Minority preferences

[Anton Scott Goustin]

In your article, you <jtidball at physci.lifesci.ucla.edu> state:

" I still have hope that things are getting
better.  I think I heard that they are awarding around 30% of the R01
applicants with grants. "

What kind of dope have you been smoking?  Try more like 9%!  The 
President of FASEB has recently sent a letter to members that Rep. 
Kasich in the US House of Representatives and Sen. Hank Brown 
(R-Colorado) have sponsored bills that would bring that number down as 
low as 1%!!!!!!  Wake up and smell the garbage!  It's a foul odor coming 
from the freshmen we elected to Congress in Fall 1994.  Most of the 
supporters of NIH have either died or retired in the last 10 years.  
They are too gentle to put up with the style of mud-slinging that elects 
these Philistines that typify the Class of '94 (Newt Wave).  There are 
possibly only three friends of NIH left:  Senators Hatfield (R-OR), 
Kennedy (D-MA) and Harkin (D-IA).  Most of the Republicans and many of 
the Democrats side with the Philistines who feel that the US already has 
too damn much technology and research as it is.  They think we were 
better off in the "good old days" of ignorance, disease, and stupidity.  
(These are the same guys who deny that our foodstuffs are more tainted 
with toxins now.  They believe that science is just better at DETECTING 
toxic chemicals, and the solution is thus to dull the vision of the 
scientists.)  Focus your energy on political renaissance in this 
country, or forget a future as a free-living, free-thinking scientist.  
In Newt's America, scientists will seek "patrons" in the private sector 
for their funding.  Translation:  the private sector will dictate that 
scientists provide the "truth" they feel is fit to print.  George Orwell 
was an idiot to picture Big Brother as a fusion between Hitler and 
Stalin.  Big Brother in Newt's America will have a nice smile, like the 
tobacco lobbyists who still think that nicotine is not an addictive 
drug.  They know exactly how to lie through their (perfectly-groomed) 
teeth.

Wake up!