Letters: Japan’s nuclear crisis, the New York Times paywall
Letters: Japan’s nuclear crisis, the New York Times paywall
Kai Ryssdal: It’s Wednesday, that means it’s your turn.
David Frum did something on the broadcast the other day that we usually try to stay away from. He offered investment advice in the wake of the nuclear crisis in Japan. Buy uranium, he said, because once you really consider the environmental risks that coal poses, nuclear power is here to stay.
Karen Stillerman from Washington D.C. says coal against nuclear’s a false choice.
Karen Stillerman: In fact, there are energy solutions that wouldn’t pose grave dangers to our air, water and health, if only we would invest seriously in them. I’d like to hear Mr. Frum discuss the hazards of wind, solar, conservation and fuel efficiency, and then tell us again about bad energy policy.
We spent some time last week talking about Bahrain, one of the many Middle Eastern countries with economic roots to its political problems. Gregory Gause from the University of Vermont explained that cheap foreign labor is one reason Shia Muslims in Bahrain are economically disadvantaged.
Pat Fletcher in Tacoma, Wa., heard that and thought, that sounds familiar.
Pat Fletcher: Gosh, for a minute I thought I had blanked and Professor Gause was talking about labor issues in the USA. Immigrant labor getting paid less than citizen labor? Business is big on demanding more visas because they can’t find qualified people, or people who will do the work, here.
Media was on our minds this past week, in the form of the new paywall at the New York Times — specifically, whether readers of the news online will pay for something that used to be free.
Jon Masters of Cambridge, Mass., says it reminds him of a certain other media model you may be familiar with.
Jon Masters: In a perfect world, people would see the value in supporting high quality news. Ideally, a paywall wouldn’t be necessary as motivation to support these efforts, but we don’t yet live in a perfect world, and I would rather the Times and NPR stuck around.
If you have thoughts about anything you’ve heard on the program, we want to hear about it. And you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
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