Free for all

by Gunther Greulich, Randy Johnson, and Dan Beardslee

Again, I have read with interest your very professional ACSM Bulletin No. 234 of August 2008. Your 4th of July article is very educational; especially your several references to the “online” of the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, you did not tell us the website “online” address of the Library. Could you please publish and highlight it, as you did on page 37 for Gary Kent’s ALTA/ACSM report. Also, you might want to suggest to Ann Deakin (Geospatial Technology, pp. 16 - 20) to read my (our) paper on GPS in the ACSM Bulletin No. 223 of Oct. 2006, pp.21-26. She is only partially correct, when she credits the US Air Force with GPS/NAVSTAR, dating back to 1973. As we both know, the U.S. Navy’s GPS/NAVSTAR development goes back to the late 1950s.—Gunther Greulich, past ACSM president

I’ll stay out of the fray over global warming, though Bjorn Lomborg certainly makes some valid points. But I must question the photo and caption on page 31 of ACSM Bulletin #234. While I don’t often see oblique aerial photos from the southwest of Mt. Hood, in my county of Hood River, Oregon, and even fewer of Mount Rainier, Washington, from such an angle, Illumination Rock, Crater Rock, and a variety of glaciers and spurs lead me to believe that the state in the caption is incorrect. Mount Rainier is in Washington; the picture is of Mount Hood, which is in Oregon. Considering the depth of topics covered in the magazine, it may be much too minor a point to be overly concerned with, but I just felt that since Mount Hood is in my “backyard,” I should at least make mention of it. Please keep up the “promotion of advancement in surveying and mapping” in our ever changing world. —Randy Johnston, PLS, Hood River County Surveyor, OR

Referring to the picture on page 31—global warming is really getting frightening! As a result, Mt. Rainier has been moved to Oregon and it’s been reshaped to look like Mt. Hood. Wow! —Dan Beardslee, Erlandsen, WA