Partisan propaganda

Fairness breached

Defining "cool"

Questionable motives

Correction

Mission: Frivolous

There it was — right on the cover! It made me chuckle to think brilliant minds and supposedly some of the world's most logical thinking people were taking and using enormous financial resources to take a flyby look at Pluto ["Mission: Pluto," November]. $1.5 billion thrown out by NASA for cost overruns plus $500 million going to APL on this project... aren't there more pressing issues here on Earth? Put that kind of money into hydrogen fuel cell technology and we could make fuel shortages a thing of the past and nearly eliminate many environmental problems, which would in turn wipe out certain types of cancers. Is there a word that describes the wasteful spending of billions on a frivolous space mission by otherwise intelligent people?
Carl Clingman, Med '91(MA)
Rochester, MN

Partisan propaganda

If the editors intended November's "The Big Picture: The Human Cost of War" to be a Veterans Day tribute [p. 4], they failed miserably. To choose for the two-page spread a picture of an "anti-war" group's protest display and to mention, unnecessarily, Cindy Sheehan's campaign, "Bring Them Home Now," displays either extreme partisanship or remarkable ignorance on the part of the Johns Hopkins Magazine staff.

There are veterans, family, and friends who have lost loved ones and comrades in Iraq (and Afghanistan) who nonetheless support the war and believe in its cause — despite very obvious stumbles in its execution. I am one of these veterans.

But, regardless of beliefs, there was an opportunity to choose less partisan and more poignant ways to pay Veterans Day honors to our service and to that of our fallen comrades. Instead, it seems the editors pandered to a very select but vocal crowd and took the moral low ground.
Marcel LeBlanc, LCDR, USN,
Engr '02 (MS)
Hanscom AFB, MA

Fairness breached

I was disappointed with "The Big Question: Does Disaster Bring Out the Worst in People?" [November], answered by epidemiologist Thomas Glass. The article, while well-meaning, goes right to the heart of the problem of perceptions. Professor Glass' answer was phrased as if the whole group of African-Americans were looters. I will point out that a few individuals were involved in the looting, not the entire group. Many of the victims of Katrina were the people who could least protect themselves: the elderly and children. They were abandoned for days in a hostile environment with little access to clean water or food. Sure, some did loot, but not the entire group.
Vernon Bell, Engr '92 (MS)
[email protected]

Defining "cool"

I read William J. Evitts' article about JHU's newfound "coolness" with some sense of wistfulness [November, "Ruminations," p. 12]. For a prom-dateless high school graduate like me, stepping onto the Hopkins campus in 1994 was like heaven. I remember feeling more attractive as soon as I set foot on the campus! Maybe it was the heavily skewed gender ratio that gave me that new feeling of self-esteem, but I think that it was something much more. Suddenly, I was surrounded by friendly (yes, friendly!), intelligent peers who cared more about academics than appearances.

I am happy to see that Hopkins has made improvements that will provide students with a more "well-rounded" experience. However, I can't help thinking back fondly upon a less trendy JHU — a place where it was "cool" to hang out in an on-campus pub (E-Level) that took its name from the depths of the library (D-Level)!
Jill Smith, A&S '98
Cambridge, MA

Questionable motives

I have to admire the scholarship behind Professor Forni's article ["The Other Side of Civility," November]. But I think it's a disturbing commentary on our times that civility and good manners must be sold as an expedient to having-the-best-life, as opposed to the moral right-thing-to-do.
Stan Modjesky, A&S '70
Baltimore, MD

Correction

In "A Well-Conceived Health Bar" [November, p. 57] we mistakenly noted that the Oh Mama! nutrition bar can double as a prenatal vitamin. In fact, the bar is meant as a complement to a prenatal vitamin. The distinction is important, notes creator Beth Vincent, SPH '97, because "some other nutrition bars, even those targeted to expectant moms, contain nutrients that can be dangerous to developing babies if taken in excess doses." She goes on to add, "Oh Mama! is designed to fill the nutritional holes in the diet of a woman who we assume takes a prenatal supplement. At the same time, the bar omits certain nutrients that can be harmful to a developing baby if consumed in high doses."

Return to February 2006 Table of Contents