Letters: Dec. 25, 2006

(5 of 6)

In "10 Questions for Al Gore" [Dec. 4], the former Vice President dismissed people who doubt the science of global warming by likening them to "people who believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona." I believe the earth is warming, but Gore is unfair. Almost everyone ignores the fact that water vapor is the greatest contributor to greenhouse-gas warming. Maybe if Gore would recognize that we cannot control global warming as much as we think, we could set aside such a relatively unimportant issue and move the crucial crises, such as genocide and starvation, to the top of the political agenda. DONNIE BOYCE Lake Forest, Ill.

Time noted that Senator James Inhofe has called global-warming science a "hoax." Given a choice of hoaxes, I'll take Gore's humanitarian crusade over the Bush Administration's misguided "war on terror" any day. CARLOS O. SANTACRUZ Doral, Fla.

Free-Market Man

Ben Stein wrote an over-the-top, utterly misguided eulogy for economist Milton Friedman [Nov. 27]. Friedman thought that freedom comes primarily from laissez-faire capitalism, meaning government should leave business alone. This concept was useful at the time of the American Revolution but is surely anachronistic now. Even Adam Smith said that when men of the same trade meet they conspire against the public. Friedman's thinking provides a rationalization for government to turn business loose and empower it to monopolize the market, exploit the consumer and pollute the environment. HARRY L. COOK Ashland, Ore.

I enjoyed Stein's tribute to Friedman. Surely, it is a difficult task to write an adequate epitaph for a Nobel prizewinner who had a positive impact on hundreds of millions of people around the world. Friedman defied the political correctness of his day to show that America's unique success was due to its founders' creation of a system that minimized the government and maximized personal and market freedoms. ROGER E. HAUGO Sioux Falls, S.D.

Reviving 'Rithmetic

RE "How to End the Math Wars" [Nov. 27]: I have a novel idea for how to end the controversy over mathematics education. Ever hear of 2+2 = 4, 6x3 = 18? Maybe if we were to go back to the "Stone Age" of teaching arithmetic, then our children would have the basic skills and be able to compete internationally. Instead our children are not becoming literate in math. How many teenage store clerks are capable of making change? There are already math lessons that have been passed down for thousands of years. Why don't we go back to using them? Let's make our educators teach for a change. JULIE A. POTTS Belleville, Ill.

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