Re: Politics by another means? (from R. Hill)

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Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 08:19:26 +0700
From: rhill@LPL.Arizona.EDU (Rik Hill)
To: N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Politics by another means?
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The problem is the press in this country. It's the press that doesn't
understand science, because they simply don't want to, and then reports
it incorrectly to the "public" that then cannot understand because 
they have been told incorrectly. It's a case where we ought to shoot
the messenger! Politicians are generally ignorant on most matters, but
will tend to succumb to inertia, without prodding they will remain
in place. The press, which thrives on controversy, conflict and 
discord, has been hounding the new Republicans (conservative mostly)
to make great cuts and changes in programs and funding, then when that is
done they go to the Democrats (mostly liberals) and say, "are you going
to let them get away with that!?" The Democrat reaction from our
Congress has been to decry all of the changes while offering no alternative
solutions, and the Administration (Pres. and cabinet) has offered, at
least for space science funding, deeper cuts. At present congress has
proposed cuts in the 25% range and the administration over 30%. The press
has been fanning all the flames and selling papers and commercial air
time. 

The unfortunate result of all this is that bacisally if the American
public cannot eat it, drive it or watch it, they are not interested 
in it. So dinosaur paleontology gets funded, paleozoic inverts. do not.
Slick space station (quasi Star Wars) gets a blank check and ground based
work on meter sized telescopes does not. 

I'm not sure where this will all lead, but I'll be surprised if I can
finish a career in this (planetary) science!

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^                                                                  ^
^      _/        _/_/_/    _/         Richard "Rik" Hill           ^
^     _/        _/   _/   _/         Planetary Occultations Group  ^
^    _/        _/_/_/    _/         Planetary Atmospheres Group    ^
^   _/        _/        _/         LUNAR & PLANETARY LAB.          ^
^  _/        _/        _/         Univ. of Arizona                 ^
^ _/_/_/_/  _/        _/_/_/_/   Tucson, Az  85721                 ^
^                                                                  ^
^		    rhill@lpl.arizona.edu			   ^
^	       http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rhill		   ^
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