Anti-Matter
Sir: Your truly splendid Essay on American humor [March 4] describes a condition prevalent in the sister arts. If contemporary native humor lacks the comic, it is no less true that poetry has won for itself the name of “antipoetry”; the human portrait in painting and sculpture is a confused mass of cogs and angles; the latest creative hero, Truman Capote, in writing a novel, has disposed of fiction; finally, we have a rising school of theologians who advocate religion without God!
JOHN COURNOS
New York City
In the Year 2000
Sir: Your Essay “The Futurists” [Feb. 25] leaves me with just one happy thought: that I shall not be alive in the year 2000.
(MRS.) RUTH CHASE Ferrisburg, Vt.
Sir: What is predicted is a decadence similar to that which ended the glories of ancient Greece and Rome.
The most frightening prediction is the use of DNA to “control the shape of men to come.” This reminds me of the young bride whose husband had been transferred from Iowa to Boston. At a welcoming tea, a proper Bostonian lady remarked: “Here we regard breeding as everything.” The young bride retorted: “In Iowa we think breeding is fun, but we don’t think it’s everything.”
J. C. DEAN
Paris
Salut to Showpan
Sir: The cover story on Artur Rubinstein [Feb. 25] rang bells in my heart. How I wish I had saved a copy of the program he played in Canton, China in the summer of 1935. He had been engaged by my father, Edward Lockwood, to appear at the Chinese Y.M.C.A. and had telephoned from Hong Kong the evening before, reading off the selections in his thick Polish accent to a Cantonese printer. On the program, set without proofreading, Showpan was represented by several ayetoods and a couple of scaretzos. The hall was stuffed, the temperature stood at over 100° and Mr. Rubinstein, dressed in full concert regalia, played a two-hour program, a half hour of encores, and left the stage with his clothes soaked through. As a boy of 15, I was assigned to take Rubinstein on a ricksha tour of this teeming river port. I shall never forget his courtesy or his marvelous enthusiasm. He was a young 48 then, and by golly, he’s a young 79 now. Salut!
RICHARD LOCKWOOD
East Lansing, Mich.
Commitments on Viet Nam
Sir: For ten months I have been in Viet Nam, where much of my work has been with refugee Vietnamese. They do not comprehend the philosophies of free government or totalitarianism, but they want protection from communist brutality, and many have asked us for it even after their homes have been destroyed by our forces in the inevitable turmoil of war. Professor Kennan [Feb. 18] argues that because of our commitments to the Vietnamese, “our relations with the Soviet Union have suffered . . .” For the sake of the free world and of the South Vietnamese in particular, I am relieved that Kennan has retired from the State Department.
JOHN G. EDWARDS
Captain, U.S.A. Dental Corps
Viet Nam
Sir: The character of Fulbright supports your vaunted thesis that the U.S.A. is the world’s greatest democracy. I think it is of men like Fulbright that Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage—men who had guts and spirit in the face of opposition, however official it might be. America will rue the day when the Fulbrights of the Senate hold their tongues. I might not agree with all he says, but I admire and respect him for saying it.
AKBAR S. AHMED
Paris
Sir: Two minor corrections: Affirmation: Viet Nam [Feb. 25] is supporting the development of other such efforts in other states; this is one of our purposes. The quote attributed to Wayne Wood was by Chad Price, an Emory junior who has lost his chance for Phi Beta Kappa and will probably not be accepted at Cornell Medical School because of his time-consuming efforts on behalf of Affirmation.
REMAR M. (“BUBBA”) SUTTON JR.
Atlanta
Telling It to the Judge
Sir: Maybe the Iowa Supreme Court [Feb. 25] should take all Iowa children from parents who do not meet the court’s standards, put them in camps that will provide the right environment, and teach only a court-approved philosophy of life. Hitler thought this a good idea.
PETER A-B GIBSON
Butte, Mont.
Hastening the Date
Sir: Thank you for covering the wedding of Meki Toalepai and Jo Ann Kovacs [Feb. 25]. It may help get antimiscegenation laws repealed. After premarital counseling, during which we considered the usual marriage problems and any extra ones this couple might have, I was convinced they have a right to happiness and as much chance of obtaining it as others. Though I would not go out of my way to encourage interracial or interfaith marriages, I feel we have neither a moral nor a constitutional right to forbid them.
(THE REV.) FREDERICK J. HANNA
Emmanuel Church
Baltimore
AID, & No More
Sir: Artificial insemination [Feb. 25] is a boon for couples when the male partner is sterile. It is usual to get written permission from both parties. Neither ever sees the donor; to both, he is forever anonymous. AID can only remotely be construed as adultery; it is a medically accepted procedure to remedy some cases of infertility, and no more.
WARREN BRUNDAGE SHEPARD, M.D.
Director, Obstetrics
Shadyside Hospital
Pittsburgh
Tomorrow’s Doctors
Sir: About trends in medical education [Feb. 25]: at Ohio State University College of Medicine, the student may study anatomy in a structured program or pursue this subject at his own pace. Forty per cent of students follow the free program. Taking the same exam at the end of the year, the two groups perform equally well.
LLOYD R. EVANS, M.D.
Assistant Dean
College of Medicine
Ohio State University
Columbus
Boys Becoming Men
Sir: Your piece on independent study [Feb. 25] was fascinating. Such study does not imply softness. Taft boys freed to do their own work testify that their own standards are even more exacting. Nor does independent study mean the faculty has less to do. Lecturing three times a week to a class takes less time than guiding each student individually.
JOHN C. ESTY JR.
Headmaster
The Taft School
Watertown, Conn.
Blowhard
Sir: You insult thousands of highly trained, intelligent Air Force ground crewmen who maintain our B-52s when you suggest that Cassius Clay [Feb. 25] could learn such a skilled job. The only thing he might be able to do is blow up a tire if the air compressor broke down.
RAY RILEY
T/SGT, U.S.A.F.
Aberdeen, Md.
Breaking the Diet
Sir: As a missionary in Kerala, India for 17 years, I disagree that “the vast majority” of the catch of shrimp, lobster, mackerel and sardines is sold for export, and that Keralans “largely ignore the sweet potatoes, bananas, pineapples and coconuts that abound” in the state [Feb. 25]. Fish and shrimp are part of the regular diet of millions of people, and the other items mentioned are eaten daily. Unfortunately, the prices of such commodities have risen tremendously recently.
H. E. HEINLEIN
Dodge Center, Mich.
Some Gasser
Sir: We think that an Andy Warhol endorsement [Mar. 4] for our liquid helium would be a real “gasser.” As the nation’s largest supplier, we can keep his balloons filled for life. That ought to give him a lift.
ROY H. PRICE
General Sales Manager
Gardner Cryogenics Corp.
Hightstown, N.J.
Olds’s Olds
Sir: Although there was no Sloan car [Feb. 25], at least one of G.M.’s vehicles was named after its inventor: the Oldsmobile, named after Ransom Eli Olds, and first produced in 1887 as a three-wheeled, steam-powered horseless carriage. In 1900, the “Curved Dash” Oldsmobile was developed at the Olds Motor Works. It was some time later that the Oldsmobile became associated with G.M.
METTA ANDERSON
East Lansing, Mich.
Nectar of the Globs
Sir: I hurl myself into the breach in defense of Paul Ricard, inventor of the finest drink since sour mash [Feb. 25]. Your reporter, probably an undercover man for the W.C.T.U., has slandered the drinking man’s Thomas Edison in saying that ice added to Ricard’s pastis turns the licorice into a gooey glob. I modestly claim the record for annual consumption by an American of this delightful brew, and have yet to find a single glob in any of my well-iced drinks. Retract your calumny against this benefactor of mankind.
C. O. FRENCH III
Casablanca, Morocco
Sir: A Ricard is the most insidiously sly drink that ever slipped down an unsuspecting gullet. Two Ricards should be the maximum; I once tried three and felt that I was the most fascinating type, physically and intellectually, in the sixth arrondissement. Such illusions are not good for a man of my age.
W. L. WILEY
Kenan Professor of French
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, N.C.
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