IF ONLY WE COULD HARNESS THE POWER OF EXCUSES …
I liked your article "Full of Hot Air" (August 27). The unfortunate part is that government always seems to think we have all this extra time. Why in the hell are they giving 'til 2025? That's ridiculous. Many experts predict that the supply of "cheap" oil - yes, $4 a gallon is cheap - will be gone by then. It really makes me sick that they don't understand changes need to be made now.
Would it really be that difficult to put this stuff into place by say, oh, I don't know, 2015? It's really sad, because we have the technology to make so much of these things happen right now, but too few people make too much money from it. Doesn't the CEO of First Energy make like $12.5 million a year? What does he do that makes him worth so much more than a doctor or nurse? The whole thing makes me sick. All these solutions to help our problems but certain people will not get bonuses or won't get even bigger bonuses so nothing happens.
Reminds me of that movie called Chain Reaction, where they discovered how to make energy for free but then power companies started trying to kill the main characters before they could let anyone know.
Tom Flood
Cleveland
I read a lot about science. I taught science before retiring from 31 years of public school teaching. As the science around climate change develops, new sources of greenhouse gases are being discovered. The situation is becoming increasingly severe over time. We do not have time on our side. Waiting is not an option that a prudent person could advise. Those who ask for further study and postponement of remedies are recommending a very dangerous path, one which future generations will wish we had not taken. No one who understands the problem can recommend the construction of new coal-fired power plants. Instead, all of our effort must go into developing technologies which produce electrical energy without adding to global warming.
Fred Welty
Cleveland
ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL
John McCain's naming of Sarah Palin as his running mate brought to mind similarities of the mixed and complicated nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court back in 1991 to fill the seat of the retired Thurgood Marshall. Yet the appointment of Thomas then (and still now) competed with the need for a black voice and presence on the highest court in the land and that voice belonging to this particular black conservative, who appeared to be a proxy for white conservatives.
The NAACP, the Urban League and the National Organization for Women opposed his appointment. Yet among some (not many) in the black community, the fact that Thomas was black was deemed enough to support him.
The choice of Palin as the vice presidential choice for McCain has the same odor, er, aura. The Republicans appear to be equal-opportunity purveyors of gender legerdemain. In choosing Palin, whose values and avowed right-wing policies strike against the core values of many so-called feminist and progressive women, the Republicans have essentially rubbed women's faces in a choice that is no choice at all.
If the 18 million Hillary supporters (who should be so insulted at this choice so as to spit blood) want a vagina to win for the sake of a political vagina in office, then McCain has given you just what you want. But on all levels this choice is an insult to feminists. This choice is so typically mannish in its transparent attempt to appease those angry women. This, by the Mad Men in McCain's retinue, is so like a stereotypical out-of-touch old husband. Eighteen million wives who were hoping for a thoughtful gift were just given a brand-new shiny vacuum cleaner.
By choosing Palin, the anti-abortion crusader and NRA shooter (on more metaphoric levels than one) who supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000, who supports McCain's big-oil-first energy policy, a Miss Alaska runner-up, mother of five who eats moose meat sandwiches, McCain backhands women. Hopefully, feminists and women swing voters - hell, everyone - will see this patronization for what it is.
But I doubt it. These women, the overplayed Hillaristas, the disgruntled 18 million voters who are portrayed as walking the political fence because their choice did not get the Democratic nomination, could be as shallow, easily led and vindictive as the McCain Mad Men have figured them out to be. I hope that I and the Mad Men are wrong.
Adrienne Zurub
Cleveland Heights
adriennezurub.typepad.com
I normally don't bother writing in when I see letters suffused with ignorance, but Kim Steinke's bitter letter ("At Least Obama Knows How Many Houses He Owns," August 27) left me sure she was somewhere clinging to her Bible and her gun.
Ms. Steinke wonders how she can make an informed decision. Well, first, she can turn off the television, put down the newspapers, delete the chain e-mails and visit both candidates' web sites. Looking to the media to tell you how to think is like asking a nun the best position to achieve orgasm: You'll get an opinion, but not much else.
Lisa Langford
Cleveland Heights
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