December 2006 Letters to the Editor Unhappy with the Concept I enjoy the Business Tennessee publication and look forward to receipt each month. However, I was offended and disappointed in your comments on page 1 of the October 2006 edition.
To begin with, the title “Drinking and Driving” is an attempt to be clever gone wrong. Hardly a laughing matter, the perils and devastation of drinking and driving are well known. The reader, with a reticent mind, anticipates a tribute to a significant figure in the business community who was tragically struck down, followed by the appropriate caveats against drinking and driving. Instead, we jump right into what appears, at first glance, to be a light hearted article about whiskey-making!? Later in the article you go on to offer, “your driving may be affecting your drinking” thereby confirming your willingness to abandon any self-restraint regarding a topic inherently without humor. I was waiting next for a playful reference to “DAMM: Drunks Against Madd Mothers.” Poor taste indeed.
As if this was not bad enough, you proceed to refer to the National Resources Defense Council and Al Gore’s largely overlooked documentary as the basis upon which you accept global warming as a non-debatable fact. I do not wish to open the debate, but your sources have been repeatedly exposed as having only political objectives devoid of any scientific legitimacy. The “global warming” solutions offered by such “authorities,” not surprisingly, look strikingly similar to anti-free trade measures designed to paralyze only the economy of the United States while offering shelter to the true polluters of second and third world economies.
If your desire is to be viewed as a legitimate business publication, you would be well served by 1) abandoning attempts at humor based upon painful issues; and 2) providing a more thorough analysis of issues which are, at best, confusing and contradictory scientific theories, and which are, at worst, assaults on the very virtue you claim to praise, namely, free market capitalism.
Reese K. Thomas
Chief Executive Officer
TIS Insurance Services
Knoxville
Email to a Friend
Print-Friendly Format