Your topics on “Street Talk,” in general, have not given this reader much in which to be interested. However, as a retired chemistry professor and exclusively interested in pure basic “science,” the question, “What is the most technological advance of the last 50 years?” (New Times, July 31, 2008), did give me pause to read the chosen responses.

One is not surprised by the answers, confirming the view that our young do not get educated, just trained to be part of the mass movement to follow what the corporate think tanks, along with the politicians mandate masses to be in toe. The likes of Bill Gates and Google, along with all the ISP managers, love the trend.

Mediocrity has the upper hand and scholarship is down the toilet. Thinking is inimical to the American psyche and an enemy of the economic excesses required of U.S. residents, like the one-person-one-car with living room comforts on four wheels. Technology, not real “science,” is the trump card leading towards the polluted life for us all.