Of course it’s a sign of age. Though it’s now well over 50 years ago, I can remember the original “Moon Shot,” when President John F. Kennedy called for putting a man on the moon before the ’60s ended, very clearly.

I was in the process of moving to this area when the “Giant leap for mankind” could be viewed on a “portable TV.” Just plug it in and get the same three or four channels everyone else did. That’s also part of our past.

However, grandiose projects, grandiose imaginings, and grandiose pronouncements about national priorities continue in our misguided-as-usual present, as President Barack Obama has called for a new “Moon Shot” sort-of effort to cure cancer.

The fact of the matter is that about a dozen effective cancer cures are already both extant and available, but because they’re all to be found in the unpatentable natural world, they won’t be officially researched or covered by insurance.

Nor will they be incorporated into today’s allopathy, with its diagnoses, and continuing cut (surgery), burn (radiation), and poison (chemotherapy) “treatment treadmill.”

For example, the more than 50-year-old RNA antagonist 5-FluoroUracil, a drug toxic enough to earn the gallows-humor moniker “Five Feet Under,” is still in widespread use, and doubtless killing people with side effects on a daily basis. Only when private insurers are out of the picture, and drug and device makers can be appropriately restrained, will cures actually be incentivized.

A far better, and, despite political considerations, more doable national project, would be “50 by 30,” in which we get half of our energy needs met by renewable resources by the year 2030. It’ll make a big dent in both greenhouse gas generation and overall pollution of our land, air, water and food.

James Silin

Whitefield