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Lisa Zeidner and John Allen Paulos

the breakfast table:
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Real Skeptics Don't Kiss Cheek Air

By John Allen Paulos
Posted Tuesday, June 29, 1999, at 4:42 PM ET

Hi Lisa,

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I agree that indiscriminate skepticism is as bad as complete gullibility. This is not unconnected to my perhaps prim-sounding "As always" in response to your "Love, Lisa." It might be gender-related in part, but I'm not real good at kissing cheek air upon meeting someone, exclaiming "You look lovely," or saying "Love, John" even when very fond of someone, as I am of you.

That said, I should note that logicians from Aristotle on would have trouble with your rejection of the Law of the Excluded Middle, but then he never wrote a novel.

I agree that we should make some reference to real news. Did you see the Philadelphia Daily News today? The entire front page is taken up with a picture of Joey Merlino, the reputed local head of the Mafia in Philadelphia. My gripe is that the Daily News, whose grittiness and columnists I usually like, always refers to Merlino as Joey and, as it did again today, to informants as snitches. If someone informs on someone else about a minor peccadillo or about something that should be no one's business, the word "snitch" might be appropriate. (Linda Tripp comes to mind.) But if there is such a thing as the Mafia and if Merlino is its local head and if the crimes usually associated with it really are (and it seems that the Daily News does make all these assumptions), why use the complicitous term "snitch"? Out of some fake populism?

Anyway, there's nothing else to say right now except ...

Love,
John