Don Haddix elected mayor of Peachtree City »

Slowing down makes sense

Regarding the letter indicating it would be wrong to reduce the national speed limit to 55 mph because it would penalize hybrid owners ("55 mph slows speed of business growth," @issue, July 8): I own a hybrid that gets 57 miles per gallon at 55 mph. But at interstate speed limits (70 mph), it gets 44 or less. I avoid interstates to be able to drive at a sensible 55 mph and not be run over by impatient people who still like to drive 75-85 mph in SUVs that get less than 14 mpg.

My main reason for spending extra money to buy a hybrid was economy. But I see myself helping keep more U.S. dollars in America through reduced gasoline usage. I feel great when I need gasoline and my 11-gallon tank takes 6 gallons to fill it up.

The problem down the road may not be how much we pay per gallon or how fast the national speed limit is, but whether we will have any gasoline in the pumps to pay for, period. Driving slower will stretch that limited supply a bit further.

LARRY DOOLITTLE

McDonough

Renewables not perfect

The wind-turbine article was well-written and relatively balanced; however, it continues the notion that "renewables" are environmentally benign ("Will wind turbines ruin your view," Page One, July 9). Although they are clearly superior to fossil fuels, the processes of manufacturing, transporting, installing and maintaining renewables entail considerable carbon emissions.

Further, since they are very small units, the carbon cost of the electricity they produce over their life cycle is significant. National Geographic's April 2006 issue presented comparative life-cycle carbon emissions per kilowatt-hour of output for various generating sources. While coal and oil were over 200 grams, solar emits nearly half of natural gas's carbon output level, and hydro, biomass and wind all greatly exceed nuclear, which has virtually none, largely due to the massive amounts of electricity generated relative to the carbon involved in construction and operation.

This merely illustrates that the issues are rarely as straightforward as proponents of any particular solution purport. However, if global warming is the most crucial issue confronting our world, then we ignore the carbon footprint of renewables at our peril.

JAMES FIELDS

Marietta

Look to Detroit for answers

There have been numerous letters debating whether we should drill in the ANWR or off America's coastlines. If we started drilling now, or if we had started 10 years ago, eventually we will end up in the same scenario we have today with spiraling prices. The nature of capitalism and big oil companies will always find a reason to drive the price higher.

Instead of more drilling, let's look to Detroit for answers. The automakers have been less than innovative when it comes to basic engine technology. American automakers should take a position of world leadership and aggressively design and build hydrogen-powered cars, which would then drive the build-out of a hydrogen supply infrastructure.

Imagine the economic impact, thousands of jobs created by automakers and by building a new infrastructure, millions of new clean-burning cars sold, millions of dollars previously spent for gasoline redeployed to other sectors of the economy. Best of all, we are on the road to eliminating our dependence on oil and big oil companies. Capitalism got us here, capitalism can get us out of this mess.

WARREN K. WILLIAMS

McDonough

Work to reduce idling

The fuel crisis may force police and highway departments to re-evaluate how they direct traffic. I have just returned from a 2,285-mile trip to Pennsylvania and back. While I got an average of 38.2 mpg and spent $208 on gas, I saw places where conservation could be practiced. On I-65 in Indiana, I saw hundreds of trucks and cars backed up and headed up two exits because police had blocked all lanes with five police cars, an ambulance and a firetruck. The police had time to bring in two large flashing signals at the exits but couldn't make at least one lane available.

In Chattanooga, I-24 was closed to one lane so utility trucks could replace lamps. The car and truck traffic crept along for five miles. At I-75, Exit 277 south, the lanes were closed to two for more than six miles. Again the number of trucks burning up expensive oil exceeded the number of smaller vehicles.

Imagine the increase in carbon footprint and noxious gases caused by all those idling vehicles. Better traffic planning is required for the new challenges of high fuel prices and of the environmental impact of idling vehicles.

PERRY TREADWELL

Decatur

Social Security

Let me opt out; I'll do better job of investing

In a recent edition, candidates for U.S. Senate were asked to outline their solution to make Social Security viable in the long term ("This week's question: How would you fix Social Security?" Metro, July 6). Sadly, no one mentioned my favorite solution: the ability to opt out.

I would gladly opt out of Social Security today with no ability to enter the system again if I could keep the 6.2 percent of income I pay into Social Security and invest it for myself in addition to my 401(k).

Social Security could keep all the money I've previously paid into it, but it would have no claim on any future earnings of mine or my employer's portion of the Social Security Administration tax. Give people under the age of 55 the choice and freedom to provide for their own retirement without the poor returns, the threat of SSA insolvency and the ability of Congress to simply take it away, like we have now. I can manage my own retirement better than a bureaucrat in Washington.

CARY MATTHEWS

Cumming

Number not intended to be secret

The article on governmental violations of Social Security number control misses the point ("U.S. violates its own advice on ID theft," News, July 6).

The Social Security number was never intended as a private or confidential password/PIN. It was intended as a public identification number to coordinate certain records submitted to the U.S. government and is still used in that manner. It sees more use today since more documents are required. SSNs cannot be protected as private IDs since just about everybody needs a SSN for their paperwork. They are inherently public documents and cannot possibly be used as private documents.

The problem is that certain organizations are using them as private documents for access to private/confidential information such as acquiring credit cards and accessing bank accounts. Credit cards and bank accounts are themselves associated with identification numbers, but the user has to provide a secret password or PIN to use a debit card or ATM. When SSNs are used as a means of identifying persons who ask for new or modified passwords/PINs, the organizations are violating security principles.

Any organization that allows anyone to acquire or modify a password or PIN using public information should be penalized. Change the system, not the number.

ARTHUR W. JORDIN

Smyrna

Gate to nowhere unjustified

Millennium Gate is such a disappointment on so many counts. It's not a gate to anything and won't last a millennium. It's boring, pedestrian, tired, old architecture.

Supposed to be patterned on Paris' Arc de Triomphe, which is a monument to France's great victories in the Napoleonic Wars, Millennium Gate is instead a commemoration to the monumental egos of a few self-important business types. It's hard to believe anyone could compare it to European monuments or some of our own in Washington, and to other landmarks architecturally appropriate to their time and built to commemorate real national historical feats and true national heroes.

How odd to justify the arch by saying we needed something like Mount Rushmore here. What is Stone Mountain if not our own version of Mount Rushmore? Indeed, it predates the Mount Rushmore sculpture and had the same great sculptor.

The whimsical nature and honest, commercial purpose of Marietta's Big Chicken are, to my mind, preferred any day to this pomposity of an arch.

MARIA WILSON

Marietta

Symbolic? You bet —- of a new era

Although Jim Wooten and the realities of 21st-century America are not always on familiar terms, he was right about one thing: The Obama campaign has delivered quite a few symbolic messages ("Obama tries to make Georgia seem in play; it isn't," @issue, July 8). Isn't that what politics are about? As a conservative native son of Georgia, and an adopted son of the State of Denial, Wooten is quite familiar with symbols.

When Ronald Reagan kicked off his first presidential campaign in Mississippi, it was all about symbolism. When my neighbors in Powder Springs stuck mini rebel flags in their lawns in opposition to the removal of the Confederate emblem from the Georgia state flag, it was definitely symbolic.

Despite the very best efforts of John McCain's in-state armor bearers, U.S. Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson (all symbols of a soon-to-be-bygone era) to contest Obama, he stopped by McEachern High to eloquently deliver this message:

"It might not happen today or even next year, but one day soon Georgia will be in play." Those who are skeptical need only look as far as Cobb County, McEachern High School and the Gold Dome, where the new flag is displayed.

DAVID D. ROBINSON

Powder Springs

Tucker is clueless about patriotism

It is sad that even with a dictionary in hand, Cynthia Tucker does not understand patriotism ("True patriotism is insisting U.S. live up to ideals," @issue, July 6).

Patriotism is love and support of our country's interests above any other country, organization or political affiliation. Political parties exist primarily to achieve goals of adherents, not for the good of the nation as a whole. Political activism may be personally rewarding, but it is not patriotism.

The essential function of our government is to protect us from outside attack and internal insurrection. Military and police forces are most recognized for these purposes, but private citizens who actively support and sustain national defense and internal security are equally patriotic.

Tucker finds patriotism only in people and groups she admires: The Peace Corps may be noble, but it is not patriotic; some individual members of Congress are undoubtedly patriotic, but the majority never rise above political pettiness; Martin Luther King may have been a patriot for working to bring people under the full protection of the government, but Muhammad Ali is not a patriot. People willing to sacrifice for the nation are patriotic; people who violate their oaths and betray the nation's secrets for political reasons are traitors.

ROD PARAMOURE

Marietta

Plenty of exclusively Jewish theaters

For Blake Hall, new producing artistic director of Center Theatre at the Marcus Jewish Community Center, to say that "no Jewish theater in this country does only Jewish theater" shows a blind spot and makes the assumption that Jewish theater is not rich and valuable ("Non-Jewish work added to mix," Arts & Books, June 29).

Those dedicated to producing exclusively Jewish theater are in cities including San Francisco, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Washington, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Los Angeles. And they produce works that run the gamut —- from "The Price" by Arthur Miller to "Hard Love" by Israeli playwright Motti Lerner (produced by the Jewish Theatre of the South) to "Schlemiel the First" by Robert Brustein and "The Madness of God" by Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel.

DAVID CHACK

Chack is president of the Association for Jewish Theatre.