Homecoming Dependents
Sir:
Regarding the curtailing of military dependents overseas: stop travel of American tourists overseas. The average tourist spends more on the foreign economy during a two-to four-week period overseas than the average service family spends in a year.
(M/SGT) RODNEY N. HOOTS Fort Bragg, N.C.
Sir:
The high gold loss in permitting service men the luxury of the family life they are underpaid to protect diminishes in perspective when viewed alongside the conservative guesstimate of $60 million per month that flows into foreign tills by way of the million and a half American tourists abroad each year. For this gold loss, stay-at-home Americans are repaid with a horde of misinformation, snap judgments, color slides and miniature Tour Eiffels.
It would seem that a government for and by the people would move first to discourage joyriding abroad and tamper last with the morale of its lifeline.
DOROTHY D. DREIMAN
Fairborn, Ohio
Sir:
It seems an injustice that the members of the military are deprived of the right of a home and family; the only reason we have a military is to ensure that right for the rest of the country.
PHILLIP J. WENDT Dover, Del.
Sir:
I protest the proposed cutback in dependent travel. For families, home is where the father is, and I don't call it patriotism to take this separation without protesting. We're the first ones to lose come a war, so why not give us the peaceful years with our husbands?
I never would have voted for Nixon if this had come out before the election.
DOROTHY CARLSEN Biloxi, Miss.
Pearl of the Orient
Sir:
When I was a cub reporter, 65 years ago, I was taught that there never had been but two outstanding jobs of reporting: 1) Lew Wallace's account of the Ben-Hur chariot race (fictional); 2) Lafcadio Hearn's account of the Gas House [Tannery] Murder in the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Now there is a third: TIME'S Hong Kong story in the Nov. 21 issue. That is the best piece of newspaper English I have read in a generation.
WILLIAM E. MARSH Oklahoma City
Sir:
Not to mention Deep Water Bay or Pokfuluam or Mount Kellett or Happy Valley, where the graves of honorable friends watch over race track, not to write of Tai Po or Sha Tin or Fan Ling, the golfers' paradise, is a crying shame.
You also missed Ice House Street.
Plenty shame.
GILLIAN CREAMER
New Canaan, Conn.
Sir:
You missed the biggest story out there in Hong Kong. True, Cheong Sam skirts and shopping infuse the tourist with excitement, but what about the building of the housing estate blocks that are taking 1,000,000 refugees out of hillside squatter shacks and changing the whole face of the British colony? Any tourist who has experienced the giving away of 1,000 bags of noodles to hungry, screaming Chinese children will jet away with the most intoxicating memory for life.
THOMAS LEM. SCHMIDT Northridge, Calif.
Sir:
Bravo on your cover on Hong Kong. Your article is tremendous, and it indeed makes old Peninsula hands want to pack their bags again.
ROSEANNE BURKE New York City
Sir:
Although the Great Buddha is in Kamakura, I don't mind it belonging to me.
GEORGE NAKAMURA APO 343
San Francisco P: TIME mistakenly located the Great Buddha Daibutsu (see cut). It belongs in Kamakura, not Nakamura.--ED.
Thin Zen
Sir:
[Koestler] is in no position to discuss samadhi until he has himself experienced that state. Then he may find words superfluous. EILEEN HYATT McGregor, Texas
Sir:
Arthur Koestler undoubtedly has a marvelous mind, but his most recent pronouncements regarding the futility of looking to Asia for enlightenment and spiritual guidance seem exceedingly irresponsible, unfair and misleading. By dwelling on the extremes of Oriental religions and their mystifying mysticism, he grossly distorts the wisdom of the East. He rejects Zen Buddhism and at the same time discounts the essence of Zen, which is not a spiritual doctrine, not a religion, not even a philosophy. One who understands Zen has no gods to fail him. For Zen is not a faith, but faith; not hopes, but hope; not beliefs, but belief. It has no rituals, no concepts, no symbolism. It is absurd to infer that the Eastern flavor of Zen is not worth tasting. Since Zen is simply a way of life, it knows no bounds or boundaries. The beauty of Zen is that it allows things to come of themselves, i.e., if there is enlightenment, the world will automatically become that better place.
LISE HOFMANN Palo Alto
Sir:
The article should have been printed under Business, as it was not saintmanship but salesmanship that was the goal of the author.
HARI SINGH EVEREST Roseville, Calif.
Simple Semantics
Sir:
Prince Philip (Nov. 21) for once is wrong. The science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it is not dentopedalogy (which is really the science of biting the foot which kicks you; it is a Post Office term). Prince Philip meant orpatopedalogy.
JOHN A. MCCLUSKIE
Sydney, Australia
P:Or as Reader McCluskie might better have put the science of hoof-in-mouthing: oripedalogy.--ED.
Sir:
On page 15 of the Nov. 21 issue of TIME, in "A Letter from the Publisher" referring to Gerald Moore, you write that "his volumes and tempi ..."
Please tell me I am wrong; please do not tell me that you attempted to pluralize the Latin tempus and made it into tempi!
RALPH W. JONES Cleveland
P:Lentissimo, please. The plural of tempo, a musical term denoting the rate of speed at which a piece or passage moves, is tempi.--ED.
Sir:
My question pertains to the excerpt from a letter written by T. H. White to Richard Burton regarding Camelot: "I hope it will be borozonic." I assume it is a word coined by White and am curious as to its meaning and origin.
DONNA MORRISON SCHREIBER
Lynchburg, Va.
P:Borazonic is latest English schoolboy slang, derived from new metal, borazon. Translation: "Absolutely wizard."--ED.
Integration Progress
Sir:
Is it possible that the white population of the Southern states of the U.S. go on ignoring the perilous heritage they are leaving their children and their grandchildren by their inhuman treatment of their black brothers?
F. MOODY
Buenos Aires
Sir:
As a native of the beloved state of Louisiana, I would like the U.S. to know that not all Louisiana residents share the feelings of the anti-Negro demonstrators in New Orleans. In fact, we are thoroughly ashamed of them.
(THE REV.) JAMES C. BRASHER Church of Christ Sulpher, La.
Sir:
I wonder what the results would be if the angry students of New Orleans were asked to do one of the following: 1) write a 500-word essay supporting racial prejudice, or 2) list ten reasons why they bear racial prejudice.
CAREY SPIKES Lubbock, Texas
Sir:
I can't help wondering if the citizens of the U.S. may have forgotten that we are supposed to be an example to the entire world of how a democracy operates, and that "equality under the law" is provided for in our Constitution.
ROBERT M. RYAN Maysville, Ky.
Sir:
The real tragedy is doubtless the bewilderment and the perplexity of those three little Negro girls who are the cause of the uproar.
RICHARD N. SORENSON JR. Pauls Valley, Okla.
Placement Service
Sir:
Now, fellas, if you'd really like to know the facts, we'll be glad to clue you in: last we heard, Phillips Exeter was in New Hampshire. It's Phillips Andover that's in Massachusetts.
THE PEAN BOARD The Pean
Yearbook of the Phillips Exeter Academy Exeter, N.H.
P:Half right. Plain Phillips Academy, founded 1780 by Samuel Phillips, is in Andover, Mass., and is commonly called Andover. Phillips Exeter, founded 1783 by Sam's Uncle John Phillips, is in Exeter, N.H., and is commonly known as Exeter.--ED.
Business Reporter
Sir:
Thanks a million for the magnificent write up of Sylvia Porter. A lot of us have been wondering about this intrepid woman who acquits herself with such distinction in a world where, traditionally, we are not to "worry our pretty little heads."
ALICE S. WOODHULL Buffalo, N.Y.
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