Inquiring Minds I was delighted to read the profile of Frank B. Wilderson III ’78 [“Emphasis Mine,” Sept/Oct]. At a juncture when our country faces economic decimation, interminable, unwinnable wars and gargantuan mounds of debt, I have been hoping for signs of life from Hanover. Is the College’s role merely to produce self-satisfied and reliable cogs for a status quo that has been seriously floundering? Or is it to produce graduates who might be able to think organically about our country and help lead America to a better place? I am not sure that Wilderson has the right answers, but at least he is asking fundamental questions. Isn’t that what Dartmouth purports to be about?

Christopher C. Schons ’88 Arlington, Virginia

Mothers’ Way Thank you for a wonderful juxtaposition of the joyous story of Dartmouth’s evolution, “This Isn’t My Mother’s Dartmouth” [Sept/Oct] with the cynical and bleak undercurrent of Wilderson’s Afro-pessimism. It seems that in the span of a generation Dartmouth has achieved a degree of gender normalcy that was painfully missing in my day. Let’s hope it won’t take another generation for Afro-pessimism to be cast off in favor of a new racial normalcy for the nation. Very clever editing!

Bruce Pigozzi ’67 East Lansing, Michigan

Good Books I thoroughly enjoyed “Recommended Reading” in the Sept/Oct issue. As a religion major, and given Dartmouth’s historic connections with such figures as Joseph Campbell and Robert Oden, I was surprised that no picks were offered from this field of study. Would it be possible to ask someone in the department for their input?

John Sucke ’90 New York City

Editor’s Note: We asked Reiko Ohnuma, acting chair of the religion department, who kindly responded. Favorite book to teach: Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda, translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (Columbia University Press, 1977); must-read book in your field: Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature, by Liz Wilson (University of Chicago Press, 1996); favorite pleasure read: Oh the Glory of It All, by Sean Wilsey (Penguin, 2005); currently reading: Motley Crue: The Dirt—Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx (It Books, 2002). Diving In In an institution where obsessive caution, avoidance of all risk and preoccupation with political correctness override common sense, it is extremely disappointing, though not surprising, that the associate dean for campus life would make such an appallingly bad decision as to remove the swimming docks from the riverfront [“Campus,” Sept/Oct]. Clearly, she has not heard of the legendary Storrs Pond Monster or she would never have suggested Storrs Pond as an acceptable alternative. It is this sort of nonsense that encourages me and, perhaps, other alumni not to contribute to Dartmouth lest we encourage its irrational decision-making.

M. Joseph McHugh ’60, Tu’61 Dallas

Proverbial Wisdom How fortuitous that the Sept/Oct DAM features “All About Algorithms” as well as “Reason, Logic and Belief.” In the former, Judith Hertog writes, “Since ancient times humans have tried to understand their own minds…but we still don’t understand how we think.” Surely this mystery provides fertile ground for an exploration from the religious perspective of The Dartmouth Apologia.

Nesanel (Stephen) Kasnett ’67 Brooklyn, New York

Dollars and Sense? It was fascinating to read of the popularity of the study of economics [“Supply & Demand,” Jul/Aug]. Unfortunately, the economic research studies cited for praise seemed to me like a waste of time. The answers to questions such as whether or not a first-year student is more likely to rush a fraternity if his roommate did, do children adopted by smart parents wind up more successful than they would have been had they stayed with their birth families, do better-educated people suffer less back pain or are employees less likely to procrastinate about saving if they have money automatically deducted and deposited into an investment account hardly seem worth examining. Maybe my Dartmouth education coupled with a few years in the real world has given me an advantage in deducing the correct answers to those questions without the need for quantitative study. I am disappointed that we cannot come up with more important studies on which to spend time and money.

Edward Spurgeon ’53, Tu/Th’54 Darien, Connecticut

A Cool Reaction Anthony Newey ’56 [“Letters,” Sept/Oct] takes issue with my statement in the May/June issue that global warming is based on voodoo science. In trying to refute it, he first states that almost all carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels, which is completely false. He also thinks “ultraviolet radiation from the sun is reflected back out in the infrared range” and that “CO2 in the air will hold on to reflected energy that came originally from the sun.” False on every count. It is not just ultraviolet rays but all wavelengths of the spectrum that reach us from the sun. They are absorbed, not reflected, and CO2 does not hold on to “reflected” energy from the sun but absorbs emitted energy from the earth. “If any of these statements are voodoo science, I will stand corrected,” he wrote. Anthony, all of the above are voodoo science.

Arno Arrak ’51 Dix Hills, New York