Carl Hiaasen, The Miami Herald

February 17, 2008

Carl Hiaasen

The Miami Herald

One Herald Plaza

Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: Evolution, “loony gibberish”, and a sense of whimsy

Mr. Hiaasen,

How God Damn dare you tell me I am descended from apes. Bears, maybe. Apes, never.

As to the “loony gibberish” of those folk who think maybe there may be some other answer than the one now accepted as the only answer I present a few other examples of “loony gibberish”?

1 – Almost 40 years ago I was told by Paul Ehrlich that we would either starve to death or freeze to death by the year 2000. As of today February 17, 2008 I am still alive and still calorically challenged.

2 – If, as you say, “Florida’s plucky refusal to embrace 21^st century education is one reason that prestigious tech industries have avoided the state…” would it not therefore follow Logically that Washington, DC, an area with the highest per capita pupil expenditure – well above $21,000 - in the world would be swamped with high tech industries and have to deal with a surplus of PhDs and Nobel Prize winners?

I take perverse delight in pointing out that the current tenant in the biggest individually occupied unit of public housing, AKA The White House, sent his daughters to public school [Westlake High School] while his predecessor sent his daughter to a posh prep school in DC where the tuition for a day student is now $30,000 a year.

Speaking of “loony gibberish”, there is no better example of it being spewed than the former Vice President, the dumbest man in public life, Alpha Gump. I was shocked, shocked when I found out that his children, true Gumpsters all, never sat foot in any of the fine public schools in Washington, DC. Maybe there is a novel there.

3 – As to the “annual FCAT charade” perhaps I can offer some help, particularly in the math section.

Since we know that the only goal of modern American Liberal education is to increase the self esteem of the students who, being lucky enough to be born but then finding themselves “unlucky in life’s lottery” and, thus, consigned to public schools, here is one of my solutions:

Pi is no longer 3.1416. Pi is now 3.0

Think how much easier Geometry will be. Test scores will soar. Kids will feel really, really good about themselves. Of course, a few decades hence the bridges will all fall down. Who cares? The one in Minneapolis fell down with Pi at 3.1416, didn’t it? What’s the risk? What’s the downside? We can have kids gushing about what nice people they are or we can have right angles and joints meeting where they should meet or we can have Dr. Phil take over all of afternoon television. If it’s for the children count me in.

Don’t worry about Florida losing its reputation for “backwardness”.

For a state with no money we were able to build a $500,000,000 music hall in Miami. Since nobody ever counts the vigorish on servicing a debt of $500,000,000 [that’s 500 million dollars for 30 years at 5%] I won’t. Nobody noticed that there was no place to park until the building was built. And enough with these Eyetie operas1 How about some foul mouthed, gold toothed, gang banga telling me how bad George Bush is? How about some David Allen Coe? How about Lawrence Welk and his friggin’ bubble machine?

Now we want to build a $500,000,000 baseball stadium. No mention of the vig there either.

Did it ever occur to you that we can learn from the Bank of Nunzio? Sub prime mortgage crisis? No way. About a 3 week run on orthopaedic clinics, perhaps a temporary shortage of casts and crutches, good times for rehab clinics, after that…back to normal.

Madness. What kind of an education did these people get?

You know, you may be on to something with your caterwauling about “loony gibberish”.

How about we put signs up on our Southern borders saying

Welcome to Florida

Haiti is worse

Well, it’s almost time to go. Around this time in the AM I like to handle my snakes, particularly the big vipers. That’s why I want Rikki Tikki Tavi banned from grammar school libraries. Then I like to field strip and clean my BAR and hand load some ammo. That’s my idea of an assault weapon. Perhaps La Commedia later in the day. That’s the one whose first line stays with me always.

“Halfway through my journey I found myself in the dark wood of error.”

PS – Grizzlies or Kodiaks only. Not Polar bears because they eat baby seals. Not Black bears because they’re sneaky. Not Pandas because they are Yellow Peril druggies. And can you think of any other theory, said theory being posited 150 years ago, that has neither been proved or disproved after all that time? We got from the first manned flight to walking on the moon in 66 years. We went from theoretical knowledge of the atom to turning Hiroshima and Nagasaki into the world’s largest Hitachi in 3 years. What’s taking so long with making Bonzo everybody’s grandfather? Maybe Congressman Waxman can have hearings on the subject.