March/April 2010
Letters to the Editor
The Road Less Traveled
I liked the January/February 2010 cover story, “The Road Less Traveled,” and enjoyed reading about Columbia grads who followed unusual career paths. As an Armenian-American jazz pianist and composer (see 1972 Class Notes, same issue), my career path also has been unusual as well as enlightening, and perhaps the best post-graduate education I could have hoped for.
Armen Donelian ’72
Hudson, N.Y.
Thank you for the focus on the “road less traveled.” It was a choice a lot of us made many years ago. It’s interesting how the same alma mater could have such divergent offspring. I think that’s the sign of good parenting.
Tim Krupa ’63
Cannon Beach, Ore.
Molly Ivins ’67J
The mention of Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life by Bill Minutaglio ’76 and W. Michael Smith in the January/February “Bookshelf” failed to mention that Molly, a former Texas Observer editor and nationally syndicated columnist, also was a Columbia graduate. Molly, who is remembered by her beloved Texas Observer with “The MOLLY National Journalism Prize” awarded each June, was in the Graduate School of Journalism Class of 1967. We miss her.
Carlton Carl ’67, ’68J
Austin, Texas
[The writer is CEO/publisher of The Texas Observer.]
Going Green?
Pleased for your euphoria in using recycled paper. Totally distressed, however, as are tens of thousands of technically trained people, that there is no open review of the “managed perception” that carbon dioxide causes global warming. We consider this the scam of the millennium! In a nutshell: 1. Alternate warm and cool periods have occurred every 1,500 years for a million years. 2. Previous Roman and Medieval warm periods were warmer than the present warm period: A thousand years ago, it was about three degrees warmer than now; Greenland grew crops; wine grapes were raised in Scotland; and London was not under water! 3. The earth’s average temperature does not correlate with CO2, but is correlated with solar activity. When Pennsylvania’s coal fields were being formed, the temperature was similar to now, and the CO2 was 14 times the current concentration. If you liked Gore’s erroneous film [An Inconvenient Truth], watch McAleer/McElhinney’s Not Evil, Just Wrong. Since 2007, the Arctic ice has grown by 20 percent. 4. CO2 is beneficial to plant life and therefore beneficial to animals and humans. 5. Subsidizing uneconomical forms of energy to minimize warming from CO2 is fruitless. The physics show limitations on “greenhouse” energy storage as CO2 concentrations rise, anyhow. This writer is unsubsidized by oil, coal or utility companies!
Fred DeVries ’49, ’50E ’51E
Chadds Ford, Pa.
The Rule of Law
In his letter to the editor (January/February), James E. O’Brien ’66 asserts that CCT’s article on Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. ’73, ’76L “is rather biased in that it suggests repeatedly that some terrorists were too harshly treated during the Bush years.” Mr. O’Brien then attempts to make a case for what he calls “enhanced interrogation” — i.e., waterboarding and other forms of torture. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that torture doesn’t yield anything in the way of useful intelligence, but what might be called the “pragmatic” case against torture pales by comparison with the legal and moral arguments against it. Torture is a crime against humanity. When the United States tortures, it violates international treaties and established American law. Torture won’t make us safer, but it will most assuredly corrupt its advocates and practitioners.
Washington, D.C.