Bias

Todays' Burlington Free Press contains two letters criticizing a recent editorial against putting utility-scale wind-generated power plants on Vermont's undeveloped and supposedly protected mountain ridges. One of them is the typical wind-at-all-costs jeremiad that is blind to the general rejection of putting these erections on the ridges. The other, hilariously, accuses the Free Press of bias. Of course, bias implies ignorance rather than informed opinion. Or it suggests an interest -- like Rob Roy Macgregor's in the letter already described -- in seeing something succeed or fail that has little to do with the facts of experience. The second letter is from "Thomas O. Gray," a citizen from Norwich. Though he neglects to mention the affiliation, he is former executive director and currently deputy executive director and director of communications of the American Wind Energy Association, the industry lobbying group. He is usually known by plain old "Tom." I suspect he is biased.