Letters to the Editor
PaulBC
Published Letters: 207 Editor's Choice: 24
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what's not organic about biotech?
[Read the article: Show organic farmers the money]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some people will say I'm being pedantic, but I'm by nature a splitter, not a lumper, and there are at least two wildly different technologies getting conflated into "green revolution" agriculture here, namely agriculture chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides) and recombinant genetics.
One of the things that might actually make organic farming viable on a large scale IS biotechnology in the form of transgenic crops. I.e., one way of reducing our dependence on chemical fertilizer is the development of crops that are better suited to their environment, and recombinant genetics provides a tool that is unavailable with conventional hybridization. We might not like the idea of plants that include DNA from other unrelated species (possibly not even plants) but there is nothing inorganic about them. (Actually that's one reason they're potentially dangerous, since they might out-compete wild forms.)
There are potential dangers both in the use of chemicals and in the use of genetic engineering. There is also a cultural objection to the latter that looks like it is going to hold back deployment for some time, at least in those parts of the world where food is relatively cheap, so I'm not holding my breath.
But politics aside, I don't see why it is necessary to reject the whole "green revolution" package. While I would like my food labeled clearly, I'm perfectly willing to eat any GMO food that's been proven safe. I don't trust agribusiness to do the certification, but I am in principle a supporter of biotechnology. I am not against the judicious use of chemicals for that matter, but I dislike how they require centralized resources and tie us to a fossil-fuel economy. So I do consider chemicals and biotech to be quite distinct issues with biotech a potential way out of chemical dependency.
I grant that it's possible that organic agriculture with naturally hybridized crops can feed the world. If so, I still believe that combining the best organic techniques with other technologies will feed the world even cheaper, leaving us resources for other endeavors.
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all weather bumper stickers
[Read the article: The GOP is the party of the Iraq war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Anonymous" bravely asks:
"Have they invented the permanent all weather bumper sticker?"
I guess Anonymous's bumper stickers are made out of spun sugar, but the ones I've seen appear to survive most weather onslaughts and remain legible, if a bit faded, after the passage of many summers. Often the car changes hands more than once before the bumper sticker goes away by itself. We won't even get into those interior rear-window decals.
I cannot tell you for certain if anyone is removing their pro-Iraq war bumper stickers. There isn't a large enough sample in my area. But a bumper sticker applied in 2003 could easily remain legible. (I grant that the full size flags waving proudly from pickup trucks were in tatters a month or two after 9/11.)
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Sigh, I get invited to all the wrong parties
[Read the article: David Brooks' field trip to the White House]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If only I hung out with Bobo and Hindsniffer, I'd get to see a whole new side of Dubya that's been hidden from the public. Either that, or I'd get some hold of some really good drugs. Their accounts are slightly less plausible than the Onion article that has Bush expounding on Virgil's minor works: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28498
'According to White House regulars, it is not uncommon for Bush to engage guests in discussions of whatever subject strikes his fancy, from the symphony playing in the background to the history of a style of jewelry a guest happens to be wearing.'
'"I love to hear George hold court on this or that," said Bush family friend and world-renowned physicist Norberta Münter. "I tell him he is such a spoiled brat, the way he demands our attention, but I must confess I can't take my eyes off him when he does."'
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Galley Proofs
[Read the article: The full, final "Harry Potter" -- leaked online!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe this is a fraud. That would be pretty funny. I admit it's hard to imagine somebody faking an entire 700+ page novel, but I remember a news story about Harry Potter knock-offs being published in Russia. Rowling is not the only one who can write books of this size; she's just one of the few who manage to get them published.
If it's not a complete fraud, there is no reason to assume it's the final copy or that it hasn't been tampered with. Just because it apparently looks like photos of a book doesn't guarantee that it is unaltered photos of the book that will go on sale in a few days.
Eh, it's probably real. I admit I just wanted an excuse to write "Deathly Galley Proofs"