Correspondence
Correspondence THE CHINA SYNDROME GARY SCHMITT WRITES in "The Real Empire" (September 1/September 8) that China, not the United States, is the sole multicultural empire left today. While I agree...
...But it would be extremely foolish to delay a major transmission-line construction program that is urgently needed now for homeland security...
...He fails to grasp that the modern dictionary is not a portrait of the language, idealized by a sycophantic painter, but instead a mirror held up to show what the language actually looks like, warts and all...
...is the lesser evil...
...In his inaugural address, the thirtieth president, who cut taxes four times, took the same position as Kristol and offered an identical justification: "The method of raising revenue ought not to impede the transaction of business...
...If Fiske wants a book to guide users as to what is the highest generally accepted standard of educated English, I recommend a good usage manual (such as Bryan Garner's Dictionary of Modern American Usage...
...ALVIN S. FELZENBERG Washington, DC THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY I BEGAN ROBERT HARTWELL FISKE'S review of the eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary with great interest ("Don't Look It Up...
...France and Germany have recognized that neither country can rule Europe alone, but together they have built the E.U., an institution that in all but name constitutes a Franco-German empire...
...August 18) but finished it with an even greater incredulity...
...Meanwhile, our military cannot slacken at all in the international war to wipe out terrorist organizations...
...Fiske argues that lexicographers are adding ephemeral and "illiterate" words to their dictionaries, and that by doing so they are encouraging illiteracy...
...THOMAS P SHEAHEN Deer Park, MD GENERAL CONFUSION IT IS TRUE, as I believe the Democrat-Gazette was the first to report, that General Wesley Clark voted in Arkansas's Democratic party primary in 2002...
...The only protection against an attack is to build a huge increase in transmission capacity at once, so that no transmission corridor operates near its limits...
...As an example, Fiske cites the conflation of "disinterested" and "uninterested"— but neglects to mention the nearly 20 lines that the editors of the MW11 have included in their entry for "disinterested" explaining the development of the meaning of these two words, the historical basis for using "disinterested" to mean "not interested in," and the fact that actual evidence shows the meaning "not having a selfish motive or interest" is, in fact, the most used sense—so that the "vanished distinction" that Fiske laments is actually alive and well...
...Perhaps an occasional blackout...
...It is absurd to suppose that it is envious of those who are already prosperous...
...We would warmly welcome the "godfather of neoconservatism" into our ranks...
...As he did in so many matters, Ronald Reagan knew what he was doing when he hung silent Cal's portrait in a place of honor in the White House Cabinet room...
...Those who suffer the most will be the poor...
...This country believes in prosperity...
...We shall do well to heed it...
...Each component of Stelzer's closing remarks will come true, including most noticeably the billions added to electric bills (a reasonable guess: $100 per person per year...
...JOSEPH SHIER Toronto, Ontario BLACKOUT TERRORS IN HIS ARTICLE "What the Blackout Made Clear" (September 1/September 8), Irwin M. Stelzer carefully analyzes the social, legal, and bureaucratic causes of the recent northeastern blackout, and then ends his otherwise astute article with a wisecrack: "All we have to do is surrender some due process protections, replace local with federal control...
...ERIN MCKEAN Oxford University Press Chicago, IL...
...Arkansas does not register voters by party affiliation...
...Every utility knows how to tolerate the sudden loss of one transmission line (lightning can cause that), and every regional system operates with a slight margin for such contingencies...
...One wonders why, given Kristol's espousal of tax cuts as a "neoconserva-tive" tenet because they stimulate growth and reduce so-called "class warfare...
...Can we not see that the opposition by France and Germany to the war in iraq was based on the threat to their interests posed by such a war, both by detaching "old" from "new" Europe and by weakening the institutions that aid the E.U.'s power...
...The events of August 14 send al Qaeda an invitation to try it...
...We do agree with Continetti that it's significant Wesley Clark chose to lend a hand in selecting the Arkansas Democratic party's nominees last year, however...
...Allowing for that would require a much bigger operating margin...
...His action spawned a Coolidge revival among conservatives of all stripes...
...He should leave the lexicographers to do their jobs—reporting the facts, however ugly they may be to his eyes...
...With all the "sleeper cells" hanging around in total boredom lately, it would be very simple for al Qaeda to arrange a coordinated attack, toppling several high-voltage towers at conveniently placed points...
...Al Qaeda is now alerted to how simple it is to bring down the grid over a huge region...
...Thanks to vast improvements in the collection and analysis of language data, lexicographers can now report what people actually write (and, to a lesser extent, say) instead of what people think they write and say...
...I am opposed to high rates, because they produce little or no revenue, because they are bad for the country, and, finally, because they are wrong...
...GRIFFIN SMITH Executive Editor Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Little Rock, AR THE KING OF COOLIDGE IN HIS SPLENDID ESSAY "The Neocon-servative Persuasion" (August 25), Irving Kristol notes that in their selection of heroes, neoconservatives "politely overlook" such "conservative worthies as Calvin Coolidge...
...Even a dictionary with a relatively small collection of language data, or a collection that's mostly citations instead of running text, such as Merriam-Webster's, can now rely on actual evidence instead of upon the introspection of lexicographers, who, if they were average speakers of English, would not be lexicographers...
...it ought to encourage it...
...Fiske's other examples are similarly straw men...
...and add several billions to our electric bills...
...A safe assumption is that terrorists, should they try hard enough, will be able to figure out where those sections are...
...in order for the system to ride through the resulting surges and sags in power, it will be necessary (for technical reasons) to operate with a margin of around 30 percent...
...We cannot finance the country, we cannot improve social conditions, through any system of injustice, even if we attempt to inflict it upon the rich...
...But this was not "an act that requires him to be a registered Democrat," as Matthew Continetti writes in "Drafting General Clark" (September 1/September 8...
...Stelzer omitted an important aspect of the blackout—it demonstrated the extreme vulnerability of the American electric grid...
...The wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful...
...Like good imperialists, they have found ways to co-opt the elites in the various societies they rule...
...The verdict stands...
...While I agree with him about China and the United States, Schmitt ignores another multicultural empire: the European Union...
...However, the simultaneous loss of several major high-voltage lines is another story...
...Most, if not all, of them are mere shibboleths, or, at best, matters of taste where people in good conscience can differ...
...Many of the "solecisms" Fiske rails against have a history of use in educated, edited English going back hundreds of years, and some have been used by well-respected and much-admired authors...
...Today, some sections of the grid operate very near to 100 percent of capacity...
...From now on, every regional-system manager has to plan around the contingency that 10 percent of his transmission capability (in random locations) might vanish instantly...
...The verdict of the country has been given on this question...
...America cannot possibly afford to station round-the-clock guards at every transformer and power tower...
...In any given year, a qualified voter can choose to participate in the primary election of either party (but not, of course, in both...
...if al Qaeda is vanquished (in a decade or two), that extra capability will be there to absorb the growing demand for electricity in the years ahead...
Vol. 9 • September 2003 • No. 2
