Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

This afternoon, at a Shell station in Arlington, Texas, I paid $2.599 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. With my Kroger card, it came to $2.499. What're y'all payin' in your neck o' the woods?

To the Editor:

Re “Pluto’s Portrait: Ice Mountains, No Craters and, for Scientists, a ‘Toy Store’’’ (front page, July 16): The stunning photos of Pluto, from the New Horizons spacecraft, represent a towering achievement for the human mind and heart—and something else. What we see is yet another bleak, lifeless, sterile sphere wandering around our sun, like all the others, save one.

Compare these pictures with those amazing photos of our own lovely, blue-green world that first came to us from Apollo 8 on its voyage around our moon more than four decades ago. And consider: It is the only sphere like it in the solar system, the only world that does or can support life. We would do well to keep those two disparate images in mind as we contemplate what our species is doing to the planet Earth—the only home humankind is ever likely to know.

RON BONN

San Diego

To the Editor:

Since there are limited funds available for basic scientific research, spending $700 million to get a photograph of Pluto is not a prudent use of these funds.

We spend money on basic research in the hope that in the long run it will benefit mankind. I think that the billions of dollars we spend on astronomy should be spent on other types of basic research.

DAVID J. KRUPP

Howard Beach, Queens

To the Editor:

It is remarkable that mankind is capable of sending a spacecraft traveling three billion miles for nine years to capture amazing pictures that tell us so much more about the world around us, yet on planet Earth, we still haven’t figured out how to respect and live with one another.

MIRIAM KAGAN MARGOSHES

Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Here are scenes from today's stage of the Tour de France. The winner, Joaquin Rodriguez of Spain, averaged 21.36 miles per hour for 121.1 miles. Chris Froome retained the overall lead. I have a hunch that Froome's Sky team is using performance-enhancing drugs. It's not normal for a team leader to have two teammates with him the entire way.

Addendum: I'm not the only one who's suspicious.

Starz (1976). Crankin' guitar!

Here.

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To the Editor:

“Why a Teenage Bank Teller May Have the Best Summer Job” (Your Money column, July 11) is likely to lead high school students, who ideally should be pursuing opportunities that help them explore their intellectual and academic interests, to stampede instead toward summer jobs at banks as a means of impressing colleges.

Contrary to what the article suggests, the most competitive colleges are still “wowed” by prospective scientists who pursue original research; artists who produce original works; caring citizens who perform significant community service, and humanists who delve deeply into philosophy, history and literature.

With undergraduate admissions to America’s highest ranked universities being the most competitive ever, and summer employment (as the article mentions) “at a record low,” it’s wrong to encourage young people to scramble for scarce bank jobs. Depending on a student’s background and intended field of study, so many other activities can be far more enriching, helpful to society and impressive on a college application.

ELIZABETH WISSNER-GROSS

Great Neck, N.Y.

The writer, an educational consultant, is the author of “What High Schools Don’t Tell You.”

This is laughable. Economics is politics masquerading as science. I found this exchange particularly amusing:

G.G.: It seems clear that we don’t have a science of economics that will in general provide reliable predictions about the consequences of particular policies. Can we at least expect economists to unite in rejecting political proposals that have no scientific support?

D.H.: Reputable academic economists are united in rejecting the genuinely unfounded economic claims that politicians make. There may not be complete unanimity, because some economists [e.g., Paul Krugman] are ideologues without scientific scruples. Furthermore, as the example of climate change shows, powerful interests can make an overwhelming scientific consensus appear to the public to be a matter of scientific controversy.

The final sentence should be revised as follows: "as the example of climate change shows, powerful interests can make a scientifically controversial topic appear to the public to be a matter of scientific consensus."

Wait. I thought dissent was patriotic.

Addendum: The reporter uncritically accepts Barack Obama's interpretation of the meaning of the Confederate Battle Flag. Why does he get to decide what it means?

Here are scenes from today's stage of the Tour de France. The winner, Rafal Majka of Poland, averaged 23.20 miles per hour for 116.8 miles. I will rise at 4:45 tomorrow morning to watch the next stage.