Letters to the editor, April 2007

This a traditional letter column. You are encouraged to write a letter of comment on anything that you find worthy of comment. It will (may) be published in this column along with my reply. As editor I reserve the right to delete material; however I will not alter the undeleted material. E-mail to me that solely references the contents of this site will be assumed to be publishable mail. All other e-mail is assumed to be private. And, of course, anything marked not for publication is not for publication. Oh yes, letters of appreciation for the scholarly resources provided by this site will be handled very discreetly. This page contains the correspondence for April 2007.

Index of contributors

• Cora Nathanson
• Andrew Monkman
• okeke Harry
• NY3313
• Peter Neilson
• GoFirstAid.com
• Barr Vincent Powell
• Peter Neilson
• Holly F. Sox
• Peter Neilson
• Shyra Thompson
• Peter Neilson

Other Correspondence Pages

• Master page for correspondence
  
• January 2007 Letters
  
• February 2007 Letters
  
• March 2007 Letters
  

From: Cora Nathanson
Date: 4/12/2007
Subj: Grackles – Lincoln Tunnel/Bridges/NYC

I enjoyed your article. One question is were these the birds that you used to see under bridges in Manhattan and or maybe the lincoln Tunnel? I am trying to find out. Can you please tell me.

I can’t say definitely, but I am pretty sure that they are.

BTW the grackles are still staying ahead of me. Some day, probably in the next millennium, I am going to build the ultimate squirrel and grackle proof bird feeder.

From: Andrew Monkman
Date: 4/11/2007
Subj: Unknown ancient (sacred) geometry/(I am not a spammer!!)

This may be of interest to you!!
From Andrew Monkman,Kirkwall,Orkney islands,Scotland.
http://thecompletefloweroflife.blogspot.com/

I’m not quite sure what to make of it, but it’s pretty.

From: okeke Harry
Date: 4/11/2007
Subj: i love that

i love those wonderful words.

I love them myself – by the way, which ones are they?

Personally, I’m fond of the occasional anachronism, e.g., “whilst” and “aforesaid”, and a bit of slang from other centuries, some of which haven’t happened yet.

Have a turquoise moment.

From: NY3313
Date: /4/2007
Subj: STUPID QUESTION

MAYBE YOU CAN ANSWER THIS STUPID QUESTION FOR ME….I AM A COP IN NYC AND ME AND MY PARTNER NEED AN ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION TO HAVE SOME PEACE IN OUR CAR A PERSON WEIGHS 100 LBS……THEY EAT 5 LBS OF FOOD IN 1/2 AN HOUR……THEY DO NOT GO TO THE BATHROOM AND WEIGH THEMSELVES AS SOON AS THEY ARE DONE EATING….DO THEY WEIGH 105 LBS DUE TO THE FOOD INTAKE??? THANKS FOR THE HELP,

This is a bit tricky. Yes, they weigh 5 lbs more if all of the food they’ve eaten (including the water they drank – don’t forget the water) weighs five pounds, except that they lose a small amount of weight breathing, so it’s not quite five pounds.

Personally, I’m a little skeptical about someone 100 lbs eating 5 lbs of food in half an hour. That’s a lot of food – five 16 oz steaks or equivalent. You could drink 10 large glasses of water at 8 ounces a glass, but I wouldn’t if I were you.

From: Peter Neilson
Date: 4/9/2007
Subj: Missing April

I’m forwarding you only the subject line for this one, because by now you have them all pretty nearly memorized.

Imagine if e-mail and the Internet existed a hundred years ago, how many more Piltdown Men would have been found! Worse, Edison and Steinmetz would have become hackers, wasting all their time inventing stupid algorithms instead of electrical generating equipment, and we wouldn’t have electricity to run computers.

I dunno. Somewhere I have my notes on building a steam powered fortran compiler. If Edison et al had become hackers we might well have ended up in a world like the one in the movie, Brazil. In fact, … , never mind.

From: GoFirstAid.com
Date: 10/4/2007
Subj: The Barrett kids are why should you know this.

Dear Tonya,

Accidents happen. And the vast majority happen in the home. Are you prepared?

Do you know?

• The 8 fundamentals of First Aid?
• When, or if, to remove an object from a wound?
• The most effective way to clean a wound?
• How to tell if someone is choking, and what to do if they are?

Do You Know Basic First Aid?

You can save the lives of your loved ones!

[snip sales pitch]

This is getting rather spooky. We hear about the blogosphere but nobody mentions the spamosphere. Once we get connected to the internet we acquire an existence in the spamosphere. It’s a shadowy sort of existence, one filled with surprising and sometimes disturbing morphings. It was bad enough that they moved me to South Carolina, but now my name and my very gender has been changed.

I wonder how many kids I have in the spamosphere?

From: Barr Vincent Powell
Date: 1/1/2007
Subj: Your friend invited you to join BlackPlanet.com

Vince P ([email protected]) has invited you to join BlackPlanet.com and become a member of his/her network of friends.

I am Barr Vincent Powell,I represent Mrs.Mariam Abacha, Wife of the late president of Nigeria,General sani Abach.She has instructed me to locate a fund manager/partner.She wishes to invest the sum of Twenty Two Million Euros.Your assistance is needed to transfer and secure this fund for the investment. She proposes a commission 20% as your share.for further details please respond to my private email address: [email protected] Awaiting yourquick response. Regards, Barrister Vincent Powell

It costs nothing to join and is simple. You are just a few steps away from having your own piece of the planet. Register today!

There is a real blackplanet.com; after all, on the internet everything is real. There’s not only a blackplanet.com, there’s a real irishplanet.com as well. All things considered though, I don’t think that I wish to become a member of Vincent Powell’s network of friends.

From: Peter Neilson
Date: /4/2007
Subj: Missing April

Your file http://home.tiac.net/~cri/2007/let07apr.html is unavailable. Whom shall I blame?

Whom shall you blame? I suggest the usual suspects? I suspect the problem is with your time machine, which, if I am not mistaken, was manufactured by Acme Products in 2010. Either that or it was mine, but that seems unlikely since it was manufactured in England in 1862 by Babbage & Lovelace; after all B&S were noted for the quality of their workmanship.

I certainly wouldn’t suggest blaming your noble correspondent who is noted for his attention to detail and his obsessive concern with timeliness. I haven’t the slightest idea of whom he might be, but it would be quite unfair to blame him.

From: Holly F. Sox
Date: 4/2/2007
Subj: Permission

I am putting together a set of essays or possibly a memoir of sorts, about my career as a nurse. I’d like to include the “You know you’re a nurse if…” from your web page. Are you the author? If not, do you know if that’s in public domain? If you are, may have permission to include that as an epigraph for one chapter?

I’m sorry, I don’t have any specific information. I’m not the author and I haven’t the vaguest idea of who the author might be, if any. It was one of those things that circulates in various joke lists. However I wouldn’t worry much about it. If you do a google search on “You Know You’re A Nurse If” (the quotes are important) it turns up about 383 hits, many of which are pretty funny. Judging from what I’ve seen, any original “You Know You’re A Nurse If” story is long gone; it’s folklore and everyone has their own version.

From: Peter Neilson
Date: 3/13/2007
Subj: The latest

The article to which Dr. Lewis refers is quite interesting. Indeed, the older I become, the worrier I am about the problems of disposal. It’s unlikely that anyone would want to feed me to the Insinkerator ™. Maybe the pigs. Pigs are very environmental. If someone is willing to pay me the cost of going through this diamond process, I’ll leave them a diamond in my will.

Look at this way – when disposal becomes an issue for you it won’t be your problem.

Pigs may be very environmental, but I don’t think that is a good idea. There are far too many reports of pigs getting sick from eating contaminated long pork.

Among other things.

From: Shyra Thompson
Date: 3/28/2007
Subj: Adderall XR

My son was on Adderall XR 10 mg. In some of the research I have done it says that it can cause psychoses episodes under certain mg. I was wanting to know if 10 mg can do that to a 5 yr. old boy?

I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV. I really can’t answer your question, and I’m not sure that anyone can give you a definitive answer. My impression is that it is possible, but unlikely. As you may know, Canada has banned Adderall XR. Speaking as a lay person I would be very wary about giving it to a child.

From: Peter Neilson
Date: 3/27/2007
Subj: [Fwd: Re: FOR YOUR ATTENTION]

Richard, I received this cheery greething, and felt that I should share it. It causes me to wonder if anyone has ever seen a disagreething.

[snip scam letter]

According to my dictionary a gree is, among other things, the prize for victory. It follows then that a greething is something that is intended to be used for a prize for victory, e.g., a trophy. As it happens I used to play a lot of volleyball and managed a prize winning team so I have a number of greethings on display.

If I am not mistaken (and I so seldom am) “disagreething” is not a noun; rather it is a verb meaning disparaging a trophy, as in “His first wife was disagreething his new, much younger buxom blonde second wife.”

Chin Fung is, I suppose, short for chin fungus, and refers to a beard. Speaking as one who sports “chin fungus” I feel that the term is rather derogatory. I’m not sure that I want to do business with these people.