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Letters to the Editor

table of contents

Editor's answers in italics.


Duke,
I just read your wife's article. I got to go the AR Reading Convention for 5 years and became acquainted ELLA and ELF from demonstrations set up at the convention. What I remember most was the enthusiasm of the teachers when they told me about the program. Debra did a superb job of translating that enthusiasm into prose.

Regards, Richard Emmel.

Thanks Richard, from both Debi and myself.


Duke,
Congratulations on the award. You are responsible for the success of the newsletter, so feel free to wallow in the celebratory confetti. This newsletter was a good one as well. It was very informative and helpful to me in my determination of where to stand on the consolidation issue. I understand that there are incredible complexities involved. I have decided that I am Pro-Consolidation. I do also believe that implementing it without the funds to back the changes may be make the whole thing a pipe dream without considerable tax increases.

On this issue, I will leave the solution finding to the experts. In the end, there will be winners and losers no matter which way the chips fall. I am sure that I will be one of the winners though, no matter how it turns out. I know this because I will take whatever personal action is necessary to ensure my child gets a quality education. I may be inconvenienced by a long commute to get her to a good school, but I won't compromise her education for convenience.

I liked "Signs of the Apocolypse" It had never occurred to me before that a toe sandwich might satisfy that powerful hunger I get after sniffing butane. I went out and bought a new pillow. I couldn't stand the idea of it being 10% skin, mites, & dung.

Thanks Again, Van Hill

As always Van, I deeply appreciate your support. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.



Duke,

Got the newsletter. I started reading Duke Heath's letter to the editor and was getting peeved until I read who had written it. I enjoyed that. Interesting how perspective changes over the same words with just a name added to them.

Thanks for giving me some insight into why I haven't been sleeping well these past weeks... ...Damn mites are partying on my pillow at 3 a.m. in a mite cemetery while knee-deep in their own manure. I give them the skin off my back and am not even given the simple courtesy of an invitation to their dance.

Joe Barda

Thanks for taking the time to respond Joe. I use a twenty year old feather pillow. I have watched it crawl across the floor on its own! But I could not find a more comfortable pillow, so I will stick with the mites.

Lake Mead, the lake created by the Hoover Dam, contains enough water to cover the entire state of Pennsylvania to a depth of I foot.

Dear Mr. Editor,

For those still steeped in pre-Einsteinian physics, where the Universe is nothing but a bunch of little billiard-balls bumping against one another at random in a meaningless Universe, I suppose the response to Dan Wyatt's reported experiences would have to be "Bah, Humbug!" But this is the 21st Century, now, and the mechanical Universe of Mr. Newton ain't quite what it used to be.

What used to be so nice and neat and 'Sherlock Holms' logical turns out to be deductions made within limited parameters. Go outside the accustomed parameters and things get a little strange, certainly transcending so-called 'common sense' which evolved to deal with phenomena which did not exceed limited parameters.

Of course, before observations can be validated, they must be examined to see if they meet certain qualifications - like Did this observation occur during a state of 'waking sleep'? or Did I observe an event and make an assumption as to its cause when other causative agents were present,' and so on. Of course, not everything is linear cause-and-effect. Some aspects of reality are simply nonlinear in nature, and thus defy linear explanations. Add to this the probability that the Universe is hyper-dimensional, and all manner of opportunities for unsettling experiences crop up.

Giving Don credit for not being a total ninny, I think it safe to trust his observational abilities. Therefore, the probabilities lie in favor of Don having seen what he saw and having experienced what he experienced. He can always invite in one of those 'Skeptical Inquirer' guys who've already decided that nothing's possible except what they say is possible, prejudice, I think they call it. Of course, that isn't exactly the inductive scientific method, is it?

Bruce Crabtree

Bruce, l appreciate your point of view, but 1 think you do a great injustice to skepticism. Skepticism is the foundation of science. You form a hypothesis, then try to disprove it. Your entire hyperdimensional universe comes from those skeptical of the status quo. There is no question that magazines such as Skeptic have taken skepticism to a religious level and, like you say, have already made their judgements before they investigate. Skepticism as well as open mindedness are essential for progress in science. They go hand and hand.

By the way, Congratulations an your play "The Old Fart Society" winning a Certificate of Merit in the 2003 International Screenplay Competition conducted by the American Screenwriter's Assn. and Writer's Digest. Way to go Bruce!