Mailbag

Thanks for Printing Hoffman’s Alternative-Reality Blather

Thank you for the essay on Obama bumper stickers by Jonathan Hoffman
(Guest Commentary, July 30). It’s refreshing to get my fix of
delusional alternative-reality blather somewhere besides the trolls
infesting Salon’s letters columns.

I live in a boring, predictable world in which it would be
impossible to vote for any currently conceivable Republican
presidential candidate unless the opposition was a whiny zombie
back-stabber (and, let’s face it, I don’t think Joe Lieberman is going
to get that far), and in which Barack Obama is disappointing to anyone
who believes in the rule of law and habeas corpus, but is nevertheless
far preferable to the other choices.

It’s invigorating to imagine a universe in which the right-wingers
have not alienated every portion of the electorate, except angry
bigoted white hate-mongers; in which Mitt Romney possesses wisdom,
charm and competence; and in which, as a result of disillusionment with
their candidate, U.S. citizens will (any minute now) suddenly swing
wholesale Republican.

Though I am but a puny liberal, I do share a contempt for the
display of commercial labels, and a distaste for bumper stickers. It’s
true that the bumper stickers I don’t like have more to do with
admonitions to honk if I love Jesus, or presumptive questions like
WWJD? Hoffman somehow doesn’t mention these offenses. I’m sure he just
overlooked them, though, and I would like to offer him my
counter-strategies: Fight bumper stickers with bumper stickers, so I
have created one that reads, “Shut up if you aren’t Jesus,” and another
that reads JWDW?, which, translated, is “Jesus would do
what?”

And in closing: Boegle! PORE (Fiction 84, July 30)! For crying out
loud, you edit a paper! Were you judging the
microstories, or eating them for breakfast with syrup?

Jack Butler

‘The Hurt Locker’ Kinda Sucked

After seeing the movie The Hurt Locker, which is about young
men disarming bombs in one of the American war zones, I wondered why so
many reviews touted the film as “good” (Film Clips, Aug. 6). It’s a
horrible film with repetitive, gory scenes and weak characterization.
My wife kept checking her watch to see how much longer we would have to
sit until the end. One review said it was low-budget. Obviously. 84
Charlie MoPic, from 1989, is a low-budget icon of the
frugal-war-movie genre.

Ricardo Small

Tucsonans Should Come Together to Develop a Community Science
Center

In “Got Stars” (Currents, July 30), you mentioned that “no one has
surfaced publicly to champion or condemn Flandrau’s closing.”

I write you to add my voice, not to champion or condemn the closing
of Flandrau, nor solely to wax nostalgically about the passing of this
Tucson institution. Rather, I write to lament the declining richness of
our community that this closing represents and to ask if there can be
some alternative to the crumbling plans that now lay in ruin around us.
And I do mean “us,” not the university, or the city, or Rio Nuevo. It
is we, the community as a whole, which is poorer without a place like
Flandrau in it.

For 35 years, through good times and bad, Flandrau provided this
community with some measure of wonder, a place where one could come
face to face with phenomena and see the beauty of the sky explained in
vivid detail. How many tens of thousands of school children have been
captivated by Flandrau’s marvelous dome? How many of us have seen the
rings of Saturn in its telescope, been tickled by the motion of chaotic
pendulums or been made dizzy by exhibits that helped us, not only learn
scientific principles, but feel them for ourselves? It is indeed sad
for our community, a step backward to be sure, that we will no longer
have this place in which to wander. Now, because of one kind of folly
or another, perhaps a full generation of school kids will go without
the opportunity to play with pendulums or feel the repulsive force of
strong magnets. Must we, as a community, wait three, five or perhaps 10
years before for the university’s conception of a science center
finally opens those doors again?

Though we have long been married to the idea that the university
must be the driving force behind any science-related activity, this
does not necessarily have to be the case. Very few science centers
around the country are in any way connected with a college or
university. There is, in fact, a private nonprofit group called the
Physics Factory that has been providing informal science education all
around this community for the last several years. They are just an
example of what is possible when dedicated people work together toward
a goal.

I would like to propose a “citizen science center,” a place put
together by people who care about life and living in this community,
with the needs of this community in mind, a place that is filled with
the spirit that makes Tucson unique. It doesn’t need to be in a fancy
new building; Tucson is currently filled with many empty spaces which
could be inexpensively adapted. It need not take 5 or 10 years to get
going. With a modest level of community support, we could have a small,
exploratory space opened within a year, and expand as needed.

We can do this together. It is not rocket science. Small groups come
together every year in communities all across the country to do this
very same thing. Tucson needs a place that we can all wander in, a
place where we can make discoveries, not just about the world we live
in, but about ourselves.

Joe Ruggiero

Former associate director, Flandrau Science
Center

Former interim executive director, Tucson Children’s
Museum

This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2009.