PG columnist leads the head-in-the-sand brigade

Is oil a finite resource? If so, should we do something to manage our consumption of it? These are the two questions Jack Kelly does not ask in his column "Fuel Policy Is Foolish" (May 24).

He does say that higher CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards will mean Americans will have less desirable choices for vehicles, although he never says pickup or SUV. This plays into the myth that Americans like things bigger and more excessive, that we are all cowboys who race huge SUVs over untouched wildernesses. In reality the big SUV is only used to haul the playpen, toys and other accessories of spoiled 3-year-olds.

Mr. Kelly further suggests that California fuel standards are somehow related to that state's deficit and to "periodic" brownouts. I challenge Mr. Kelly to say when the last communitywide brownout has occurred in California.

But just like the backlash against Jimmy Carter's cardigan and his solar panels, Mr. Kelly leads the charge of the heads in the sand, that we have all the oil we need for the next 20 years if we just drill. The question is, what happens after 20 years? What will happen to our (grand)children when gas reaches (in 2009 dollars) $20 or $50 a gallon in 20 years?

If we take steps now, our (grand)children will be able to have the same lifestyle the Europeans have now. Which is to say lots of public transportation, single-payer health care, bikes and walking, and houses/apartment buildings clustered around train/tram stops.

ED HEATH

Stanton Heights

Kelly’s disconnect

The PG should fire Jack Kelly as a columnist. His pieces are full of inaccuracies, exaggerations, misleading statements and right-wing fear-mongering. They do a disservice to the PG and its readers. A case in point is his column "Fuel Policy Is Foolish" (May 24). He speculates that President Barack Obama's proposed fuel efficiency standards (e.g. 39 mpg combined city/highway driving by 2016) will cause cars to be more expensive, smaller and less comfortable. The Toyota Prius demonstrates Kelly's disconnect with reality.

The Prius is a roomy, five-passenger car with 16.2 cubic feet of cargo space. My Prius achieved a carefully measured overall 44.5 mpg in Pittsburgh driving over the past three years, well exceeding the proposed standard. In addition, a well-respected consumer magazine consistently rates the Prius as the least expensive car in its class to own (total cost over five years) and highest of all vehicles in owner satisfaction. The Ford Fusion hybrid already meets the standards, and plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars will soon be available.

Concerning safety, I have avoided crashes in my nimble Prius that certainly would have occurred if I were driving one of the lumbering behemoths that Mr. Kelly states Americans will demand in 2016. Extending Mr. Kelly's crash safety logic, we would all be driving Sherman tanks.

Mr. Kelly sells American ingenuity short with his misinformed statements about efficiency standards. The PG should carry columnists aware of the present and not those mired in the 1990s.

WALTER MASTROPAOLO

Mt. Lebanon

Behind the times

PG columnist Jack Kelly's criticism of enhanced automobile mileage (CAFE) standards ("Fuel Policy Is Foolish," May 24) might have deserved respectful consideration 10 years ago but fails to acknowledge current realities.

Of these, the imperative to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from cars and other sources is paramount for protecting our entire civilization from the dangers of unmitigated climate change. The stronger standards are a means to move in this direction, but the claim they necessarily make cars less safe is fallacious. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration study of 1991-1999 cars (outdated but the best we have) tells us that increasing mileage by reducing vehicle weight will either reduce safety (by replacing mid/large cars with small ones) or increase safety by replacing SUVs with lighter midsize or large cars - i.e., we have a choice.

More important, most future efficiency improvements will require no reduction in weight, but rather the substitution of electric power for the less-efficient internal combustion engine. The new standards will facilitate this transition to electricity, as well as the transition from coal to alternative energy as a source for electricity generation. In that sense, they are a vital step forward.

FRED MOOLTEN

North Strabane

Words of wisdom

I do not know Schuyler Foerster but neither did I know Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Foerster's address ("Dear Graduates ...," May 24 Forum) must be the second-best one to date.

How lucky for La Roche College graduates to hear a message of such importance and relevancy at their commencement. Education, global awareness and respect/compassion together is about all we need to know. Let's hope the graduates were listening.

CHARLES S. MERROTH

Warren, Pa.

War enlightenment

When I saw the Sunday Forum piece "They Died for You" (May 24) by Rick Atkinson, I thought it was the Memorial Day standard fare written as much out of a sense of obligation as a memorial. But it was something else. That short article gave me a better understanding of our role in World War II than other lengthier articles that I have read.

I knew the Russians had far more casualties and that the United States didn't win the war alone, but I never realized our true contributions. It seems, once, we were capable of fighting smart and providing what our forces, and our ally forces, needed.

We went to war with the Army we had, just like Donald Rumsfeld was so fond of saying about Iraq, but we adapted and adjusted in a national effort to win. Patriotism wasn't confined to the few willing to fight and die. Anything less than an all-out effort by the rest of us, including corporations, wasn't a consideration.

I believe that the American people will always fight willingly in a just war, but today war and the threat of war have become negotiating tools, leaving the American people out of the equation except as cannon fodder. I was both proud and ashamed on this Memorial Day.

GENE D. ZIZIS

West Mifflin

A wall’s a wall

I enjoyed reading PG Executive Editor David M. Shribman's interesting column on the fall of the Berlin Wall in last Sunday's Post-Gazette ("After the Wall," May 24). However, it could have been more interesting had he mentioned the irony that 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, our government is building an American version of the Berlin Wall on our southern border.

Defenders of this wall claim that it is different because it is intended to keep people "out" rather than "in." However, the reality is that from the point of view of someone trying to escape the violence and poverty of Mexico, it makes no difference whatsoever whether you say you are keeping him "out" of the United States or forcing him to remain "in" Mexico.

HENRY HALLER III

Shadyside

Our nation has better standards than such "techniques"

Regarding "Shame on the Press" (May 24 Forum): Shame, indeed!

Richard Saccone's commentary was a collection of empty rhetorical devices, irrelevancies and straight-faced sarcasm, which reflects badly on his own scholarship and military career and on the editorial standards of the Post-Gazette.

Of the Bush administration's hair-splitting, Professor Saccone reminds us that "... the [John Yoo-Jay Bybee] memos were crafted specifically to explain why the techniques were not torture." This, of course, is precisely why those men face disciplinary, and possible criminal, proceedings. Some of the "techniques" - no, torture - which he (and they) want to defend are those same crimes for which we joined the prosecution of Japan in the International Military Tribunal.

Professor Saccone has experiences in Asia and Iraq that I have not had. I don't dispute that he has met some evil men along the way. But I don't agree that our democracy should model its behavior by the standards of dictatorships and terrorists.

If the Post-Gazette believes that there could be "another side" to this story, then you ought to join those of us calling for a thorough investigation of the matter. But you aren't helping when you publish inflammatory nonsense presented as "balance."

JOHN DETWILER

Squirrel Hill

Issue One for May 31, 2009: Health care

Scared giants

Why is it the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies are now suddenly willing to say they'll rein in their profits slightly over several years rather than have single-payer health care on the table as a viable option? Why are they willing to spend millions of dollars for ads meant to frighten us with buzzwords like "socialism" and "government-run"?

Funny, I haven't heard horror stories when folks cash their Social Security checks or see a doctor, Medicare card in hand, and these are two socialistic, government-run programs with long and very good track records. Could it be because these greedy companies know that they cannot compete with a plan that covers everyone, allows you to choose your doctors, continues even if you lose your job, would negotiate lower prices for drugs, would not charge higher premiums because of health conditions, would keep administrative costs down and cover preventive care?

There are more than 1,000 organizations supporting single-payer health care and millions of citizens begging for it, yet we are told it's not going to be seriously considered or even be "on the table." Why is it that people living in countries that have single-payer health care describe themselves as being some of the happiest people in the world (Denmark being No. 1)? You'd think the health insurance companies would be delighted to go head to head, if what they're offering is so much better. Instead they are really, really frightened.

Time to call your senators and urge them to support single-payer health care. You can bet they've already heard from the health insurance/drug companies.

CHERYL DUNN

Edgewood

Tactics vs. truth

I am glad to see that letter writer Dave Majernik is so concerned about defending a patient's access to surgery like the double hand transplant that recently took place at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center ("Would a New Health System Allow This Operation?" May 21). I am also glad to see that he is so well-informed that he can state, with certainty, that such a procedure would not be possible in our country if we had, gasp, socialized medicine.

I mean, what if someone needed a partial or full face transplant? Would they be able to get that surgery in a country with socialized medicine like, say, France? Oh, wait ... someone did get that surgery there.

Quit trying to scare seniors. They already know that while our health-care procedures are top-notch, so are the costs! Eat dinner today or pay for a prescription? I think seniors should be able to do both!

MICHAEL KONIECZKI

Ohio Township

Torture diminishes us as a nation

I want to thank the Post-Gazette for its excellent May 23 editorial "Do Unto Others: What Would Jesus Say About Torturing Captives?" June is Torture Awareness Month, and our opportunity to declare torture as being morally wrong.

Torture is not only forbidden by international laws, to which the United States is a signatory, but also by our religious teachings. "Remember those in prison as though you yourself were in prison with them; those who are being tortured as though you yourselves were being tortured" (Hebrews 13:3).

When we use these harsh interrogation techniques that humiliate and cause bodily harm to another person, it diminishes us as a country. To ask our soldiers to use these techniques is to ask them to do something that will haunt them. We have all seen the photos from Abu Ghraib. Would we want our son or daughter to use torture on another person?

Now is the opportunity for all Pennsylvanians to remember our rich history of support for the human rights of all peoples, and in June join others around the country by calling on our president and congressional representatives to support a commission of inquiry that will provide an accounting of U.S.-sponsored torture policies and practices so that necessary safeguards can be put into place to assure that torture never happens again.

SCILLA WAHRHAFTIG

Pennsylvania Program Director, American Friends Service Committee

Park Place

WANDA GUTHRIE

Roots of Promise, A Thomas Merton Center Project

Garfield

Shameless PG

You know you've lost the argument in the "torture" debate when you invoke Jesus to help make your point. That's exactly what the PG did in its May 23 editorial "Do Unto Others." One can only imagine the scorn that the PG would heap upon anyone in the public sector using Jesus as a guidepost for making policy. Yet the Double-Standard Gazette has no problem invoking Jesus to advance its political and policy position.

While gushing platitudes about what Jesus would say, the PG conveniently ignores what Jesus did. In a famous biblical incident, Jesus took a whip to the temple moneychangers and other hypocrites advancing their financial interests while operating under the guise of religion. I'm sure the PG would call this whipping "torture," but would Jesus?

Since you are attempting to channel Jesus' opinion, why not go further and imagine what Jesus would say should be done to a group who delight in planning and carrying out the murder of innocent men, women and children under the guise of religion?

Your transparent and clumsy attempt to shame your opponents in this debate by invoking Jesus' name is intellectually dishonest and, frankly, an embarrassment. Your readers deserve better.

DOUGLAS POWELL

Robinson