Letters to the Editor
Jeffrey P. Harrison
Published Letters: 354 Editor's Choice: 39
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Sigh....
[Read the article: Let's have a presidential debate on science]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another hyperventilating article on America's declining stature in the world of science and engineering that has a half dozen different threads all tangled up in a rat's nest of logic and emotion that then leaps to a solution without a clear statement of the problem (if a problem exists) or an assessment of the root causes of the problem. The first problem is conflating science and engineering. They are very separate disciplines (outside of their common need for technical capabilities and the ability to speak the language of mathematics).
"The Problem" is typically stated as "everybody else is graduating more science and engineering students than we are". Is this actually a problem? Given the willingness of foreigners to come to the US and the US's willingness to issue H1B visas, it would seem that the need for technically educated people is being met by an adequate supply of technical people. Also, given the number of articles etc I've read about American graduates being aced out for jobs by H1B holding foreigners, business should be happy because the foreigners are willing to work for less. So what's the problem?
Another facet here is that both government and industry have cut back on both basic and applied research from their levels in the '60s and research seems to be an easy target during corporate cost cutting. On the engineering side, who the hell needs engineers? An earlier study on this same topic noted that of the something like 120 odd chemical plants being built in the world, 1 was being built in the US and the rest were being built elsewhere in the world. The problem here seems to be lack of work, not lack of graduates. So what's the problem?
And what, I'd like to know, will a presidential debate do for this? As far as I can tell, nothing any good. Oh, politicians are great at coming up with ways to spend my money but if they aren't commercially viable, they'll go the way of the space program. They'll produce a bunch of results at odds with the needs of commerce and then it'll be straight out of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Trillian says: "Well, with a PhD in Astrophysics and another in Maths, I'll be back to the dole queue on Monday." That'll help a lot, I'm sure.
So, what is the problem, really? I suspect the real problem is that we are seeing our lead in the world of science and engineering slip. The causes of that slippage are manifold but they don't include not enough graduates.
At the bottom line, we don't need yet another government program in this over regulated, over controlled, and over directed land of ours to address a problem that isn't a problem but a misguided attempt at a solution to an entirely different problem.
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not-so-long-ago my ass
[Read the article: Morgan Stanley stumbles, China lends a helping hand]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We are currently trying to foist our form of government and our form of capitalism on the world right now in much the same way that the old USSR tried to foist their form of government and economic system on the world 30 years ago. And we will collapse for pretty much the same reasons: excessive militarism and excessive government interference in the economy.
The Shrubbites are under the delusion that security flows from a gun barrel. It doesn't.
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Ah
[Read the article: We'd hate to see the bad news]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But we just got a years extension on our writ to commit mayhem from the UN.....
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Can you say functional?
[Read the article: The modern kitchen]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Fun? Kitchen? Same sentence? For that matter, fashion and kitchen in the same sentence? You must be a girl.
I, on the other hand, am not. I've cooked all my life (this is what happens when mothers teach their sons to cook) and I'm quite good at it. I also do the majority of cooking (not that my wife is a bad cook by any means but schedules and whatnot get in the way) and what I'm looking for is functional. Maybe if all you do is nuke something for dinner you can think of the kitchen as fashionable because you're not really using it as a kitchen. You can nuke a frozen TV dinner in the dining room. But if you make everything from scratch (chicken cordon bleu, for example, is made by boning a chicken breast, wrapping it around swiss cheese and ham and adding a dollop of white wine - it does not come from the frozen meat section at your grocer's), then you need a kitchen that works, regardless of what it looks like.
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Sex isn't responsible
[Read the article: An abstinence from abstinence? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's fun. I know. So I'm not going to argue with you about your attitude towards abstinence only programs which I, too, regard as dumber than dirt. But I will take you to task for this:
If Jamie Lynn intended to have a baby, that's her decision -- and responsibility.
If, in fact, it were just her responsibility, I'd agree with the statement. Unfortunately, the law will also make it her boyfriend's responsibility. At that point, it ceases to be her decision and has to become their decision. This is not to say that preventing pregnancy is just the responsibility of the female because it's not. But the way things are structured now, the female can be as irresponsible as she wants and the male gets tagged with the responsibility and is excluded from the decision making process that follows (such as aborting the pregnancy). That's not right. And to provide the balance, if the male has been being irresponsible and that irresponsibility results in a pregnant female, he's bought and paid for his responsibility.