Psuedoscience of the stars
Last week, the 199th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society took place in Washington, D.C. Some of the highlights at this gathering of top United States astronomers included new star structures in the halo of the Milky Way, an incandescent fog of multimillion-degree gas around a supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy, images from the world’s first sub-millimeter array and discovery of what may be “planetesimals” — precursors of Earth-like planets and first discovery of a planet orbiting a giant star.
On the same date, the Emerald ran a front-page story on the “predictions” for the world and Eugene by a local astrologer (“Dark star rising,” ODE, 1/10). The contrast between science and pseudoscience is sharp in the real world, but not evident to the Emerald. Astrologers either know their lame predictions are false, and thus they fully understand that they prey on the weak of mind and the weak in spirit. Or they actually believe their nonsense and are not aware their work has no foundation in reality, in which case, they are plain stupid.
As a human interest story, the article contained nothing of interest to us thinking humans.

James Schombert

astronomy professor

Joey was worth the money
Robert McShane wrote that the University wasted $250,000 on “some jock” (“Harrington hype was too costly,” ODE, Jan. 14). I completely disagree.
The $250,000 spent on the “Joey Heisman” billboard was an investment in every sense of the word. They invested in a young man, who, in turn, represented an entire University as well as any six-figure representative. That billboard (and entire campaign for that matter) was a huge responsibility to put on one student’s — or athlete’s, or person’s — shoulders.
The easiest thing to do in that situation is to fold; collapse under the pressure. But Joey stood his ground and for the entire season stood as high as that billboard projected him. What does that say about the University? It says we create winners, both on the playing field and off.
Did you even watch the Fiesta Bowl, Rob? There’s a reason his nickname is “Joe College.” It’s because he is the student body here, and you couldn’t pick a representative for an entire University better than our Joey Harrington.

Jeff Hadley

junior

accounting