Ethanol

I have to congratulate you guys on a tremendous one-sided presentation of the facts on Ethanol. First of all, for all of the research done presenting this article, you managed to misspell "Ethanol" (spelled "Ethynol" on the front page of the Post). Maybe that should've been enough to tip me off that I shouldn't have gone on to read the article, but I did.

Secondly, your article said nothing of one of the most promising alternative fuel technologies on the horizon – cellulosic ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol, unlike current corn ethanol, will not produce any toxic emissions to distill into fuel. Likewise, it can come from just about any crop and can be made out of material that is commonly discarded. Cellulosic ethanol can even be made from switchgrass, which can be grown in many climates without the need for fertilizers. The process is much cleaner than even sugarcane ethanol, as mentioned in the article written.

Here's the kicker – right now cellulosic ethanol can be substituted for a barrel of oil at a cost of $120/barrel. In case you haven't noticed, the price of oil isn't really that far off, and this technology is in its infancy. With refinement in the way we produce cellulosic ethanol, this may get to the point where it is cheaper to produce than gasoline – it will just be a matter of funding the infrastructure to support it. We are closer to a solution than the "gloom and doom" article written by Mr. Loper would have us believe.

Thirdly, the suggestion that we could make a nuclear powered car that would have the proper amount of shielding around a nuclear reactor to not only withstand normal use but that of an accident is absurd at best. The costs would never pay off for car companies or the general public. I understand this is only an editorial, but even an editorial needs to be factually correct.

Kevin Peterson

Milan and Elitism

Dear Christy,
I read your article about your internship in Milan and was surprised to read, "...in Milan there is very much an elitist feeling which clouds the fashion industry, evident through the noticeable lack of English-speaking people."

I'm not sure it's an entirely correct assumption that anyone who doesn't speak English is "elitist." There are hundreds, nay thousands, of languages in the world and none is more or less elitist than English or any other language. If you went to Zambia and no one spoke English, would that render Zambians elitist? How about New Guinea? What really sounds elitist is a guest who criticizes his or her hosts for speaking their native language and the language of the land in which they live and do business. I wouldn't presume to argue that the fashion industry isn't elitist; I will argue however that it's likely unrelated to language.

I hope you enjoy Italy despite the language barrier. I've cc'd (name withheld), who lives in Milan, and who speaks English, in case you would like to meet a Milanese who has been to Milwaukee.

Bobby

Editorial Section

I am writing to complain of the raft of editorials in your February 18th paper. I opened the editorial section and found what can only be described as a vitriolic attack on the notion that human beings are created equal, a lazy indictment of an entire generation and a strident attack on capitalism based simply on the author's distaste for business cycles. That this paper chose to print the unsubstantiated rantings of Ms. Moucha, Mr. McCracken and Mr. Johnson speaks to deep troubles in your editorial philosophy.

Ms. Moucha wrote an angry, hate filled diatribe that serves to discredit and discount any women who take the 'radical' position that they are equal to men in capacity but limited in opportunity (Beware, the feminists). Couched as an appeal to personal liberty, her essay is anything but. She does not waver from her hateful and ultimately self hating message: any thought that society circumscribes the freedom of women marks you as a slut and a narcissist. Not content to merely slander an entire gender she gets facts wrong on pay equity, private lives and military service. Having done this, she somehow immunizes herself by virtue of her sex. Apparently her chromosomes qualify her to speak authoritatively on Title IX and divorce law. It is a shame they do not inform her as well.

Mr. McCracken seems to feel that his time on earth affords him the opportunity to sweep an entire generation of human beings into one category then declare them a failure based on his assessment that there are indeed still problems in the world (Fiddling on the magic bus while Rome burns). Perhaps he forgets that his own freedom to make that gross mischaracterization stems from the actions of that same generation in college campuses across America. Perhaps he could also pause to wonder how this nation managed to get out of one war before lazily blaming another on the same folks. Among other things, the generation he is lambasting for sloth and greed brought us the birth of community organization, the earnest beginning of racial and sexual equality and the end of the draft. If the 60's were all for naught, I would ask Mr. McCracken for his draft card, please.

Mr. Johnson rounded out the bunch by making an absurd case for a planned economy on the basis that the current recession is somehow worse than the thousands of years before the industrial revolution (U.S. facing recession). He extrapolates the current crisis, which is real and severe as the anoxia of capitalism, whose slow death will leave us with the only dialectic alternative: Socialism. Maybe in his next column Mr. Johnson can enlighten us about how the economies of the former Soviet Union, North Korea and Cuba prospered under a planned economy. His column is less objectionable because it is simply nonsense rather than pointed and hurtful. What makes it especially noxious is to see the three lined up, one next to the other.

It is not my intent to provide a counterpoint to each of these columns; as foolish as they are they deserve more than a paragraph in response. I wish to point out what should be obvious, that the editorial board of the Post has chosen to choose these voices rather than others. These voices serve to establish the pitch and timbre of the paper, not others. Perhaps the editors felt that publishing extreme viewpoints in opposition with one another provided some sense of objectivity for the paper itself. What a terrible shame that is.

Editorial positions are not numbers to be reconciled by simple arithmetic. The average of a vehemently right wing article and a slavishly left wing article is not intelligent moderation. A tempered message must be just that, forged by introspection and criticism.

This does not mean censorship. It means that if the Post is to be respected it must see the editorial page as its public face. This paper cannot hope to tone down a counter factual attack on the 1960's with an equally flawed attack on capitalism. It cannot cancel out the voices, only raise the volume and the discord.

Thank you.

Adam Hyland

Feminism

I am writing a response to Ms. Moucha’s article concerning feminism. You say you have researched and have experienced the world, yet your reasoning must be flawed because your conclusion is false.

You said women generally don’t earn less than men: False. In America, women only make 81% as men. The gender gap has been shrinking less and less rapidly since the seventies, and the London School of Economics estimates that it will be 150 years before the gender gap is closed. This doesn’t necessarily mean that women working the same job as men only earn four-fifths the wages as men, although they tend to earn less. Women typically fill lesser paying roles such as nursing, clerical work, education and sales; men dominate fields like engineering, law and upper-level management. This is due to women being encouraged from childhood on up to pursue “gender appropriate” careers. Also, the gender gap cannot be explained by men taking more dangerous jobs; the Bureau of Labor confirms that these jobs don’t actually pay more.

Traditional gender roles have also limited women in more ways than encouraging job selection. Women spend time working in the home for no pay, explaining forty percent of the gender gap. Women’s work rates fall when they have more children, while men’s work rates increase. This contradicts your implication that women were being unjustly forgiven for abandoning their families since they aren’t actually abandoning them. Women still have incentives to enter and stay in marriages more than men: While married, women have more money on average than while single. After divorce, women earn less, have greater difficulties paying off debts and only 60% of custodial fathers pay child support.

Thinking that women “control the scenes” is absurd. There are only 16 female senators out of 100, and 74 female representatives out of 435. Globally, the highest number of women to rule a nation at any time was 13. Other government positions are similarly distributed. Women don’t pull the strings privately, either: Even if some women may domineer families, the man is still typically regarded as the head of the household and controls the finances. While upper and middle class women may enjoy limited financial independence, they spend more of their money on clothing, cosmetics and jewelry than men since our culture emphasizes female beauty.

One part of women’s lives you failed to touch on was abuse. A woman is sexually abused once every two minutes, and more than half of abuses go unreported. A woman is raped in America once every eight minutes, and only 2% of rapists are convicted and imprisoned. (Before anyone says “they have it coming,” a federal commission found that only 4.4% of rapes had any sort of provocation.) 85-95% of domestic violence victims are female. Forty to fifty percent of women experience some form of harassment in the workplace, and women file eighty-five percent of sexual harassment suits.

You mentioned laws which show how feminists control government, and the reader should not be under the impression that these discriminate against men in any way. The Violence Against Women Act has spent $4 billion to prosecute domestic abuse, aid abuse victims and prevent abuse. (Incidentally, rape has fallen by 60% since VAWA was passed.) The International Marriage Broker Regulation Act checks the background of men ordering foreign brides so that the brides don’t get murdered. Title IX prevents discrimination against women in school activities, particularly athletics.

And your remark about boyfriends’ being less satisfied with “sloppy seconds” is distasteful and sick.

However, I empathize: Studies prove that it is emotionally painful for men to admit that they are advantaged, and for women to admit that they are oppressed. Also, it seems that you have generalized your views on sexism from personal experience, but even if you are independent, it doesn’t mean that you’re not oppressed. At best, it means that you’re independent despite your oppression. We do not claim that the handicapped are asking for too much for us to consider their disability. The handicap of women is male oppression.

Feminists are not “self-absorbed and narcissistic.” They are fully capable of treating men as reputable partners. The enemy of feminism is not men, it is patriarchy: The rule of men. Feminism is not against compromise with men, it is against compromise with those who oppress women for men’s benefit. It’s not about entitlement, the only thing feminists feel entitled to is freedom.

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