Coasting Along
Sir:
Your cover story "Those Rush Hour Blues, " [Jan.18th] called to mind E. B. White's definition of a commuter:
Commuter -- one who spends his life
In riding to and from his wife,
A man who shaves and takes a train,
And then rides back to shave again.
CHARLES M. BRYAN Concord, Tenn.
Sir:
Your pictures of the poor sufferers on the New Haven train, snoozing and boozing, brought envy, not pity, to my heart, as I tried to keep my balance on the subway to work today. On behalf of my fellow regular "standees," we'll trade places any time if the New Haven commuters would like to try London's Piccadilly Line subway.
STANLEY GERSHON London
Sir:
Your story clearly indicates by that the railroads' commuter service is, by and large going "steadily downhill." For those on the downhill grades I offer the following suggestion: sell rides to commuters for half fare, release brakes, and coast. Any excess kinetic energy may be converted to electric power and sold to the local power company at a modest profit.
R. E. SHAFER Livermore, Calif.
Sir:
There exists a vehicle which, if used by the majority of commuters, would materially reduce the smog problem and would provide sorely needed exercise for the average commuter: the bicycle.
LANNY R. MIDDINGS Los Angeles
Sir:
Our answer to the commuter problem is birth control.
JACK MATHEWS BILL DALZELL Dayton
Perfect Ladies
Sir:
The Buchanan presidential bathtub [Jan.18] is precisely like three zinc tubs in this Radcliffe dormitory that are essential to our ideal of gracious living. To imply that such accouterments are passe, ridiculous, and suitable only for portly six-footers is arbitrary, unjust, and unfair. Such tubs remain entirely serviceable, even for those a scant five feet tall.
We could wish that plumbers would install them nowadays. Zinc tubs are deeper than the conventional porcelain ones, thus being more modest and more efficient. The water level reaches the shoulders rather than just the knees of the seated bather. The metal sides conserve warmth -- of great strategic importance in the older houses of Cantabrigia.
DEBORAH ROBIN HULL Cambridge, Mass.
Sir:
Being a great-great-grandson of Rachel and General Andrew Jackson, I was shocked and humiliated when I read [Jan. 18]: "His devoted, pipe-smoking Rachel cheerfully put up with log cabins for 15 years before they realized their dream of the grand white-colonnaded house of their own." Why should you want to degrade and lower the character of a lovable and perfect lady? [See cut.] Rachel Jackson suffered with asthma, and her physician recommended that she try smoking a cob pipe to relieve the congestion. It did not help her condition.
C. LAWRENCE WINN Old Hickory, Tenn.
Sanskrit
SIR:
TIME'S STORY ABOUT SIR EDMUND HILLARY'S WORLD BOOK EXPEDITION [JAN. 11] WAS ACCURATE, BUT OUR EDITORS CLAIM ONE OF THE WORDS WAS WRONG. THERE IS NO "HIMALAYAS." THE WORD HIMALAYA (HIH MAH-LAH YAH) COMES FROM SANSKRIT AND MEANS "HOUSE OF SNOW" OR " OR SNOWY RANGE." CORRECT USAGE IS ALWAYS "HIMALAYA." NEVER "HIMALAYAS," OR "HIMALAYAN." THEREFORE, SIR EDMUND HILLARY IS PLANNING TO GET ABOVE IT ALL IN THE HIGH HIMALAYA.
JOHN W. DIENHART WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA CHICAGO
P: Oh.-- ED.
Picked-On Pilots
Sir:
Maybe we wouldn't feel quite so picked on if Elwood Quesada and his sleuths [Jan. 18] would devote a little more of their time and energy to protecting us "defiant" airline pilots from those insane passengers who delight in blowing themselves or their friends up on our airplanes.
KENNARD PERKINS Minneapolis, Minn.
Sir:
Nothing less than the highest standard is good enough. Strictest enforcement and regulation are the only logical criteria under which our airline services should operate.
JACK TOOTELIAN Cincinnati
Sir:
Has it not occurred to anyone at TIME that General Quesada took over the direction of the FAA on Jan. 1, 1959, and thence followed the year with the worst safety record in the history of commercial aviation?
M. G. CARDOZO Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Giving It Away
Sir:
Apropos pencil v. lens row [Jan. 25], a question: How can newspapermen demand second table for TV when, if the price is right, they'll don makeup and join the Q. and A. panels? Time was when there was hell to pay in the city room if a statesman held out a nugget of news for the opposition. But now he's allowed to save his finest gems for Sunday afternoon and the 21-inch opposition. And, compounding the felony, the reporter who covers him daily joins the panel and elicits the story, thereby giving it first to millions who don't give a nickel for his newspaper. The reporter collects his pay and trots home. The wire services write the story and send it (with appropriate TV credit) to his paper.
JACK MCPHAUL Chicago
Court of Appeals
Sir:
TIME'S article, "Turkey: Premier v. Press," Jan. 18, seems to ignore the fact that the Turkish Grand National Assembly is elected by the people through democratic and free elections, when it states that Prime Minister Menderes "ordered the Assembly to pass stringent new laws to control newsmen." The passage by majority vote of the press law disputed in the TIME article took place after long debates in the parliament.
Another misleading point in the TIME article is that "900 have been found guilty --some of them two and three times -- and sentenced to terms ranging up to three years." By this statement, one is led to believe that these newsmen have all been jailed with long prison terms. This definitely is not the case. Only 25 indictments involving 35 persons, and resulting from major libel suits, were passed by the courts and upheld by the court of appeals.
NACI SEREZ Turkish Press Attache Washington, D.C.
Front Seat, Back Seat
Sir:
In his review of Where the Boys Are [Jan. 18], your critic betrays his size (or shape, or age). Those of us who are not built along Ivy League lines, i.e., with shoulders, find front-seat sinning pure hell.
CLARK PETERSEN University of Kansas Lawrence, Kans.
Sir:
In reference to your reviewer's criticism of Glendon Swarthout, you still have to use the back seat for automotive amour -- in the front you hit the horn.
JANE KELLER Cambridge, Mass.
Sir:
Merrit asks me to pass on to what she calls TIME'S "sweet, nurdy, middle-aged critic" this clue:
"For group dynamics in cars, back seat better. Less dashboard damage."
GLENDON SWARTHOUT Scottsdale, Ariz.
To Please Everybody
Sir:
Your "Rolling Bandwagon" [Jan. 18] blared out the same note unnecessarily loud and long. The use of the word Catholic six times in a single brief article of a political nature does more than underscore religious considerations; it makes them paramount.
JOHN E. RYAN Louvain, Belgium
Sir:
Any President elected will presumably be a man of at least some principles. Unless he is willing to abandon these principles, he will necessarily be imposing them on the rest of the American people to the full extent of his power. A man is a moral, and not a legal being. Is it not a little too much to expect a man to renounce his religion and his basic morality in order to be able to please everybody?
PAUL WYSZKOWSKI Kingston, Ont.
Solution?
Sir:
I believe I have a solution to most of the population explosion [Jan. 11]. It is taken by husbands 20 minutes before retiring, is inexpensive, readily available, and to my knowledge, conflicts with no religious restrictions. It is a sleeping pill.
BARBARA BAILEY MARCUS Berkeley, Calif.
Sir:
Maybe we should re-evaluate "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public," presented by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift's proposal argued with ironical solemnity the economic wisdom of the sale of year-old infants by the poor to the rich for table consumption.
A. N. HOPKINS San Rafael, Calif.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.