The Term Is Murder
East Hampton
May 3, 1998

Dear Star Editors:

Your editorial of April 30, "Courage in Albany," praises Representative Fred. W. Thiele Jr. and the vote he cast against a ban on partial birth abortion. Thiele voted on the side of Speaker Sheldon Silver, who wants to keep the bill against the ban buried in committee. That way it will never be discussed on the floor. It will never be discussed "on its merits," which seemed to please The Star.

It will never be revealed that this procedure means that the baby is killed just before it is all the way out of the birth canal.

Perhaps The Star is correct in calling partial birth abortion a misleading term. The correct term for this procedure is murder.

Another merit for the ban is that the American Medical Association has stated that partial birth abortion is never medically necessary.

Very truly yours,

LAWRENCE J. KONCELIK
DORIS W. KONCELIK

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Ode To Viagra
Three cheers for the men and the women of Pfizer
Thanks to them every man, free spender or miser,
Whose attempts at lovemaking were a bit of a flop
Can now buy an erection - just $10 a pop.

I'm told that in Florida the phone lines are jammed
The wait for a doctor's appointment be damned
These guys want Viagra and they want it now
Fax it, Fed-Ex it, they'll get it somehow.

Their wives are quite glum, eyes glazed over and red,
For they thought they were through with that nonsense in bed
They're not thrilled at the prospect that now once again
They'll have to put up with virile "young" men.

Then along comes the Pope who gives it a nod -
That makes it a drug that's been endorsed by God
With that stamp of approval, sales will skyrocket
The right wing, the left wing, no one can knock it.

And psychiatrists have already met to declare,
With the stigma of impotence no longer there
They're about to create a whole new affliction
It will be called Viagra addiction.

Then health companies will pay not just for the pill
But they'll pay when the pill make the pill takers ill
(Overindulgence just doesn't hold water
Unless it's a Mental or Social Disorder.)

Mark my words, folks, we'll soon long for the day
When arousal took place the old fashioned way
When the engines were gunned and put in full throttle
You knew it was you, not a pill from a bottle.

COLLEEN RANDO

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Disingenuous Claims
East Hampton
May 3, 1998

Dear Helen,

In his last week's letter defending his committee's award to Karl Grossman for Karl's campaign against nuclear power in space, Hunter College professor Peter Parisi called for "a focus on substance" and accused me of "ad hominem" attacks against Grossman.

But he ignores the fact that my letter to The Star indeed focused on the substance of Grossman's writings and carefully documented the false and misleading statements that Karl has made and the fearmongering polemics that he uses. Please note that Parisi could not and did not take issue with any of the facts that I documented.

But we need not go any further than Grossman's boastful new column in last week's Star to prove my point. A few examples:

Perhaps because of my nailing him on a number of his previous charges about the Cassini spacecraft's mission to Saturn, Karl no longer makes the preposterous claim that an inadvertent re-entry by Cassini into the Earth's atmosphere and the release of the plutonium in its electrical generators could kill as many as 40 million people. Instead, he merely repeats a portion of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's environmental impact statement that he thinks suggests the same thing, a statement that he clearly doesn't understand.

And Karl no longer falsely claims that, instead of using plutonium generators, Cassini could have used more efficient solar cells developed by the European Space Agency. Why? Because in a previous letter I quoted an E.S.A. official who stated flatly that those cells, which by the way are still under development, were not "a viable power source alternative" for Cassini.

So what does Grossman say now? Warning about NASA's continuing use of plutonium generators, he writes: "New, high efficiency solar cells have been developed for deep space probes." That vague and evasive statement still clearly suggests that Cassini could have used these mythical cells and that they should also be used, instead of plutonium generators, for future missions to the outer planets.

Really, Karl? Who has developed these solar cells? And why doesn't NASA know about them? Perform a valuable public service, and let everybody in on the secret.

To summarize, anyone who makes the kind of claims that Grossman has published is either naãve or, to put it mildly, disingenuous. And I don't think that Karl is naãve. If that's an ad hominem attack, I take full responsibility for making it.

Sincerely yours,

LEON JAROFF

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