To the Editor:
After reading Gary Taubes’s article, I quickly realized that the myth of the relationship between low-density lipoproteins and heart disease was but another example of Sir William Osler’s aphorism, “The greater the ignorance, the greater the dogmatism.” Unfortunately the practice of medicine is rife with other examples of untested hypotheses.
Leonard W. Kaplan
Brookline, Mass., Jan. 27, 2008
The writer is a medical doctor.
Every Super Bowl Sunday since at least 1990, Metroplex bicyclists have ridden to Dallas’s West End from various departure points. Today was my 16th West End Ride in the past 19 years. (I had the flu a year ago; the other two times, I wimped out.) It was really two rides in one. Several dozen riders left Bicycles Inc. in Arlington at 8:30. We got strung out. I was the first bicyclist to reach the West End, at about 10:30. I averaged 17.5 miles per hour for the 32.5 miles. After a large lunch at Spaghetti Warehouse with my home boys, whom I hadn’t seen since the Denton Turkey Roll on 17 November, I rode back alone. This time I had the wind in my face. I averaged 12.9 miles per hour for the 28.0 miles. Why was it shorter, you ask? Because the ride leader took a meandering route. Believe me, I wasn’t complaining about 4.5 missing miles. I was fried. Overall, I averaged 15.12 miles per hour for 60.5 miles. That’s riding time. I must have stopped 30 times for traffic lights.
The weather was excellent. I’ve done this ride in cold rain several times, but today it was warm (60s and 70s) and dry. The sun peeked out a few times, which was nice. If it weren’t for the wind, it would have been perfect riding weather. I held up fairly well for someone who hasn’t been on the bike in 11 weeks. My fall and winter running has kept my heart and lungs strong. It’ll be mid-summer before I get my cycling legs back.
Addendum: On the way out of downtown Dallas, I pass the grassy knoll at the JFK assassination site. I ride on the same street, in the same direction, as the president’s motorcade. The Texas School Book Depository looms overhead. There are always people strolling about, talking to tour guides. I assume that many of these people have come to Dallas specifically to study the site. To me, it’s just another street.
When I create a desktop icon the way some of you explained, I get an error message when I click it. It says that Windows can’t find the page. But the page loads anyway. When I leave the page, the error message is still there. I have to click it to get it to go away. This happens every time. What’s going on? It’s as though Windows doesn’t like me using Firefox.