John Glenn speaks truth to power

Dear Ed:

On my globe, the great circle from Chicago to Hong Kong passes south of the
Bering Sea.

Flying across the pole itself -- instead of just 'near the pole' as some
flight attendant may have told rookie travelers -- would be a fuel-wasting
diversion unless there was some other significant reason.

Which planet do YOU live on?

Jim Oberg

www.jamesoberg.com


"Edward G. Nilges" wrote
I recently traveled from Chicago to Hong Kong and was fascinated to
learn that we were flying over the North Pole.

Yet my fellow passengers, who loudly proclaimed that they were
"successful businessmen" actually had taken the trip countless time
yet believed that we were traveling in a "great circle" to the south
of the Bering Sea. Not only this they presumed to inform me of this
"fact" because it was my first time to travel this route.

Orality and self-proclaimed "expertise" would loudly replace the mere
ability to read a map and the knowledge of the distinction between
Cartesian and polar coordinates, and indeed make that knowledge into a
secret, hidden in the GPS sensor into which the humanity of the
designer has disappeared.

This is the very type of the Bush supporter: the man who dismisses
art, culture and now science unless it can provably contribute to a
"bottom line" which we now know from Haiti is a Heart of Darkness. Who
travels in a Euclidean dream world between point A and B, and who
substitutes loud opinion for knowledge.
and thugs.