re vandalizing the sky in c na c news cso uiuc edu gfk uxa cso uiuc edu george f krumins writes i was suggesting that the minority of professional and amateur astronomers have the right to a dark uncluttered night sky and from whence does this right stem that it overrides the rights of the rest of us let me give you an example when you watch tv they have commercials to pay for the programming you accept that as part of watching if you don t like it you can turn it off if you want to view the night sky and there is a floating billboard out there you can t turn it off it s the same reasoning that limits billboards in scenic areas and if you want to view that television station you have to watch the commercials you can t turn them off and still be viewing the television station in other words if you don t like what you see don t look there is no right i can think of that you have to force other people to conform to your idea of aesthetic behaviour what s next laws regulating how people must dress and look so as to appeal to your fashion sense since you have this right of an aesthetic view pat writes george it s called a democracy the majority rules sorry if ytou don t like it i suggest you modify the constitution to include a constitutional right to dark skies the theory of government here is that the majority rules except in the nature of fundamental civil rights i say any reasonably in depth perusal of american history will show you that many wasps have continued the practices of prejudice discrimination and violence against others of different races religions and beliefs despite the law which has what to do with the topic of discussion pat says if you really are annoyed get some legislation to create a dark sky zone where in all light emissions are protected in the zone kind of like the national radio quiet zone did you know about that near teh radio telescope observatory in west virginia they have a mile emcon zone theoretically they can prevent you from running light ac motors like air conditioners and vacuums in practice they use it mostly to control large radio users i say what i m objecting to here is a floating billboard that presumably would move around in the sky i for one am against legislating at all i just wish that people had a bit of common courtesy and would consider how their greed for money impacts the more ethereal and aesthetic values that make us human this includes the need for wild and unspoiled things including the night sky oh i see you don t want any legislation that might impinge on you you just want everyone else on the planet to do what you want insisting on perfect safety is for people who don t have the balls to live in the real world mary shafer nasa ames dryden fred mccall dseg ti com i don t speak for others and they don t speak for me
