Re: Cancer____Reading the letters about our January cover story on cancer research wasn't easy. Along with the usual experts, cranks, and policy wonks, we heard from many of you for whom the topic is deeply personal. One reader recently lost a sister to the disease; another fell ill at age 21. Your individual tales underscored our message: The best way to beat cancer is to find it as early as possible. Better tests are on the way. In the meantime, dear readers, get your rear in gear and get a physical.
Feedback
January story topics that attracted the most reader response. Catch It Now
I hope "Cancer and the New Science of Early Detection" (issue 17.01) inspires other media to follow your lead. Compassion and treatment for those with the disease understandably take center stage, but the real math in our lives is presented clearly here. Our priorities must change to emphasize early diagnosis. This is our best hope of reducing mortality, and the cost savings would go far toward mending our ailing health care system.
Tom Lindquist
Seattle, Washington
Thank you for your article. Early detection has a great deal of intuitive appeal and should be supported, but you omitted one simple statistic that is often overlooked when discussing the trade-offs between treatment detection research: Finding cancer early will, by definition, always improve the survivorship numbers—whether or not it does anything for patients' prognoses.
Bret Peterson
Lafayette, California
Your article focuses on the role of science in developing tests and biomarkers for early detection. But human factors play into this, too. Almost every woman I know with ovarian cancer talks about knowing something was wrong, long before there was any diagnosis. We were all ignored by our doctors at least once before the determination was finally made. My cancer was caught late in part because my CA-125 antigen level stayed below the magic number 35. When my doctors saw the CA-125 reading, they assumed they could ignore the work of the radiologists and ultrasound technicians who had identified a potential problem six months earlier. All the tests in the world won't compensate for ignorance and stupidity. Physicians need to learn to listen to women when they say, "Something is not right."
Julie Mason
Ottawa, Ontario
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The Iceman Warmeth
How ironic that Julian Bayley provided ice sculptures for Al Gore's Nobel Prize acceptance ("Mr. Freeze," issue 17.01). It's hard to think of an industry that uses more energy in cooling and shipping than Bayley's venture. Plus, the ice lounges are in places like Honolulu, Miami, and Las Vegas. Our grandchildren will weep at our extravagance.
Lee Westbrock
North Charleston, South Carolina
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A Finger in the Dike
As an attorney for the state of California, I hoped to glean some insight from "Turning the Tides" (issue 17.01). Perhaps the Dutch approach to sea-level rise would help us in our efforts to cope with the problem in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta. But David Wolman is all wet when he asserts that the Dutch method is not "dominion-over-nature bravado." Nonsense. Wolman's principal interviewee, Marcel Stive, lays bare the Dutch conceit: "We will completely control the water."
This is nothing new. For centuries, the Dutch have been pioneers in terraforming to prevent flooding. But there is a catch: Defiance of Mother Nature's most basic rule, that water flows down via the path of least resistance, has created a situation where the only "solution" is more engineering. Eventually, Mother Nature will have her way.
John Dye
California State Lands Commission,
Sacramento, California
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Fight Back
Number of protest letters we received after killing the following items. Can't We All Just Get Along?
Ah, the Mac-PC wars. We had hoped they'd gone the way of the blink tag—but no. Our look at the 25th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh ("All Grown Up," issue 17.01) apparently opened old wounds. Some highlights:
I hate Macs and most things related to them. But thanks to your article, I'm starting to think different. I now see Mac users as snobbish assholes who think that being a minority in the computer market makes them cool.
Jack Brown
Independence, Missouri
Macs are more reliable than PCs. That's a measurable fact. It isn't elitist to note facts; it's pigheaded to ignore them.
Excerpted from a comment posted on Wired.com by RipRagged
Gimme a freaking break. The Mac died with the PowerPC chip and Mac OS 9. Bundling an Intel chip with a BSD kernel is just another PC clone with a funky OS. That's packaging and marketing, not IT. The saddest part is all those drones getting robbed for a cute box and a free BSD download.
Excerpted from a comment posted on Wired.com by re3e
Just use what you use. It's only a computer, for God's sake!
Excerpted from a comment posted on Wired.com by Asmodeus
There's one thing better than a Mac or a PC: It's called a girlfriend. But all you nerd losers wouldn't know about that.
Excerpted from a comment posted on Wired.com by GHynson
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Mommy Dearest
A real letter from Chris Hardwick's mom after seeing him posed in a Jacuzzi for his story on time management ("Diary of a Self-Help Dropout," issue 17.01):
Dearest Son,
I'm wondering if your suit is ruined after wearing it in the hot tub. And do you have a black widow problem at your house? Should I be worried? Let me know, as I need to schedule that into my day.
Love, Mom
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Index
Items mentioned in readers' letters to Chris Hardwick about his self-help article:
- Asses,
laughing off of - Fish oil,
consumption of - Ideas for new fruit snacks,
generation of - Monkeys in jokes,
insertion of - Nails,
biting of - Nerd gods,
invocation of - Public librarians,
engaging of - Sick,
calling in of - Snuggie blankets,
wearing of - Twitter streams,
following of - Udders on male cows,
elimination of - Wired Science,
cancellation of
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Can It Already!
For years our Return to Sender contest encouraged readers to send us weird stuff through the mail. Entries included a mannequin head and a toilet seat. The contest died of old age last year, but one persistent reader, who calls his offerings Permissible Objects of Postability (POOP), just can't let go. He and his pals have mailed more than a dozen inflated rubber balls, imploring us to bring back Return to Sender. We like the balls—they're great for gaining the attention of editors who wear headphones at their desk—but seriously, fellas: Enough with the POOP!
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Plowshares Not Stock Shares
Your article about champion farmer Kip Cullers ("Superproducer," issue 17.01) reads like an advertisement for DuPont's Pioneer corporation. The author uncritically echoes the biotech industry's mantra that the production of genetically modified food using patent-based, chemically dependent farming methods is essential to relieving hunger. Hogwash. The global food crisis has more to do with political priorities than technology. The problem isn't our inability to produce enough food but rather the inability of the world's poor to buy it. The real agenda of biotech is corporate control of world food production.
John Bliss
Scarborough, Maine
Sounds to me like it's really Farmer Cullers' monomaniacal work ethic, not a labor-saving and environmentally lethal chemical blizzard, that's the key to feeding the world.
Miriam S. Michel
Jackson Heights, New York
Herbicides, GMOs, and $185,000 tractors won't help the world's poor farmers. They need soil that's rich with the organisms of fertility and life, not more bioengineered seeds dependent upon that chemical cocktail we call modern agriculture.
Bruce Howe-Gregory
Friday Harbor, Washington
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Max Butler's Last Hurrah
"Catch Me If You Can" (issue 17.01) is one of the best stories I've ever read in a magazine. Beautiful writing, exciting, heart-rending—I was gasping, tearing up, laughing—things I don't usually do when reading. Thank you for a great experience. (And the graphics were pretty wonderful, too!)
Steve Allen
Berkeley, California
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"Leveraging high-quality graphic design offers a very high reading-enjoyment return on my reading-effort investment. Case in point: This diagram illustrates my thesis better than my words do." —Nathan Grahek, St. Paul, MN. Likewise, I'm Sure
Oh, aren't you children so clever with the tiny type on silver background. Maybe the copy was so pointless that you figured you'd hide it in tiny type. Why are you stupid fu*!s so stupid?
You offer to renew my subscription, but the inane bulls*!t makes any scrap of good info too much trouble. I'll be glad to see all you stupid fu*!s on the unemployment line, begging your parents for pot money. Way to kill a once-relevant rag, you trend-worshipping, consumerist little self-entitled fu*!s.
Fred Fury
San Francisco, California
PS—Fu*! you.
PPS—Did I remember to say "Fu*! you"? If not, Fu*! you, losers.
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Do Monkeys Read Magazines?
The picture caption in your review of books on Charles Darwin (Print, Play, issue 17.01) implies that human evolution has been a triumphal procession from "poorly adapted" to "highly evolved." Those phrases have no meaning. Apes are not less "evolved" than people. All creatures are adapted to the environments in which they live. If they weren't, they'd be dead. What would Charlie think? Shape up!
Darren Milligan
Washington, DC
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Rants Letters should include the writer's name, address, and daytime phone number and be sent to rants@wired.com. Submissions may be edited and may be published or used in any medium. They become the property of Wired and will not be returned.
