A Long Way from the Slide Rule !

           While fossilized high school math teachers debate the wisdom

    of hand calculators in the classroom, their smart-ass pupils have no

    doubt all ready discovered a blissful shortcut for that tedious

    homework : on line calculators -hundreds of them !

           What would have taken the sputnik generation hours to do, can

    now be done in minutes . For example, you can locate an " applet " that

    will instantly solve a quadratic equation for you,or given 3 sides of

    a triangle, compute the area according to the elegant Heron's Formula.

          Those on line graphers are just amazing for those of us who can

    still remember the slide rule. Remember how tedious it was to graph

    second and third degree equations ? Now just type in the equation and

    click ! A neat and beautiful graph appears before your eyes.

            There are amazing resources on the WWW even for the advanced

    calculus: instant " integration " and " differentiation ".

           " Now the kids don't even have to THINK ! " you might conclude.

       I think that it is a good thing that teachers will be denied the

    pleasure of instilling a permanent inferiority complex in MOST of their

    pupils. But -seriously - these homework aids actually FREE the mind for

    the more important matter of UNDERSTANDING concepts.

          I still recall that " the null set is a subset of all sets ". I

    owe my splendid success in life to that !

" Three War Criminals "

With his short letter titled " Three War Criminals " ( Providence

    Journal, May 15 )  , H.F. Rommel of Newport establishes his reputation

    as a moral genius.

       So President Clinton is THE war criminal in Kosovo conflict ? Rommel

    invokes " international law ".  Does not the concept of " international

    law " LIMIT the so called  SOVEREIGN nation ? Does it not compel a nation

    to behave in a civilized way ?

          Is GENOCIDE  just internal affairs - none of NATO's business, of

    no concern to the United Nations ?

            The Chinese thugs would agree with you, Mr. Rommel : The REAL

    criminals are our leaders in Washington !

             Could someone at  least SUGGEST a peaceful way to deal with

    this abominable " ethnic cleansing "  ?

Clinton right -WHO is barbaric ?

As a voting citizen of the United States, I will express my

    support for the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia.A fatuous pacifism

    will never make THIS world a kinder and gentler place. The recent

    destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was just an accident

    of war.To quote our president, Bill Clinton : "What is barbaric is

    what Milosevic has done. "

            What Milosevic has done is called GENOCIDE! In a recent column,

    Providence Journal columnist Mark Patinkin asked why was the news media

    paying more attention to tragic side shows of the war than to the main

    event - " ethnic cleansing " in Kosovo.

           It is way too early -and a little silly - to pronounce the Yugoslavian

    Hitler the winner in this conflict -a conflict in which the values of

    Western Civilization are at stake.

            Milosevic must be denied the spoils of any imaginary victory :

    Kosovo should be converted into a NATO military base until all the

    refugees are returned.

                Could you have asked the Jewish victims of the Third Reich

    to negotiate with Nazis ? Was the Holocaust just a misunderstanding ?

               If most of the people of Yugoslavia see Milosevic as a

    nationalist hero, they are not so INNOCENT after all .

             Bombs away ! Tomorrow is another day !

Fairness to the NRA ( Rifle Association )

I am one of those LIBERAL types scorned by the right wing. I

    defended President Clinton against those Americans furious with

    him for a good reason - his moral failures.

          But I myself scorn  knee-jerk liberalism.  And I say that we

    are often unfair to the National Rifle Association. I would not have

    joined that crowd of 7000 protestors outside their annual meeting in

    Denver, Colorado. The IRA is in no way responsible for massacre of

    school kids in Littleton. Very disturbed  youths -with very EVIL hearts -

    did this.

          I visited a NRA web site the other day and I found no evidence

    of maniacal personalities. Like other human beings they themselves do

    not welcome hateful verbal attacks. In a democracy we must truly listen

    to the people with whom we disagree.

         NRA members point to very constructive programs of the organization:

    They often train our police officers .

           I just have no use for guns myself - a lily livered pacifist

    at heart. I will not look at IRA members the way " normal " high school

    kids are looking at those sinister " gothic types " in their midst.

             I will confess that I have a natural sympathy for gothics. In

    fact - if I were back in high school - I would cultivate the Barnabas

    Collins look. Remember Barnabas from "  Dark shadows ".

           I am presently enjoying "  Great Gothic Horror Stories ".

        I was a fan of the TV program : " Have Gun - Will Travel "