SATURDAY, JULY 24, 2010


KLMNO FREE for ALL Doing good for goodness’ sake


The research on “moral licensing” — finding that people who do good things such as conserving energy or eating healthy are more likely to then do bad things such as wasting energy or eating junk food — is clever, valid and important [“Does being good make us bad?,” Business, July 18]. But the story was misleading in sug- gesting virtuous behavior inevitably cancels itself out. Furthermore, the article picked mostly on conserva- tion-oriented behavior when the phenomenon is much more general. One of the studies cited, wherein one- third of people who greened their homes saw no reduc- tion in utility bills, could be viewed from another per- spective: A much greater number of survey respon- dents reported that they did see a reduction. The moral-licensing work should be taken seriously, as a cautionary tale. But before we proclaim the futility of doing good, let’s take a deep breath (of clean air), calm down and figure out how to get even more people to improve their behavior in consistent ways. Jack Glaser, Berkeley, Calif.


Father’s little helper Philip Kennicott, author of the July 17 Style article


“With great can-fare,” obviously does not appreciate the wide variety of uses for, and the effectiveness of, WD-40, or he wouldn’t have described it as a “panacea for losers.” The facts he mentioned — e.g., serious mechanics


have relied on it for 50-plus years, its fan club has 120,000 members and it’s been passed down between generations — are clear evidence that it is highly effec- tive. Yet the author belittles this wonderful example of American ingenuity that has served mechanics, handy- men and homeowners so well for over half a century. I am sure that some people misuse WD-40 and ham- mers, as the author described, to try to solve problems that they don’t understand or lack the skills to resolve, but that is no reason to belittle such tools. Paul Hurwitz, Rockville


BMW’s nominal hybrid Warren Brown’s column on the new BMW Active-


Hybrid7 [“A green machine, in black tie,” Car Pages, July 11] misfired. Focusing on the black-tie price and opulent ameni- ties, Brown overlooked the real story — that this nomi- nal hybrid gets worse mileage than many if not most standard gasoline-powered sedans. A six-year-old Hon- da Accord, for example, uses 25 percent less fuel on the highway. Saying so isn’t passing judgment on the luxu- ry-auto sector or paying homage to the Prius crowd. But let’s call a 4,700-pound hybrid that gets 18 mpg in the city what it really is: an oxymoron. Richard N. Mott, Arlington


Burning the toast at work Joe Yonan’s heart was in the right place in his July 14


Food section column, “Hot times in the office kitchen- ette,” but cooking at the office is a terrible idea. I love to cook, and I agree that it can be pleasurable and much healthier than eating out, but the average work kitchen is not the appropriate place for his approach. My office has two staff kitchens, but they are often busy and there isn’t enough space for someone to lin- ger over food preparation. My largest concern, though, has to do with food etiquette. Tastes vary greatly from person to person, and one


person’s culinary masterpiece is another’s headache. I seriously doubt that a paper towel is containing the smell of the sardines that Yonan is heating in the mi- crowave. The author mentioned that with the tech- niques he uses, he hasn’t encountered the wrath of oth- ers, but with the publication of the article he might. Betsy Garman, Washington


When Page 1 is not enough


Seriously, what is wrong with The Post’s news judg- ment? At 5:04 a.m. July 16, I was awakened by vibra- tions. It turned out it was a magnitude 3.6 earthquake, the strongest in Washington’s recorded history [“The Earth trembled in Md.; people kept a stiff upper lip,” front page, July 17]. The quake was all the talk around office water coolers and the lead on every Washington TV channel and even the network news shows. So where does Washington’s local paper of record


play this story? In the lower right-hand corner of the July 17 front page. Outstripping the local quake were stories on Mexican drug violence, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner’s growing influence and Repub- lican campaign strategies for the fall — all canned sto- ries that could have been run at any time. Given that the Saturday paper is not generally


stuffed with news, was the best you guys could do a short front-page lead-in to the continuation on Page A5? Get serious.


Larry Hojo, Silver Spring


Who pays for lunch? We do. The July 17 Metro section front page declared:


“Turns out, there is such a thing as a free lunch.” I guess it depends on your perspective, but I’m quite


certain that taxpayers pay for those school meals for area children in the summer. Why are we so often for- gotten?


Mary Helen Amery, Montgomery Village The plight of the headline


From the July 20 Metro section: “Clown takes seri- ous spin in plight to end bullying.” I am puzzled by this headline on Petula Dvorak’s in- teresting column. I have never heard “plight” used in quite this way. I know that you can “plight” your troth, and I know all about the “plight” of those who are bul- lied, but a “plight” to end bullying seems like a some- what unusual and recherché use of the word. Would not “pledge” or “effort” been better choices? Linda Motton, Frederick


The Rockwell I remember The July 4 Style article and July d


Submissions for the Free for All page should be sent to letters@washpost.com. Letters must be exclusive to


The Post and should include the writer’s address and day and evening telephone numbers. Letters are subject to editing and abridgment. Please do not send letters as attachments. Because of the volume of material we receive, we are unable to acknowledge submissions; writers whose letters are under consideration for publication will be contacted.


10 Free for All letters about the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Mu- seum naturally focused on what Rockwell drew. But what sticks with me is another aspect of his understanding of people, ex- pressed so visibly through his paintings. In the 1960s — the early days of


“educational TV” — we were tele- casting an elementary art class across central and northern Michigan. After classroom teach- ers asked their students to bring in


old calendars and magazines with “art” on them and then discussed how many were by Rockwell, tele- vision teacher Jim Chase set up a conference call with Rockwell. Afterward, about 20 students in one rural school composed and sent a thank-you letter to Rock- well. The artist responded imme- diately, in writing and with 20 sep- arate autographs. That’s the Norman Rockwell I’ll remember when I visit the exhibit at the Smithsonian. Lewis A. Rhodes, Silver Spring


BAS CZERWINSKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS Cadel Evans competes in the 13th stage of the Tour de France on July 17. A certain honor in tears My pleasure in The Post’s cover-


age of the Tour De France was chilled by the mean-spirited de- scription of Cadel Evans of Aus- tralia as “banged-up and bawling” [“Schleck takes lead at Tour de France, Sports, July 14]. This was provided by Jamie Keaten of the Associated Press. Was it not enough that Evans, world champion and two-time Tour runner-up, lost more than eight minutes on Alberto Conta- dor of Spain and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg over the Madeleine Pass while biking with a “small


but very painful fracture in his left elbow after crashing early in the eighth stage”? Did Keaten have to humiliate him as well? Evans was exhausted and in pain and had disappointed his teammates. Keaten’s description, given im-


portance by its early placement in the article, along with the pejora- tive flavor of “bawling,” seemed to imply that to gain respect, men must bottle their emotions in the traditional macho manner. How about a little respect for a


great competitor? Claire Ferguson, Laurel


Shackles on the troops fighting for Somalia


The Post’s Sudarsan Raghavan continuously provides some of the best coverage of the Gulf of Aden re- gion — namely Yemen and Somalia — available in the English-language press. His July 18 news story, “Rising civilian toll inflames anger at U.S.- backed African Union peacekeeping force as it battles Islamist militants,” shed light on the civilian cost of the war between the terrorist group al- Shabab and the forces of the weak Somali government backed by the contingent of African Union peace- keepers. The article noted how the African


Union troops from Uganda and Bu- rundi contribute to civilian casu- alties in the Somali capital by re- sponding to attacks by al-Shabab with indiscriminate fire, sometimes striking residential areas. The article, however, failed to de-


scribe the context in which African Union forces operate. Their man- date severely restricts their military options and leads to the dispropor- tionate response described by Ragh- avan. The terms of the force’s pres- ence in Somalia allow only for the defense of key government infra- structure and the facilitation of hu- manitarian aid delivery, preventing the African Union troops from going on the offensive against al-Shabab. The omission of this key informa- tion resulted in a misrepresentation of the brave African Union forces in Somalia and the work they do in try- ing to execute an extremely chal- lenging task. Chris Harnisch, Washington


The writer is an analyst and Gulf of Aden team leader for the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute.


BY MOHAMED SHEIKH NOR/ASSOCIATED PRESS A wounded child is treated at a hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Monday.


R


A11


It’s no secret: A newspaper at its best


If there were any doubt as to


whether newspapers are a cru- cial source of news coverage, your in-depth investigative ar- ticles this week should allay such uncertainty:  “Diagnosis: battle wound,” on recent developments in un- derstanding and treating war- time head wounds and post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [front page, July 18];  “Top Secret America,” de- scribing in three parts the enormous expansion in our national security and intelli- gence systems in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist at- tacks, swelling the systems’ costs, overwhelming their in- formation processing and in- creasing their dependency on costly private contractors [front page, July 19-21]. The first was an excellent


MARK GAIL/THE WASHINGTON POST N’Dea Jackson, left, and KiAnna Dorsey — BFFs? — show off their Silly Bandz collections in Washington. A ‘secret’ language ‘Best Friends Forever’ use


I think it was the eye peering through the shape of a dinosaur that drew my attention to Jenna Johnson’s July 19 Metro article, “A fad that has fans in a twist,” which dealt with flexible bracelets called Silly Bandz (among other things). Not the sort of article I would nor- mally read, but having my curiosity piqued, I did so.


All went fine until I got to the


story’s fourth paragraph and read, “. . . carefully distributed to BFFs.” BFFs — what is a BFF? I started


trying to connect the dots with no success. I finally concluded that this must be some sort of “hip” jargon or insider shorthand for something to which I was not privy. Something perhaps intelligible to those who


send text messages to each other. Whatever, it may mean to a seg- ment of the population, I would ad- monish Johnson that it is incum- bent on newspaper writers to write in plain English so that all who chance to read the paper may com- prehend the story. William P. Winter, Silver Spring


explanation of PTSD as stem- ming not from psychological weaknesses, as formerly as- sumed, but from neurophysio- logical changes in the brain caused by concussions or highly stressful experiences. The latter series, a two-year


project based on extensive public records and hundreds of interviews, brought to the forefront a very serious if pub- licly undisclosed problem at a time when a new director of national intelligence was be- ing nominated.


Also quite helpful was Da-


vid Ignatius’s July 21 op-ed, “Trimming the spy thicket.” Congratulations. Richard H. Schlagel, Washington


What everybody talks about


I can remain silent no longer. Since the major “improvements” made last year, the weather infor- mation published at the back of the Metro section has been inade- quate. Worst of all is that the local forecast has been reduced to a few lines about the prediction for to- day only. Hardly anything is said about tomorrow or the next day. This is unacceptable, especially since you print the forecast for the next several days for the moun- tains and the beaches. Please ex- pand your local weather forecast. Peter A. Gale, Silver Spring


I had the opposite reaction to the weather forecasts that were criticized in the July 17 Free for All.


I found it refreshing to be pro- vided a commentary on how the weather might actually feel, rath- er than just a dry list of numbers, in the forecast. The forecast that drew the com- plaint — “cooler, but not cool; pretty sticky instead” — turned out to be right on the mark. Tell the Weather Gang to keep up the colorful comments! Jo Ann Browning Seeley, Alexandria


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