Letters

A Bad Case of the Jitters

"The good news is that a stock's price can't fall below zero. So, fortunately, the most you can lose is everything." GARY W. JANSEN New Canaan, Conn.

The coming of a bear market should have been obvious to anyone who made an effort to keep up with what was happening in the securities industry [BUSINESS, March 26]. Most stocks are little more than overvalued gambling chips that do nothing for the stockholder unless he can sell them to another sucker for a price higher than he paid. He's like a victim in a pyramid scheme. The guys who are really raking it in are the corporate CEOs and their colleagues. MANI DELI Toronto

Here in Seattle you'd think it was Judgment Day from the sheer panic that market volatility has created in the minds of business as well as in the local and national media. Seattle hasn't been shaken as much by the earthquake and Boeing's decision to relocate its headquarters as by the inane spin the media are putting on the market's downturn. Instead, the media should be reporting on the intricacies and complexities that truly make for stability in business. ELIZABETH HARRIS Seattle

The Internet bubble is a lot like other monumental investment schemes throughout history. Common characteristics include mass greed and a complete disconnect between a stock's price and its fundamental value. How ironic that the Internet, the very thing at the center of this mania, holds the promise to enlighten and educate investors through information flow. ED SAUNDERS Los Angeles

There's a great lesson for all of us to be found in the tech-stock market massacre. I just wish I knew what it is. BEN WOODS Menlo Park, Calif.

When the market goes up, I eat regularly for 24 hours. When the market goes down, I fast for a day. Thanks to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, I have lost 130 lbs. so far. By the time Greenspan has finished wrecking the economy, I'll be wafer thin. Thanks to him, when I jump off the roof and land on someone walking below, I'll be too light to do any damage. RICK GRIGSBY Munster, Ind.

It is time for Greenspan to go. He has led us into a severe economic downturn by continually raising interest rates in 1999 and 2000, when there was absolutely no need to do so. If Greenspan were the CEO of a major corporation, he would have been fired long ago. We need a fresh face at the Federal Reserve. MICHAEL R. ADLER Coral Springs, Fla.

While a number of you blamed Greenspan for the sagging economy, others laid the responsibility at the feet of George W. Bush. "The fall of the stock market is not all that incomprehensible in the context of the unsettling end to the presidential election," declared a Californian. "The downturn can be seen as a crisis of confidence in the new Chief Executive." A Michigan reader went even further: "Our court-appointed President talked the country into an economic slump in order to gain momentum for his tax cut. But how much will lower taxes mean to unemployed or retired people who are counting on their stock dividends?" And a Floridian pulled out all the stops: "George W. Bush has mastered the art of frightening the nation and created an atmosphere of worry and hardship so as to promote his own self-interests and those of his friends." Whew!

While Glaciers Melt

It took President Bush less than two months to break his campaign pledge to restrict carbon-dioxide emissions from coal-fired electric-utility plants, despite widespread scientific agreement that such emissions contribute to global warming [NATION, March 26]. By doing so, Bush also broke another promise--his pledge to restore honesty and integrity to the office of the President. SUZANNE DYER-GEAR Westminster, Md.

Re the Bush flip-flop on carbon-dioxide emissions: Looks as though we can't read Dubya's lips either! Like father, like son? SUE HEIGELE Duncanville, Texas

Bush's backtracking on emissions won't be the last campaign promise you'll see him reverse. What does my child have to look forward to? Bad air, a depleted ozone layer and no open wilderness areas. Thanks a lot! CATHERINE LE RUYET Morgan Hill, Calif.

Is the President of the U.S. so badly informed about the relationship between carbon-dioxide emissions and global warming and its catastrophic effects that he will not act decisively? Bush has a family he cares for, but his children and future grandchildren may have to survive in an ever more hostile atmosphere. As the most powerful individual in the world, he has the unique opportunity to enter history as the statesman who looked beyond the next election. HENRY E. VAN KETS Drongen, Belgium

Bush broke his promise to restrict carbon-dioxide emissions because of the economic cost. I would like to see his face when he receives the bill for 10 times as much in clean-up costs after floods, droughts, submerging coasts, skin cancer, lost crops, etc. Bush seems to have deluded himself into thinking he is not dumping his garbage in his own backyard, but the weather gods do not respect man-made boundaries. Instead of teaching Americans to respect their planet, he is leading them (and everyone else) to future suffering. SHANNON WALLER Barcelona

The Papal Stakes

Your report on the Cardinals who might become John Paul II's successor [RELIGION, March 26] noted that of the Cardinals under 80 who are eligible to vote on the next Pope, 92% were named by John Paul II. Even if we believe that the Holy Spirit will eventually choose the next Pope by guiding the hand of his electors, we must still admit that the Holy Spirit's hand will have been steered by that of John Paul II. Sadly, the 1 billion followers of the Roman Catholic faith are not represented; they just follow. My impression is that the Cardinals have invested their lives in climbing the lofty hierarchy of the church in a frantic search for power. This is reinforced by the fact that your article says nothing about the spiritual and social values of the church. PAOLO SINIGAGLIA St. Blaise, Switzerland

Practicing Biblical Sexuality

I was distressed by the way you edited my letter [March 19] on AIDS in Africa. I wrote that the "greater responsibility lies within Africa itself to teach, preach and practice biblical sexuality." The final phrase was changed to "practice safe sex." Between these two is a great gulf. "Safe sex," in Africa at least, is generally sex with a condom but without moral constraints. In fact, as your AIDS report pointed out, condoms rarely get used. "Biblical sexuality," by contrast, speaks of the Judeo-Christian view of sex as belonging in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship and involving abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within it. The safe-sex message, if anything, perpetuates the multipartner lifestyle associated with the increase in HIV infection. Biblical sexuality is what is required to stop this. Let no one confuse these two, as your editorial pen has done. MICHAEL CASSIDY, TEAM LEADER African Enterprise Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

How to Battle the Plague

In their fight against AIDS, African nations can take the passive path of asking for help from the big pharmaceutical companies or the proactive course of taking all means necessary to address the crisis [MEDICINE, March 19]. American-based pharmaceutical giants have not upheld the fine tradition of scientists like Alexander Fleming and Marie Curie, who had no greed. The onus rests on African nations to import or, better yet, produce cheap generic AIDS drugs. LULUFA KUNDUL VONGTAU Kaduna, Nigeria

Of Bullies and Bullets

Your article on the spate of terrible shootings in American high schools addressed the wrong issue [SOCIETY, March 19]. Children the world over are exposed to bullying and teasing, yet they don't all seek revenge through bullets, blood and mayhem. Surely the real issue is the availability of guns. It is more than a coincidence that so many of these tragic stories involve parents who own guns. The presence of guns in the home sends the message to children that violence does indeed solve problems. LOGAN SCOTT Cape Town

I was interested by your article on the need to foster resilience and self-esteem in children. Having been on the receiving end of bullying when I was in high school in the '60s, I can understand what little boys sometimes have to endure. I was puny, wore glasses and had a very strange surname in an Anglo-Saxon environment. Prime target! But my parents helped me develop self-respect. I became a competent tennis player and cross-country runner and a good skier. As for bullies, they should be encouraged to become more effective leaders. They generally have the needed qualities; it is just a question of direction. ROBERT SAVOSNICK Gordons Bay, South Africa

Life with Credit Cards

In the graphic accompanying the story on the bankruptcy bill [BUSINESS, March 26], you prominently featured a Merrill Lynch Visa Signature card. Running this graphic with the article, which takes a negative view of the legislation and the "credit-card companies" advocating its passage, was misleading. It gave the impression that Merrill Lynch was somehow involved in crafting or lobbying for the bill, which is untrue. Merrill Lynch took no position on the bill and in no way lobbied for or against it. EDDIE W. REEVES Merrill Lynch Media Relations New York City

The bankruptcy laws should be tightened. Some people employ bankruptcy as a tool while cunningly hiding their assets. The party declaring bankruptcy may later become wealthy, but the lender, who in some cases may be relatively poor, can never recoup the loss. KNUD B. PEDERSEN Margate, Fla.

You stated that the credit-card industry is extending credit to "anyone with a pulse." This is incorrect. Within the past 12 months, one bank sent three separate letters to my mother advising her that she was preapproved to open a credit-card account with a credit limit of up to $100,000. My mother died in 1989. JULIE MACLEMORE Richmond, Texas

Self-Conscious Split Reality

I had to reread Lise Funderburg's commentary on the new U.S. Census categories for race several times to make sure that it wasn't a tongue-in-cheek take on old stereotypes of African Americans and Caucasians [ESSAY, March 26]. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Funderburg actually attributed her "love of watermelon, fried foods" to her African-American ancestry and her "taste for soy milk, vanilla flavored" to her Caucasian side. Why would she connect such hackneyed, trite and superficial traits to her beautiful heritage? What about a strong sense of pride, survival or reflection? A person with the benefit of two amazing cultural heritages should describe the experience without using generalizations that are the staple of TV sitcoms. EVANGELOS J. DUKOFSKY New York City

I understand Funderburg's support of the new multicategory choice of race on the 2000 Census and the sense of freedom it may give some people who see themselves as "multiracial." But to use the term race with any sense of seriousness is a mistake. Unless one sets about deconstructing the use of race as an ideology, one cannot escape participation in the racism that produces such a term. Blackness and whiteness are words that are representative of the history of power relations in this country, and that is one thing the Census count has addressed inadequately. REBECKA RUTLEDGE St Louis, Mo.

Corrections

Robert Hughes' review of the Edouard Manet exhibit [ART, March 26] incorrectly stated that its curator is George "Maunet." The correct name is Mauner. Also, the caption for the painting Still Life with Salmon said it was from 1880; the correct date is 1866.

The story "Girlhoods Interrupted," which ran with our article on school shootings [SOCIETY, March 19], said Pennsylvania eighth-grader Elizabeth Catherine Bush was "the first female school shooter in nearly three decades." We stand corrected. On Sept. 18, 1991, a 15-year-old high school girl in Crosby, Texas, shot and killed a 17-year-old football team captain in the school cafeteria.