WHo is pretending to be Camille Paglia, who will all know is far more intelligent, savvy, wise, discerning, and knowledgeable than the imposter currently writing her columns?

Or is this the start of senile degeneration?

In view of its several and severe disadvantages (high price, lack of voice dialing, limited battery life, resriction to Cingular-A&T, small amount of memory for music & video), what the iPhone truly needs to succeed is a "killer app," that is, an application so revolutionary that it opens the object to a new market---which the spreadsheet did for business usages for the PC, for example.

For the iPhone, such a "killer app" could well be DICTATION SOFTWARE, since the device already has a rudimentary operating system that links to its existing microphone. Such software could let a user dictate an Email, or dictate text directly to a rudimentary word processor, like Apple's TEXTEDIT, that could then be transferred to a computer or printer.

Now that would be a big step up for a cell phone!

Al Feldzamen

Decades ago, as a Family Practice Resident at a Brooklyn hospital, I often pulled all-night duty, and one of my chores was starting intra-venous lines into the patients when the nurses could not do this readily. Adjacent to the acute care hospital, and affiliated with it, was a psychiatric facility, and I soon found myself awakened on many occasions to start such important lines on a semi-obese catatonic patient. She never displayed pain--or any awakening or sign of life, other than breathing--as I poked and prodded her arms or legs, searching for an elusive vein. Eventually, I would find the vein, but not without effort.

Then came my turn at a month of a pediatrics rotation, at another hospital. When I returned to the Brooklyn hospital and went to the cafeteria for lunch one day, there she was, my formerly catatonic psychiatric pin-cushion, chatting away with animation, as she devoured a healthy lunch. "What happened?" I asked, with incredulity.

"Oh, she got electric shock therapy," I was told.

Of course! The brain is an electrical organ. Why should it not respond to appropriate electric therapy!

Dr. A. N. Feldzamen, 3 Arrowood Lane, Ithaca, NY 14980-9793

607-257-8080

alfeld@twcny.rr.com

There could be a KILLER APP for the iPhone that Steve Jobs could display in January -- this would be DICTATION SOFTWARE for the iPhone, that would let a user speak not only the outgoing telephone number, but also an outgoing Email, that could later be retrieved on a home PC and then filed or printed. Now THAT would shake up the cellphone industry like no other gadget could.

I began law school with serious disadvantages: a Yale Math Ph.D. and decades of medical practice. I had been trained, in other words, to seek a "correct answer." But I did very poorly on exams my first year in law school. Why? Because there are no "correct answers" in law. What the examiners wanted, I finally discovered, was fanciful answers made plausible, as many as possible. Example: John says "I'm going to hit you Tom," and swings, and hits Bob. Discuss from the standpoint of BATTERY. D Answer. BATTERY means touching without consent, so John committed a battery. (Reciting "black letter"--i.e., by definition-- law is points against you!) C Answer: John's intent was to hit, and that he did. Ergo, BATTERY. B Answer. John did intend to hit, but maybe Bob and John were in a boxing ring, so Bob "assumed the risk" that he would be hit, so there was no BATTERY. Or maybe Tom and Bob were attacking John, and his swing was in self-defense, which trumps BATTERY. Or maybe John had been given hallucinatory drugs by Tom or Bob, and was incapable of controlling his actions. Or maybe Tom was holding up the deceased body of BOB, so there was no BATTERY. And so on. What would be an A answer? I never learned!!

Dr. A. N. Feldzamen

3 Arrowood Lane

Ithaca, New York 14850-9793

607-257-8080

alfeld@twcny.rr.com

For Heaven's Sake, the guy is an ex-Seminarian, and born into a religious household! They inject you early, like a virus, and it affects your mental DNA forever . . . nothing else explains why such otherwise intelligent folk (like W. H. Auden, for example) rush back to Mother Church (one form or another) as they get older. Just nonsense and rubbish . . . the best explanation comes from good old SIgmund . . . the infant is forever engraved with the image, if there is one, of powerful Father, and seeks to recreate this as an adult. Those kids born without Dad, more and more of them every year, it seems like, don't have this infantile imprinting, and thus don't become believers as adults. Which is why atheism is increasingly prominent in our world today.

Dr. A. N. Feldzamen

3 Arrowood Lane

Ithaca, New York 14850-9793

607-257-8080

alfeld@twcny.rr.com

Rush Limbaugh has been urging his dittoheads to register Democratic, where the state permits, and vote for Hillary, despite their ardent Republican leanings. Of the 200,000 or 300,000 or more NEW Pennsylvania voters in this week's primary, how many were these Rush Limbaugh guys? Hard to say, but could have been a large part of Hillary's majority.

I think some study showed a majority believed that a blow job was not "having sex," so Bill Clinton's disclaimer ("I did not have sex . . . ") was not a lie . . . and for those who believe that oral sex is indeed sexual intercourse, let me note (1) that the Uniform Code of Military Justice defines sex as "any degree of penetration, however slight . . . " and further, what would such believers say about what is vulgarly called a "hand job," or "dry humping," etc.