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4A ♦ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2006 Muustxm djmmtal OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Don Moncrief Managing Editor In the public domain According to a leading provider of Internet domain names and host ing services, there is a big concern in the business that domain www.names may soon run out completely. To date, they say, more than 70 million domain names exist and the majority of all one-word domain names have all been taken on a global scale. True, to s,ay there are a lot is an under statement. For example, if you type in the first word in the dictionary, “A”, you get - depending on which search engine you use - up to 20,180,000,000 hits. If you type in zymurgy, the last word in some Webster’s, you still get about 200,000. The shortage, argues the aforemen tioned leading provider, “has led con sumers to select alternatives that are difficult for their potential visitors to remember, or do not adequately describe the brands or products. These domain names result in a lack of robust traffic to the site.” That may be but we tend to go on the old adage if someone “wants it bad enough ...” Plus, it doesn’t have to be all bad. Maybe it means they’ll run -out of names for “XXX” sex sites (9,189,000,000 search engine results). LETTER TO THE EDITOR In need of our prayers Like many here in our area, I cannot escape the TV or newspaper, without all of the news concerning Hezbollah and Israel; but why are we not hearing about the lives of the people caught in the middle of this vicious Why are there no reports coming from the Lebanese side of this mess? There are many facts that escape the news. For instance, does your reading public know that Lebanon was once completely Christian until it was invaded by Syria about 50 years ago, and even after the invasion it remains about half Christian & half Muslim? Also, did you know that the Christians and Muslims live segregated? Did you know that Lebanon is about two thirds the size of Connecticut, and has a small police force of about 10,000, and no real army. This is probably the reason why they have been unable to rid their land of Hezbollah, no matter how hard they have tried in the past. Also, did you know that many of the casualties of this current conflict are Lebanese/Christians that have sur vived previous attacks by Hezbollah and Syria? The sad thing is that we don’t know all of the facts, and while we should not allow terrorist actions from any of these factions, we should also understand that there are many in the center of this crisis that have nothing to do with this conflict, and have no way out to safety. Unlike America, where we can be Irish/German/English/ Armenian, etc., as well as Christian/Jewish/Atheist/ Muslim, etc. as well as an American, not all countries are like that. In Lebanon, if you are Lebanese, then you are most likely a Lebanese descendant of a Christian family, and live in a Christian area. If you are Muslim, you most likely came from Syria and you live in the Muslim areas. This is a hard concept for us as Americans, when there is no telling where our neighbor’s descendants came from, or what church they may, or may not, attend. Sometimes we need to think outside the box, and look past the news as our only source of information. I would ask that in this case you would consider the thousands of innocent lives that are stranded in their own country, and caught between these two dueling forces (Israel & Hezbollah). They have nowhere to go, no power or water and no food. They need our thoughts and prayers more than anyone in this battle. Kellie Day, Ft. Valley Send your Letters to the Editor to: The Houston Home Journal P.O. Box 1910 • Perry, Ga 31069 or Email: hhj@evansnewspapers.com Foy S. Evans Editor Emeritus True, to say there are a lot Is an understatement. For example, if you type In the first word in the dictionary, "A", you get - depending on which search engine you use - up to 20,180,000,000 hits. Climate, science shifts keep it warm Suddenly, it came to me. Friday, in the middle of a six-second walk to my vehicle with my teeth sweat ing and my skin screaming for relief, I realized it. It’s hot. Really hot, a close, freakish hot, a kiln of a day when the blink of an eye is too muth activity. Memo to those fond of saying “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity”: It’s the heat, Pal, at least 173 degrees in the parking lot I crossed before I jumped into my vehicle and set the air conditioner on “meat locker.” Is this what they mean by global warming? Based bn the science grades from my transcripts, I broach the subject of global warming gingerly What I know, aside from the realization that Friday was a scorcher and I’ve seen “The Day After Tomorrow,” is very limited. Even terms such as greenhouse effect and chlorofluorocarbons require some study on tny part. None of which seems to be a problem for dozens of other nonscientists who have staked a political claim on the planet’s climate change. Everyone from A 1 Franken to Rush Limbaugh and many motiths in between is absolutely sure aboiit manmade global warming. Some are sure it’s real; nonbelievers insist its “junk science.” Of course, without real science, there is no more reason to believe them than you would believe me about global warming and climate shifts. Then again, many well-meaning, well-informed nonscientists, after much study and research, also see cli mate change as overblown or a serious threat. Indeed, A 1 Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth,” while vilified in Chance encounter makes impact Last week, I called my wife from work, asked whether she was sit ting down, then told her Mickey Spillane had just died. “Oh, no,” she said softly. Jo An, an avid reader, had met Spillane, the prolific writer of crime novels, a couple of times over the years, and on each occasion he had been friendly and courteous, nothing like the totigh-guy image he groomed. By the time cancer claimed him a week ago at age 88, he had rede fined the detective novel with his Mike Hammer books, acted in films and branched out into other types of writ ing, including children’s stories. JoAn first met him when she was 14 and a member of the “world famous Marching buffaloes” from Baker High School in Louisiana. The band had been invited to march in the Rose Parade for the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, Calif. JoAn also was a majorette, but in that year’s parade she would be car rying her trombone, not her baton. To fund the trip, 100 teenagers went door to door selling candy, toothbrushes (a logical Combination) and cake mix (three boxes of Duncan Hines for a dol lar). Then they boarded a train for the West Coast. The trip included plenty of sightsee ing in Hollywood, and one day Spillane walked into a drugstore where JoAn and some friends were hanging out at the soda fountain. He was in town to appear in the film noir version of one of his books. OPINION a few science circles and by others unable to separate his politics from his research, still struck a powerful chord among hundreds of reviewers after its recent release. Still, even some lab-coated, Ph. - on-the-wall, research-sawy scientists seem at odds over whether we’re over heating ourselves. The World Climate Report, for exam ple, calls into question those who traf fic in computer models and dire predic tions. The WCR calls itself “a concise, hard-hitting and scientifically correct response to the global change reports which gain attention in the literature and popular press. As the nation’s leading publication in this realm, World Climate Report is exhaustively researched, impeccably referenced, and always timely.” In other words, they ain’t buying it. On the other end of the spectrum, you might check out the Union of Concerned Scientists, whose Web site quotes Dr. Robert Watson when he was chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Watson said, “The overwhelming majority of scientific experts, whilst recognizing that scientific uncertainties exist, nonetheless believe that human induced climate change is already occurring and that future change is inevitable.” What’s a sweaty, curious citizen of JoAn had broken her eyeglasses on the train, but that didn’t dim her meeting with the writer, because he sat down right across from her. “He was ruggedly handsome at that time,” JoAn recalled. “I can remember him giving us advice, like we were at the threshold of our lives, and we could go on to become what we wanted to. He talked about it being an honor for us to play in the Rose Parade. We talked about 45 minutes to an hour.” During those innocent times, Spillane’s risque books full of blood, guts, guns and dames were a big deal. Until that afternoon, though, JoAn had never heard of Spillane nor Mike Hammer. “I asked him what he did. He told me he was a writer,” she said. “I have always read a lot, but he told me not to read any of his books.” So, of course, she did. Right away. A boy she had met on the trip bought her a stack of his novels up to that time. Her reading probably included My Gun Is Quick; The Big Kill; Kiss Me, Deadly; and I, the Jury. “Remember, I was 14 years old. I thought they were hot stuff,” she said Jm l IwLini mu -ll- jr HQ* George Ayoub Columnist Morris News Service ■*: JmFw Glynn Moore Columnist Morris News Service HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL planet Earth to do? Well, there is always Tom Brokaw. The former NBC news anchor is hosting “What You Need to Know About Global Warming” Sunday night on the Discovery Channel - about as nonpartisan as they come. Perhaps the DC is interested in informing us so we can make our own decisions about how we choose to con duct our planetary lives and who we give voice to our environmental think ing. What a concept! After severed days of research, one thing is clear, even for me. Our responses to manmade climate changes affect economies, lifestyles and government policies. We may have one planet but when it comes to the environment, we have at least two hardened schools of political thought - or something approaching thought. In play, too, are huge corporations, some of whom continue to belch gases and other chemical stews into the atmo sphere; politicians, a good number of whom are trying to get elected without alienating environmentalists or indus trialists; contemporary society, whose very being depends on the combustion engine; and the general public, whose science grades are probably about as good as mine. What’s left is for us to determine if either school had a position and then found or fudged the science to fit it rather than found the science, then developed a position based on it. Global warming shouldn’t be confus ing - especially in this heat and when so much is at stake. George Ayoub is senior writer at The Grand Island (Neb.) Independent. Reach him at george.ayoub@morris. com. of the thrillers whose covers usually featured voluptuous women in vari ous stages of undress. “I read all those books - but I never read any of them again after that.” Still, they opened up a new type of reading material, and she still counts murder mysteries among her favorite books. A quarter-century later, Spillane was the guest speaker at a chamber of com merce banquet in our town. After the chicken supper and his speech, I dragged an only slightly older JoAn up to his table. “Spillane,” I said when we reached the front of the hand-shakers, “do you remember JoAn?” He paused a few seconds before admitting he did not. After I recapped their first encounter, he broke into a big grin and said, in his native Brooklyn accent, undulled by decades of living in South Carolina: “Hello dare!” He told her he had not remembered the drugstore incident at first because he was always walking up to young people and discussing books. The line behind us grew as they talked. Then Spillane reached into his jacket and pulled out a color photo of himself dressed as a tough-guy gang ster - an image so unlike the man. He wrote across it: “Hi, JoAn -- I’m glad to see you again!” and signed it. “I was only 14 then,” she said after thanking him, “but I knew I’d make an impression on you.” Reach Glynn Moore at glynn. moore@morris.com.