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Dear Stan,
I am writing to Jeffery Kooistra in regard to his Alternative View column “Imagination” in the January/February edition of Analog. Mr. Kooistra, I have generally enjoyed seeing your column as a counterpoint to other views, though I would not say that I have often agreed with everything you say. This time I take particular exception to many of your arguments and the general tenor of the piece. I believe you have fallen into the same error that you have often accused others of, namely criticizing things without checking facts. Your criticism of Ms. Kelley's article is awkward and demeaning. You basically said that she is imagining the motivation of many of the folks that overstay their visas. In fact, this is borne out by interviews that I have heard with some of these unfortunate folks. Often they are trying to finish getting their degrees at an American university. The situation has been exacerbated by our own government's policies, particularly with regard to the Middle East, by refusing to allow people back into the country after visits abroad and refusing to extend visas. Perhaps you should listen to some of their stories yourself before you go off and berate others who have checked out some facts. Just who has some mystic process here? I would also say that it is not too much of a stretch of my imagination to be concerned about a government which has at least a couple of leaders who instituted torture as a policy and are likely to be charged with war crimes by the international community at some time in the future.
Your praise of racial/ethnic profiling is also very disturbing. Rounding up people based on these factors alone is another indication of totalitarian abuse. Do I even need to mention Nazi Germany in this regard? Many other such regimes in current times do the same, e.g. some of those in Latin America, Africa, and Indonesia. Profiling is a poor law enforcement policy because it angers the entire group that is targeted and makes a bad situation worse. I would like to hear from some law enforcement folks what they think of the effectiveness of profiling. Yes, the 9-11 attack was horrendous, but so was the Oklahoma bombing and the long list of other bombings and killings by white extremists, e.g. Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, David Lane, Michael Griffin, et al. Following your logic, we should really be rounding up white males since they are much more likely to be terrorists than men from the Mid East. My imagination is not so extreme that I can imagine this happening in this country. Being a white male, I know I would not care to be pulled from my car just because of my race and gender. Would you? By the way, do you have any evidence whatsoever that white males were ever rounded up en masse in this country as suspects in a KKK lynching? I do not recall an event like this.
Finally, I am dismayed by the use of imagination to create and promote fear and paranoia, which seems to underlie your main points. Certainly, many politicians in recent times have used this tactic to further their own power and create a disturbing climate of fear and hate in our country. Given your past articles I have read, I doubt that this was your intent, but it sure comes off that way.
Ron Pehmoeller
Largo, FL
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The author responds...
In her piece, Ms. Kelly mentioned two high-profile senators, Patrick Leahy (D-Conn.) and Russ Feingold (D-Mich.). Had I wished to demean her, I would have pointed out that she got the home states of both senators wrong, and argued that the rest of her article wasn't worth reading since, obviously, attention to detail and simple matters of fact isn't her strong suit. I didn't do this because the bulk of her article did have merit, and her failure to fact check on those senators’ home states was irrelevant to the points she wanted to make.
However, I do think that lapse on her part suggests that at points she was writing more from her heart than from her head, but that's just my opinion. I mention it here because I think you're doing the same thing.
It bothers you that I said Ms. Kelly “is imagining the motivation of many of the folks that overstay their visas.” Why? That is exactly what she's doing. No doubt some of them are guilty of no more than overstaying their visas—perhaps most of them are. But perhaps some of them are here for other reasons, even bad reasons. The only way to know is to take them in for questioning and then figure out if their answers are truthful or not. This means sometimes people are scooped up who should not have been. Oh well. Police work is messy and life isn't fair. Deal with it.
I did not praise racial/ethnic profiling. Used by itself or used unwisely, or with no common sense about it, it can do more harm than good. It is definitely a sledgehammer sort of approach. But when a sledgehammer is needed or it is all you've got, then you're stuck with it. And why is it that folks with your apparent mindset always think they have to bring up Nazi Germany like no one else has ever heard of it? Making note of the fact that all of the nineteen 9-11 terrorists were middle-eastern and taking that into account when looking for additional threats does not mean the next step is death camps.
Would I like being pulled from my car just because I'm a white male? Hell no! But I also wouldn't like it if I was guilty of drunk driving, and I do think the police should profile drivers who are swerving back and forth across the road. And if you would read more carefully, you will note that I never said KKK members were ever rounded up en masse. I said, “white males are the suspects.” Indeed, my guess is that many times white male KKK members should have been rounded up but were not.
Finally, this is too ironic to pass up. You say you are “dismayed by the use of imagination to create and promote fear and paranoia.” Yet it is you and Ms. Kelly who are raising the specter of the Nazis and the STASI and the Big Brother future.
I repeat what I said at the end of my article: We can't let our imaginations get carried away by too much worrying about what might happen when we need to sharpen our imaginations to deal with what already is happening.
Jeffery D. Kooistra
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UPCOMING EVENTS by ANTHONY LEWIS
17—21 May 2007
PHOENIX RISING (New Orleans Harry Potter conference) at Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, New Orleans, LA. Guests of Honor: Henry Jenkins, Jon Burlingame, Danny Bilson, Anne Hiebert Alton, Victoria Dann. Registration: $180 until 10 April 2007, $200 at the door. Info: www.thephoenixrises.org; help@ thephoenixrises.org; P.O. Box 27642 Denver, CO 80227-0642.
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25—27 May 2007
OASIS 20 (Central Florida SF conference) at International Plaza Resort, Orlando, FL. Guests of Honor: Larry Niven, Joe Haldeman, Michael Bishop, Mike Resnick, Jack McDevitt, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Robert J Sawyer, Linda Evans, Bruce Boston. Registration: $30 until 30 April 2007, $35 at the door. Info: www.oasfis.org; [email protected].
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25—28 May 2007
BALTICON 41 (Baltimore area SF conference) at Marriott's Hunt Valley Inn, Baltimore MD. Guests of Honor: Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle. Artist Guest of Honor: Joe Bergeron. Fan Guests of Honor: Jeff & Maya Bohnhoff. Registration: $50 until 30 April 2007, $58 at the door. Info: www.balticon.org; balticoninfo@ balticon.org.
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25—28 May 2007
BAYCON (San Mateo area SF conference) at San Mateo Marriott, San Mateo, CA. Guests of Honor: Alan Dean Foster, Diana L. Paxson, Richard Hescox, Linda “Kitty” VonBraskat-Crowe. TM: Seanan McGuire. Registration: $65 until 30 April 2007, $75 until 15 May 2007 and at the door. Info: www.baycon.org.
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1—3 June 2007
CONCAROLINAS 2007 (Carolina area SF conference) at Marriott Executive Park, Charlotte NC. Guests of Honor: Barbara Hambly. Elaine Cunningham, Teri Wachowiak, Robert Buettner. Info: www.concarolinas.org; concarolinas@ concarolinas.org; ConCarolinas, Box 9100, Charlotte NC 28299-9100.
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30 August—3 September 2007
NIPPON 2007 (65th World Science Fiction Convention) at Pacifico Yokohama, Yokohama, Japan. Guests of Honor: Sakyo Komatsu and David Brin. Artist Guests of Honor: Yoshitaka Amano and Michael Whelan. Fan Guest of Honor: Takumi Shibano. Registration: USD 220; JP
Y 26,000; GBP 125; EUR 186 until 30 June 2007; supporting membership USD 50; JPY 6,000; GBP 28; EUR 45. This is the SF universe's annual get-together. Professionals and readers from all over the world will be in attendance. Talks, panels, films, fancy dress competition—the works. Nominate and vote for the Hugos. This is only the third time Worldcon will be held in a non-English speaking country and the first time in Asia. Info: www.nippon2007.org; [email protected]. Nippon 2007/JASFIC, 4-20-5-604, Mure, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0002. North American agent: Peggy Rae Sapienza, Nippon 2007, PO Box 314, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701, USA. UK agent: Andrew A. Adams, 23 Ivydene Road, Reading RG30 1HT, England, U.K. European agent: Vincent Doherty, Koninginnegracht 75a, 2514A Den Haag, Netherlands. Australian agent: Craig Macbride, Box 274, World Trade Centre, Victoria, 8005 Australia.
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Visit www.analogsf.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.
Analog SFF, June 2007 Page 25
