"The Best of the Web Today" is probably one of the best features to be found. Monday through Friday I have a browser window up and start refreshing it around 11 a.m. PST awaiting its appearance. There's always some good stuff there. Today, they featured a letter to the editor to The New York Times by a First Amendment lawyer/professor at Hofstra.

As we have just been forcibly reminded, some people believe that America is a land of murdering barbarians, and that their institutions are of much higher moral quality than ours. The job of journalists is to ensure that the public has access to all of the viewpoints that underlie current events so that, in our role as citizens, we may make sound public policy choices.

ERIC M. FREEDMAN

Is a college professor serious in stating that the media should always be completely neutral and that all viewpoints are equally valid? Should the Flat Earth Society's white papers on astrophysics be treated with the same degree of respect and seriousness as those that come from Cal Tech? The media's job isn't simply to repeat what it's told, but to also explain, scrutinize and test the validity of various viewpoints.

Cyclists and other athletes train in high altitudes to improve their body's oxygen capacity. Rarified air may help athletes, but the cognitive abilities of these college professors high atop their ivory towers are obviously adversely affected.