The LA Times is becoming less and less of a newspaper but it’s happening during an overall slide in journalistic quality.
As a blogger I guess I have to say “Thanks!” but as a citizen…
Anyway, buried in today’s LAT obits were two guys who caught my attention.
Stanley Miller was a chemist who successfully created organic molecules in the lab, thus driving yet another railspike into the coffin of creationist mythology. Never quite managed to get full-blown life out of it but he was working with a college budget.
Dr. Joseph Zuska developed the first successful treatment for alcoholism in the U.S. Navy. Among his techniques was getting the Navy to admit there were alcoholics in their ranks. This was in the mid-sixties, before which all sailors were supposedly tee-totalers. It was an up-hill battle or whatever equivalent term applies at sea.
The common thread between the deceased that struck me was that these were both men who had the sharps and fortitude to bring the tradition-minded types to heel.
On a week that’s facing the opening of The Creation Museum in Cincinati (technically part of the U.S.!) we could use more such people.
So the LA Times had a good day despite itself. Not bad for a staff of ten reporters and a kid who knows Google Images.
