First duty of the living is to keep living
7/29/2001I hope the President decides not to use federal funds to help in stem cell research. Whenever the government donates money to anything, that endeavor becomes entangled with strings and red tape of all kinds.
However, I have absolutely no compunction about creating and using embryos, human or otherwise. In plain truth that blob lying in that Petrie dish is just that; a blob. Or material, if you'd rather I say. Only a womb can make anything into something viable.
Right now you may have a friend or loved on who is suffering miserably with a curable disease and that person may die unnecessarily.
To those who recoil from embryo destruction, I say think about it when you cook and eat eggs. More than that, think of what you are doing when you eat veal or lamb. Scientists intend to create their embryos; there is no tender love of man plus woman involved in manufacturing this material.
If we don't do it, it will surely be done in some other country anyway. The medical profession has no need for government funds. Personally, I think what they really want is government's blessing.
If you insist on thinking that material in that dish is viable, just try to remember what life was like before you were ever born. And it will be the same after you die. You will have no more remembrance of life than you had before birth.
The first duty of the living is to keep living. Let us help the living to do so.
JOHN B. BELCHER
Alexis Road
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I was disturbed by assertions made in the editorial titled “The power of Dick Cheney.” You implied that Mr. Cheney does not value conservation of power and he is a major power user looking for someone else to pay the bill.
It is my understanding that the $186,000 addressed in your editorial is not a bill for electricity actually consumed. It is a calculated yearly estimate used in the appropriations process. The figure was obtained by taking the expenses from the first six months of the fiscal year, which began October 1, 2000, and multiplying it by two.
The estimated time period would be October through March of this year. During the majority of that period, the well-known conservationist, Al Gore, lived in the residence. Mr. Cheney did not move in until after he assumed the office of vice president. Don't you remember the protesters outside the Naval Observatory holding signs that requested Mr. Gore to “leave Dick Cheney's house”?
W.E. HODGES
Sylvania
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We just returned to Nova Scotia (it's just a little to the north and east of Maine) from your lovely city. We want to say thank you.
Traveling far from home can be a little intimidating, especially when the destination is a first time endeavor. Your residents - the ones we had the pleasure to meet - made it a real pleasure.
Everywhere we went we found your citizens to be friendly, interested, and inquisitive. There were lots of smiles and we felt right at home. If you know anything about Maritime Canada you will understand that that is a big plus. It's how we live here - making people feel at home - and you are just the same.
To the lovely lady at Dillard's in the Franklin Park Mall, to all the staff at the Sleep Inn in Oregon, to the terrific associates at Meijer in Oregon, and especially to Patrick at Sound Asylum, a heartfelt thank you from all of us. If these wonderful people are examples of what Toledo is all about, then you are in for a beautiful future in your lovely little city beside the Maumee River!
ROSEMARY WALL
Barrington Passage
Nova Scotia
Canada
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Your July 18 article about our FBI and missing guns proves one thing. The anti-gun people are correct. People are good, guns are bad.
We all know the FBI are good folks. The FBI simply had the bad luck of owning 450 bad guns. These bad guns must have come from poor homes, with little or no training. The bad guns ran away. One gun even committed a homicide!
Forget about our Second Amendment. We must take guns away from everyone. The FBI, BATF, police, and military must be disarmed, although the criminals will probably keep their guns.
This act may disrupt some politicians' plans for the United States becoming a police state like China. If we save just one life, it will be worth it.
Gee, I like the anti-gun logic.
LOUIS A. MARLATT, JR.
Lyons
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Honest ignorance is one thing for which one can be excused. Studied ignorance, however, is, in my opinion, something quiet different.
An excellent example of studied ignorance: the July 15 letter, “Researchers worth 10,000 doctors.” Example: To state that if it were not for pharmaceutical research, today's physicians would still be riding ponies to visit patients is obviously to engage in gross exaggeration and distortion of truth and reality.
One wonders what the author's career might be and whether, given the opportunity to return to high school days and to choose a different career, he would elect to undertake the long and arduous, extremely expensive study of medicine as presently constituted in this high-tech age, requiring as it does sacrifice and postponement of many activities most of those in their 20s and early 30s take for granted, enduring grueling years of internship in one's field of specialization at low pay (while his or her former high school classmates have been long established in their careers earning substantial incomes in many cases).
One also wonders if the author, as a recent medical school graduate, truly would enjoy being restricted on every side concerning his practice, his professional decisions where patients' health care is concerned via the intrusions of third-party controls such as HMOs and health insurance companies, and other such inhibiting factors as the ever-present threat of lawsuits instituted by unhappy patients who've been encouraged to file such lawsuits on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Would he actually enjoy paying the astronomical malpractice insurance premiums that have driven some medical specialists out of practice or into early retirement thereby depriving many long-term patients of their valuable services and expertise?
And certainly, if the author were confronted with the personal diagnosis of brain tumor, he would immediately appeal for help to the nearest prominent pharmaceutical researcher, right?
LOREN L. PACE
Findlay
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The series of articles on Afghanistan was excellent. I get my news from about a dozen U.S. and foreign web sites daily. I believe this series by Dr. S. Amjad Hussain is the best coverage that I've seen in many months of a complex situation so misrepresented in the United States.
ENVER MASUD
Arlington, Va.
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It was quite refreshing to hear about Presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin coming to an agreement in Genoa about ABMs and the nuclear arsenal. However, it was quite disturbing to learn that none of it had to do with human rights violations committed by the Russians in the war waged in Chechnya against innocent people.
If the United States truly cared about human rights in the world, then this issue would be leading the agenda. However, Mr. Bush continues to tread the path of his predecessors by just talking about human rights when need be. It is very troubling that the American public is so taken aback with the human rights violations that occur on a day-to-day basis by the Israelis and Russians on the Palestinians and Chechens and nothing is done about it.
Newspapers and media outlets controlled by the Zionists in this country have yet to speak the truth of what goes on in that part of the world.
MOHAMMAD SMIDI
Perrysburg
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If guns are so useless for self-defense, why is it that police carry them?
DAVID HUNT
Sandusky