See also, this letter to the editor, published in the September 2008 issue of Harper's:
I am a new subscriber, and I find myself perplexed by the lack of context for the doomsday scenario related in the June Readings section ["Fear Review"].
The Reading presents what appears to be a factual affidavit [from one Luis Sancho, about the chances that the earth will be destroyed should the Large Hadron Collider be activated]. Is this a misapprehension on my part? Is this an inside joke that is funny to the editors because you don't believe a word about the danger described? Is your magazine so sophisticated that you would simply report, without comment, the possibility of the careless destruction of the world by a group of scientific researchers?
If this is an example of "tongue-in-cheek" entertainment, I don't find it very funny, and I think you owe it to your less sophisticated readers to explain just what the hell is going on in that laboratory and at Harper's Magazine.
-- Barbara Romano
Upper Darby, Pa.
