Real Info Needed,
Not Web Searches

I’m wondering if the author of last week’s letter "Rochester Needs Cell Technology" even read the "lengthy" letter she complained about. I believe Kathryn Schenkman’s letter advocated asking questions. That’s the responsibility of a "well-informed citizenry," even (especially) if they don’t have the answers. This is not "alarmist"—it would be alarming if we didn’t ask questions where health risks might be issues. Kathryn’s letter cites risks for those living within a quarter-mile of the proposed location of the cell phone tower. Her critic lives a safe four miles away, in another town.

However, new Rochester residents who moved next door to the proposed location have a daughter with health issues that may well be impacted. Should we show them that what makes our community "attractive," a word Ms. White somehow connects with new technology, is that we’re not afraid to ask questions, or that we’re afraid we’ll miss the next electronic gadget?

Jill Jesso-White says she "Googled the phrase ‘risk of cell phone towers,’ and was presented with 295,000 options and there is no definitive evidence to support either side of this issue."

I typed the exact same phrase into Google (neither a noun or a verb but the biggest advertising success story in history) and got over 1.5 million "hits." Do I have better information, or just more? Lets not be deluded into thinking all this information passes for knowledge.

Kathryn has gone beyond playing cyber roulette in taking a week off work to compile an informative 500-page book. We owe it ourselves and our neighbors to evaluate real information, or should we, as Ms. White suggests, take a cyber crap shoot with Google and hope the odds are in our favor? As to the fiber optic technology (which I support), I don’t get the connection the author is making to that and the proposed cell-phone tower.

Alfred North Whitehead wrote almost a hundred years ago, "the major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they appear." Wouldn’t it be great to prove him wrong?

Joe Schenkman

Rochester