By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)Doing the math Coming from a long line of Jewish mathematicians, including my mother, who was a rocket scientist in the UK during World War II (long before the expression “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand”), I feel I have to come to defense of the science as presented in two letters on August 31. Reader Barry Lynn talks of the teaching of mathematics (“By the numbers”). There was nothing wrong with the mathematics in the article he mentions. The number of people killed in Germany by terrorism is greater than the number killed in Israel. He is right to say, however, that to make the comparison meaningful, the mathematics had to be applied to another factor, such as population.But the mathematics (or statistics) quoted by reader Shoshana Dolgin-Be’er in recognizing climate change (“Behind the storms”) do not hold up to scrutiny. Without stepping into the debate on climate change, her statement that there have been “three catastrophic storms since 2005 in the US alone...compared to once every hundred or more years in the past” simply does not hold water (pun certainly intended).First, statistics have “only” been kept since 1851, so it is not meaningful to extrapolate regarding storm frequencies over centuries. Second, official statistics grouped by decades certainly list numerous storms over the extensive time of record-keeping, examples at random being: 16 storms in the 1850s, 23 in the 1940s and 19 in the 2000s.Beyond the “dry” statistics, one report by the Hurricane Research Division of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration notes: “Because of the sparseness of towns and cities before 1900 in some coastal locations along the United States, the above list is not complete for all states.Before the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts became settled, hurricanes may have been underestimated in their intensity or missed completely for small-sized systems.”It appears that there are other factors at play, such as the onset of YouTube and social media, large-scale development in areas known to be at risk, and the acquisition of the expensive recreational sea vessels that we saw washed onto shore in photos accompanying recent articles in The Jerusalem Post.DAVID SMITH Ra’anana‘Post’ too PC Many offenses by former US president Barack Obama have been overlooked by journalists who today criticize the incumbent, Donald Trump, for similar actions. On August 16, you printed a letter from reader Avraham Friedman (“...and still dismayed”) decrying several terrible scandals under Obama in response to Seth J. Frantzman’s analysis “Will Trump’s domestic chaos fuel global instability?” (August 14), in which Frantzman stated that there were “no scandals” under the former president.We live in a time when a US president wants to put a brake on immigrants who move to the US for crime or terrorism. We are still reading about Trump being “against immigrants” and that this is “so un-American!” A teenager can tell the difference between immigrants and immigrants who truly require proper vetting, yet all over the world, we still find this immature and irresponsible reporting.Regarding your August 22 front-page headline “Bannon ‘unchained’: Jewish staffers in the crosshairs,” come on! Is playing the antisemitism card so eye-catching? The Jerusalem Post has gotten to be too politically correct. You print irresponsible reports and then pat yourself on the back by printing the letters that point this out. Why not just be sharper to begin with?DAVID ROTENBERGJerusalemLead the packSomebody reading your front pages will think that The Jerusalem Post is a member of this pack of wolves calling themselves journalists and hunting down our prime minister.Yes, the hunt on him has been declared. It is led by the Left, which is distorting, inventing, lying and creating events, the goal being to manipulate the people of Israel to think that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a crook, a deviate chasing personal goals and not caring about our outstanding country.Since his election, the prime minister’s primary goal has been to elevate Israel from the dumps of the world, which unfortunately was our rank thanks to previous governments. Instead of trying to put him down, it would serve our country better to lead the pack toward his achievements and see where Israel stands now thanks to his intelligence and vision.So far, Mr. Netanyahu is the best prime minister God has blessed us with for a long time.Now it is up to you, Jerusalem Post, to lead the wolves toward Jerusalem and toward the Right, from which the light emanates, instead of being part of these aberrations leading to anarchy.Your name includes “Jerusalem” (the city of peace), not “Akela,” the leader of the wolf pack in the Rudyard Kipling stories.I just hope you have the guts to make public my outraged feelings.ISRAEL HERMELINE NetanyaPride in Hebrew I am writing this on behalf of several octogenarians and nonagenarians, all of us friends from English-speaking countries.One of the many miracles achieved in this country is the revival of a dead, ancient language – Hebrew. Israel is a country with a very high percentage of immigrants who put in many hours of study and effort to learn this language, with varying degrees of success.When he addresses the UN General Assembly later this month, we urge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give part of his address in Hebrew.The head of the French delegation will speak in French, the German in German, the Iranian in Farsi and so on – all in their country”s native tongue.In the past, our prime minister spoke only in English at the UN. We recognize that Bibi is a master communicator in English, but we recommend he begin his address in Hebrew, and after a few sentences begin anew in English.How proud we Israelis would be to hear Hebrew spoken on the world stage and broadcast to millions of people around the planet. It would be a dream come true and a reward to all of us olim for the mighty efforts we have invested in learning and working in modern times with this blessed, vibrant, living language.I. SRUL ZUNDERRa’ananaRules of the roadIgnoring the law with impudence. This what we see every single day.Outside high schools, we see notices to parents: “The riding of electric bicycles under the age of 16 is not allowed by law! Prevent danger to the lives of your children and pedestrians!” But there is more to the law.Riders must wear helmets at all times. There must be a white headlight and a red rear reflector.Riding with headphones is not allowed. Talking on the phone is not allowed. More than one person on a bike is not allowed. And most important, riding on a pedestrian crossing is not allowed.Yet it is not only cyclists who break road safety laws. We have drivers who blatantly ignore speed limits and basic rules of motoring. When did you last see the Traffic Police issue a ticket? Does anyone really care?HERTZEL KATZHerzliyaCORRECTION The headline “One of three in every classroom suffers from depression” (September 5) was erroneous. It should have been “One to three in every classroom suffer from depression.”
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