by Ted Rueter
Playboy
June 1, 2009
If your reporter George Prochnik had been truly interested in understanding boom-car culture (“Boom Car Boom,” March) he would have contacted victims of noise pollution–people who suffer from chronic fatigue, mental aggravation, hearing loss and sleeplessness, as well as those who have had to abandon their homes because of boom cars shaking them. Instead, he presents boom-car owners as misunderstood youths and anti-noise activists as cranks, dismissing our organization, for example, as little more than an online discussion group that trades a lot of “lathery bile”–which is not only inaccurate but a cheap shot. In fact, we have 52 local chapters in 27 states that work with the police and the media to combat excessive noise. The idea that some people are born to love booming bass while others prefer peace and quiet, as if there were a moral equivalence between the two, is laughable. People who are silent do no harm to others. Those who crank out incredible levels of noise cause a great deal of damage.
Ted Rueter
Madison, Wisconsin
Rueter is director of Noise Free America (noisefree.org). NFA recently called on the Obama administration to reestablish the federal Office of Noise Abatement and Control.