Yentas, Unite

Sir: Your piece on Martha Mitchell [Nov. 30] was quite amusing, but you failed to spell out one thing. What happens when the size of the mouth exceeds that of the brain to such an extent that one completely overpowers the other? I would say it's idiocy over intellect by a wide margin, which is precisely what is happening in Washington today.

Only in the present climate could somebody like M.M.--remember when those initials stood for someone lovely?--thrive, and the only compensation is that, by a kind of prosaic justice, the Attorney General got what he deserved: a waspish Mrs. Portnoy whose cracks can be mended only with Silly Putty. Yentas of the world, unite--you've got nothing to lose but your brains.

KERMIT KAHN Manhattan

Sir: I have nothing against this woman. If John finds her O.K., it is his cross. If Nixon and Agnew find her great, let them enjoy their freedom to do so. But what does she stand for? What has she done to be taken seriously or worthy of our time? Do you mean to suggest that she is a representative of the Washington wives? God bless this country and Washington! Do you suggest that she provides the badly needed lighter vein for the whole nation? If so, you should ask the editor of Mad to handle her.

M.T. ANTONY Brooklyn

Sir: Martha Mitchell is the envy of every American woman. She does what every woman wants to do. Talk. I hope John lets her keep on.

FLO HUGHES APO San Francisco

Beyond the Schoolhouse

Sir: Sesame Street [Nov. 23] is a spectacular spectrum of meaningful motivation. Where else can you sing along with Pete Seeger, find a goodly measure of mirth with the Muppets, and learn in spite of oneself? Thus the so-called low achievers are mentally massaged by the TV medium--so much so that an impossible attention span of an hour is commandeered. Learning can and should take place beyond the big red schoolhouse. With the advent of today's technological instruction techniques, perhaps a portion of learning can take place in the home again. For learning is not limited to the schools.

D. THOMAS KING

Consultant, St. Paul Public Schools

St. Paul

Sir: The question arising from such a marvelous laugh-and-learn format is not what other networks will do to upgrade their own standards, but what the schools will do to meet the challenge.

Wake up, people! It's true. My son and his peers will enter kindergarten knowing what many third-graders are struggling to master. My question is: What will school administrators do?

ANITA S. LEE Wayne, N.J.

Sir: I think children have proved you to be correct. Sesame Street isn't just for underprivileged three and four-year-olds. It's for anyone who is ready to learn or hasn't already learned the concepts that Sesame Street has to teach. It is indeed a very special gift for a child.

(Mrs.) ALLENE KRIZO San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Sir: It's wonderful, having our children grow up as the Sesame Street generation. But must this season's programs move along so fast (reading, Spanish, mathematics, etc.)? I get the feeling that if my three-year-old misses one day of Sesame Street, he may not get into the college of his choice.

MRS. CHARLES J. TYBURK Glen Ellyn, Ill.

Sir: The children in South America are certainly lucky, since Sesame Street is going to be exported there. Our children in north Louisiana aren't so lucky--we had it but lost it. The ostensible reason was that the show was too expensive. Actually it was too black.

MARGIE TOWNSEND Shreveport, La.

Not by Ten

Sir: TIME giveth, and now TIME should take away. Katherine Graham is of course only 53 years old, not 63, as you wrote in your "Wives of Washington" cover story [Nov. 30].

BONNIE ANGELO Washington, D.C.

>Sincere apologies to a charming lady. Our computer slipped.

Alternating Monologues

Sir: Melvin Maddocks made a number of astute observations in his Essay "In Praise of Reticence" [Nov. 23]. However, I feel that there is something special about air travel that gets complete strangers together. Perhaps the God-above-gravity feeling of air flight tends to lower the barriers against strangers.

As I read the article, I pictured myself as having been a Charlie O. during air flights, but several of my fellow passengers also opened up. Perhaps we never had an "authentic dialogue" but an alternating series of monologues that fell on deaf ears. Ears deaf because of the secure knowledge that the fellow passenger would probably never cross paths with you again. For the moment you were together, going the same place. Complete reticence would be as absurd as complete loquacity in such a situation.

JOHN D. PIKE Statesboro, Ga.

Sir: Mr. Maddocks' Essay, "In Praise of Reticence," was a point well taken. But since his subject was reticence rather than noise, he might have done well to include the suffocating written word as well as the spoken one. For while it is true that . . . Most of us suffer in some degree From cacoethes loquendi, Yet some who deplore it at length seem to be Afflicted with ditto scribendi.

(MRS.) FLOE HOWARD Franklin, Ohio

The American Way

Sir: Your article, "The High Price of Peace in Detroit" [Nov. 23], makes me want to say "Congratulations, U.A.W. and Mr. Woodcock, for pricing yourselves right out of the market." Certainly this and labor's demands in general rival the ecological mess as a classic example of man's shortsightedness.

I am one blue-collar worker (railroad) who is truly thankful for the countless blessings that I have. I grieve, however, at the greed and selfishness that labor unions are displaying while doing such great harm to those they represent, to say nothing of the forgotten Americans on pensions that are static. I certainly am not going to "Buy American" simply to satisfy the unions' endless greed and penalize myself in quality and value to do so. Indeed, my only consideration will be the best buy for the money. This, I believe, is the American way.

ROGER DAVENPORT Toledo

Sir: U.A.W. President Leonard Woodcock has just become the greatest salesman of foreign cars in the U.S.

WILLOUGHBY R. CHAPMAN Hendersonville, N.C.

Getting an Oar In

Sir: No one will deny that, as Mr. Stowe says in your article "Stowing the Manly Oar" [Nov. 23], the world is not what it was when he was an undergraduate. There are abuses throughout our society, and the students are bellwethers. If one listens to them, one realizes how miserable they are and how desperately they want to be a part of an America that lives up to the principles upon which it was founded. Columbia students are too intelligent to accept a haircut and a hard hat as the salvation of our country.

As word of Mr. Stowe's oft-stated simplistic solutions to the problems confronting us got around the university, turnouts for crew did indeed drop. The regrettable fact of Mr. Stowe's association with Columbia is not that it has been terminated, but that in the three years he was there he didn't learn a thing.

NORMAN ERIK HILDESHEIM

Coach, Columbia Lightweight Crew

Manhattan

Blatant Appeal?

Sir: As a student of international business, I would like to compliment you on your article on the foreign trade bill [Nov. 23]. This bill is a true outrage not only to the principles and benefits of free trade but also to the U.S. consumer and citizen-voter. The bill is a blatant appeal to certain interest groups at the expense of the inflation-burdened Silent Majority.

ANDREW D. ROBERTSON Rockford, Ill.

Sir: Your article strikes a Scot as simply frightening. Why don't you Americans stick to what you do superlatively well? The high-quality superfinish garment, the first-class typewriter, the top computer equipment--all the reliable merchandise that the man in the street in Europe knows he can buy with confidence.

Cheap prices are no longer deceiving better-educated people. Too many now know that the high price paid for quality is the cheapest thing you can buy anywhere. The man who makes it will never perish. What have you got to worry about?

ROBERT SMITH Lommel, Belgium

Mountain Goats Too

Sir: Thank you for your article, "Mechanized Monsters [Nov. 23], about the invasion of machines on the last strongholds of nature by what seems to be machine-oriented people.

I sincerely believe that anyone requiring a machine to travel across our beaches, mountains and through our babbling brooks is in reality a weak person. He likely uses his feet little, except to press down the pedal, has very little appreciation of nature and no consideration for the thoughts of others who wish to escape our noise-ridden, smoggy cities.

If action is not taken soon to stop the onslaught of the machines, we will soon discover that no one, not even the wily mountain goats, can escape the horrors of modern technology with its dividends of pollution.

MICHAEL HITCHENS Ruston, La.

Sir: I suggest that someone roundup a pack of these utterly inhuman creatures who foxhunt by snowmobile, set them loose in unfavorable terrain, and pursue them with a snowmobile, or whatever, until they drop from exhaustion and die. And let them rot where they fall. Such living carrion are not worth burying.

GEMMA JACKSON Salt Lake City

Sir: There are hundreds of snowmobile clubs--and the number is growing rapidly --whose purposes and deeds are for environmental improvement.

What kind of reception did the automobile get in its infancy? Let's not condemn superficially on the basis of a few thoughtless operators.

HAMILTON ALLEN Director

Silver City Sno-Birds Oneida, N.Y.

Man of the Year

Sir: The American Woman, who in this year of Women's Liberation has freed herself from the tyrants of the fashion industry by refusing to buy the appalling midiskirt.

MRS. ROBERT BUCKLEY Hastings, Neb.

Sir: King Hussein--that plucky little desert eaglet, for his bravery, and incredible survival in the face of fearful odds.

VICTOR BORODIN Sao Paulo, Brazil

Sir: Golda Meir.

EDMUND K. EICHENGREEN Chicago

Sir: The Palestinian guerrilla.

(MRS.) ERMA E. BAER Chicago

Sir: Charles de Gaulle: statesman, soldier, writer; above all, a great patriot and human being.

JOHN D. SAVICH Chicago

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