Standing in the way of women

The Hill’s Oct. 8 article “GOP senator ripped for blocking museum” suggests that budget hawks Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) are the only critics of the bill currently pending in the Senate to establish a commission to explore the feasibility of creating a women’s history museum in the nation’s capital. But they are not alone.

Coming from a very different direction, hundreds of women’s historians and museum professionals have also expressed dismay with the bill. Their reasons? The bill does not mandate the appointment of members of their profession to the commission. This is in sharp contrast to the legislation that established a similar body for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, now under construction, which the sponsors and supporters of the women’s museum bill claim served as their model.

These critics are joined by the American Historical Association, representing more than 14,000 professional historians, and the National Coalition for History, made up of more than 60 member organizations. Together, these historians and museum specialists have prevailed upon the museum bills’ House and Senate sponsors to amend the bill. In addition to mandating the inclusion of historians, they have also asked that it require a period for public comment, something that is optional in the present version.

While seeking to change the bill, the women’s historians do not share Lee and Coburn’s opinion that a women’s history museum does not deserve federal funding. In fact, they see this as yet another example of the ways in which women have, both historically and still today, been treated as second-class citizens in the United States. Many fear that, in accepting this as a condition for passage of their legislation, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Marcia Blackburn (R-Tenn.), the House sponsors of the bill, have sold women and their history short.

From Sonya Michel, professor of History, University of Maryland, College Park, Silver Spring, Md.; this letter represents my views, not those of my employer

Stop the lies about George Soros

The claim that George Soros was a Nazi collaborator is false and deeply offensive (“J Street: Pro-progressive, not pro-Israel,” by Paul Miller, on The Hill’s Congress Blog, Oct. 31). As a 13-year-old child Soros was hidden with an official of Hungary’s Ministry of Agriculture. Soros’s father helped hide the official’s Jewish wife and in return the official agreed to let young Soros pose as his Christian godson. This is how Soros was able to survive the Nazi occupation. On one occasion the official went to inventory the estate of a Jewish family that had fled Hungary under duress. He brought the child in his charge along rather than leaving him alone in Budapest. To construe this as Soros collaborating with Nazis is false, malicious and deeply misleading. Anybody interested in more detail can look at page 37 of the biography of Soros by Michael Kaufman, “The Messianic Billionaire.” Anyone interested more broadly in what Soros supports can look at opensocietyfoundations.org.

From Laura Silber, director of Public Affairs, Open Society Foundations, New York

Immigration backlog caused by policy, not paperwork

In response to the Oct. 15 article “Silicon Valley company pushes online forms to prevent immigration ‘backlog,’ ” Cesare Alessandrini of FileRight’s take on what is causing the immigration backlog is off base and self-serving. The immigration backlog remains today because of the antiquated and broken system of laws and regulations we currently have in the United States that create delay; it has nothing to do with the mailing of immigration forms to U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services. Completion of Mr. Alessandrini’s e-forms by millions of immigrants and non-immigrants would do nothing but potentially get an applicant into the line more quickly while actively discouraging them from seeking professional legal assistance in navigating a complicated immigration process. It seems to me that Mr. Alessandrini would like to shape the argument in this fashion for the economic benefit of his company and not for a so-called “humanitarian mission” to save the immigrant population from backlogs, immigration lawyers and notarios.

From Matthew J. Maiona, immigration attorney, Boston

Look to LENR technology

In early October, yet another independent test of Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) reactor was published, this time with a detailed analysis of the nickel-hydrogen fuel and lithium catalyst. The tests were conducted by scientists from three separate universities at an independent laboratory in Switzerland, so no fraud was possible. Again, the tests were positive and showed that the reactor produced far more energy than any chemical reaction could explain. Tests revealed isotopic changes to the fuel, which tells us that nuclear events occurred inside the reactor.

Today, LENR reactors are producing useful amounts of energy, predictably and reliably, by different companies around the world that are racing to get LENR to the marketplace. Rossi’s technology has been purchased by Industrial Heat LCC, which has installed a one-megawatt test reactor in a factory that is now supplying heat for a commercial industrial process. A company called Solar Hydrogen Trends claims to have discovered a way to use LENR technology to crack water into low-cost hydrogen gas at an energy equivalent cost of oil at about $5.00 a barrel. They claim their reactor can be scaled down to power automobiles, or scaled up to power jet aircraft and entire cities. Their reactor technology is ready to go now, with two certified tests by well-known, reputable testing companies to prove it. It is now only a matter of manufacturing their scalable LENR devices, which are surprisingly simple. 

The atom is far more malleable than scientists had previously thought. The future of nuclear power will be non-radioactive, nontoxic, highly compact, safe and very cheap, thanks to LENR research. Unlike noisy windmills, this technology will be silent and won’t kill birds. Unlike inherently intermittent wind and solar power, it will be reliable, and will cost far less than using fossil fuels. Unlike biofuel farming, LENR will lower the cost of food, and LENR will not erode away our irreplaceable topsoil. LENR is not technically renewable, but it is effectively limitless; the Earth will be consumed by the sun before we run out of LENR fuel.

From Christopher Calder, nonprofit food security advocate, Eugene, Ore.