that is true. It then states that cyanide is used in rat poison. Really? Hey, some cyanide compounds are extremely poisonous, but I'm not aware of any rat poison that uses it. Of course it doesn't matter. Cyanide is merely a radical found in many compounds, and the traces of cyanide in cigarette smoke are about as dangerous as the cyanide compounds that give almonds their distinctive flavor. Nobody's dying due to cyanide poisoning from tobacco. This ad's another example of deceptive advertising from people who claim to be spreading the truth. Why do they seem incapable of sticking to the truth?

Note to Bob Davidson: Signs posted in high crime areas [Some Self-Evident Truths, March 29] accomplish nothing because nobody reads signs there. In fact, 99% of the signs posted in low-crime areas aren't read. And less than .001% of people actually read the ingredient lists, disclaimers or other written items (including warnings) on products. So, what's the point of posting signs?

One of the advantages of becoming ancient, decrepit and rapidly disintegrating is the pleasure of observing someone calling "new" the technologies I had once hoped would be widespread by now. By the way, I hope someone dropped a line outta A. Keil's article [Elements of the New Energy Technology, April 12]. I hope that someday gas stations will sell hydrogen for fuel cells—but they ain't never gonna be selling fuel cells. A fuel cell is a hydrogen-oxygen battery, not a bag of fuel. Guess that's another subject I'm gonna hafta actually write something about soon.