That Really Big Show

Sir: You have done it! I have never laughed so long and so hard as I did at your coverage of the Rowan and Martin Laugh-In [Oct. 11]. And I've never seen the program. If the program is half as funny as the article describing it, it must really be the wildest thing on the telly today.

We need more articles in your magazine like this one. TIME could turn into the funniest thing since . . . well, since Rowan and Martin.

JAMES P. McCREA

A.P.O., New York

Sir: I found your Rowan and Martin cover story reassuring. I had abandoned Laugh-In some time ago as I found it sophomoric, but on reading of its success with viewers, I was beginning to fear that my reaction was indicative of premature aging. Your finding that the majority of its fans are in the 12-to-18-year-old bracket allays my fears.

(MRS.) JEAN M. SILK

Braintree, Mass.

Sir: Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In gets the majority of its audience from the 12-to-18-year-olds? You have to be kidding. I've just bought 40 of their shows. We started screening them a month ago. Everyone is delighted. Now I've got to tell them they've been watching a teen-age show? I could get fired for this.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

Controller

BBC-2 London

Sir: Your enthusiastic exhortations on the "anything goes" theory espoused by Rowan and Martin sums up nicely why Laugh-In is withheld from our five growing children. I won't have my family growing up thinking that it's cute to knock everything, and that they can buy a laugh with smut, double-entendres, or by making household words out of vulgar expressions.

ELLIOT MOSER

Houston

Sir: I laughed, howled, and did everything short of rolling on the laundromat floor while reading your cover story on Rowan and Martin. I had to take refuge behind your magazine to evade the glaring eyes of the other patrons who couldn't understand my erratic behavior.

This article is especially important to me since I am deaf and miss most of the verbalizations of the show. When my wife, who can hear, explains them to me, they just don't seem funny. Your story effectively delineated that lost spontaneity.

GREGORY C. KIMBERLIN

Santa Monica, Calif.

Sir: Gerald Scarfe offers us a breath of creative originality with his freshness and individuality.

STEPHEN CARNAHAN

Silver Spring, Md.

> And credit is due as well to Robert S. Crandall, the photographer who shot Scarfe's sculptures for TIME'S cover.

Secret Message?

Sir: Re: picture of Pueblo crewmen [Oct. 18]: You better brush up on your sign language. According to a deaf-mute employee of the Detroit Free Press, those four men in the picture are spelling out HELP.

JUDITH SUHR

Birmingham, Mich.

> Sign language experts say that the four Pueblo crewmen are not accurately spelling the word Help, but may be trying to convey such a message from a vague knowledge of the sign alphabet. The first man on the left does indeed give the symbol for H; the second man does not spell E, but by placing a closed fist in his palm, signals the entire word Help, or Give me assistance. The third and fourth men give the wrong signs for L and P, though there are some similarities.

Third-Man Theme

Sir: Now the rest of the world can see the sickness that has engulfed America! George Wallace [Oct. 18] is that sickness, and if the Wallace supporters don't wake up soon, they can thank themselves for putting the great country of America in the most humiliating position it has ever been in.

DANESE L. MOORE

Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Sir: George Wallace says the things we Americans only whisper to each other in the privacy of our homes. Now we can have them said for us. It is too bad that we are so afraid to let ourselves be heard by those who run our lives and our country. Maybe in the privacy of the voting booth, Americans will tell them exactly what we think of big business and big Government banded together to keep the little man down.

FLOYD W. CURTIS

Lakewood, Calif.

Sir: The Wallace-LeMay candidacy might have been a giant put on, if it hadn't revealed how deep the nasty streak of violence and racism goes in so many of us whites.

LESTER NOYES

Denver, Colo.

Sir: I wonder how many who, having heard General LeMay's simple truths spoken with such straightforward intelligence, can still be swayed by that old flimflam about "wasting" a vote on Wallace. A vote for any team but Wallace-LeMay would be wasting 300 years of America.

THEO K. DOUGLASS

Sarasota, Fla.

Sir: The political climate of our nation has begun to bear a frightening resemblance to the reactionary forces in the Germany of the 1930s. At no time in history have we come so dangerously close to electing a man who would be capable of destroying our country by appealing to the forces of bigotry and fear. In the words of Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

MRS. ROBERT WEBER

Salem, Ore.

Sir: When Wallace was Governor of Alabama, there were numerous unpunished bombings, and finally children were dynamited to death when they attended Sunday school. Is this the kind of "law enforcement" people want in the U.S.?

STEWART R. DYCKMAN

Calgary, Alberta

Sir: It seems to me that what George Wallace needs is a memorable and informative slogan. How about "the Man Who Put the Big into Bigotry?"

ROBERT H. NUTT

Staten Island

Sir:

There was a researcher named Abie,

Who said, "I have found out that maybe

Without any doubt

The news soon will out:

George Wallace is Rosemary's Baby."

CLIFFORD M. CRIST

Manhattan

Have a Heart

Sir: Evidently, the Republicans have a super-efficient campaign machine, with plenty of the fuel necessary to run it--money. They are saturating the airwaves with television and radio spots; at Nixon rallies high-priced professional entertainment warms up (and probably accounts for) the crowd; balloons and confetti add to the carnival atmosphere. All this hoopla and ballyhoo can't alter the hard fact that Humphrey, and not Nixon, is the one who really cares. I recently saw a sign which sums up the whole thing: Nixon Is Plastic; Humphrey Has Heart.

SIDNEY FREIDBERG

Washington, D.C.

Sir: Humphrey claims to support the rational recommendations of the Kerner report. In the light of his hair-trigger snaps of "shut up" to hecklers, I seriously question his capacity of restraint and better judgment, were he faced with the problem of dealing with violence and crime.

W. JENNINGS O'NEILL

Chicago

Sir: Richard Nixon should be applauded for having the courage to select stumbling Spiro Agnew. It is about time we opened our high public offices to everyone and not limit them to the few who are capable, talented and intelligent.

A. OSAKE

Honolulu

Sir: From all I read and hear a number of people hate Mr. Nixon's guts. This is understandable as Mr. Nixon is the only candidate who has any.

MRS. RALPH A. EDWARDS

Bella Coola, B.C.

Sir: The '68 presidential race recalls to memory the words of Essayist William Hazlitt: "Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be." I weep a lot!

W. J. SPRING

Christchurch, New Zealand

Watching the Fuse

Sir: In a way, I regret that you paid attention to the case of Father Edward Schillebeeckx [Oct. 4]. Change and renewal in the church is irrevocably necessary to make it acceptable in our days. This renewal can't be stopped by compiling a dossier on Schillebeeckx, or by calling our church a revolutionary avantgarde. Schillebeeckx didn't betray us. Our world is nearly exploding, the fuse burns, and we shall have to do our utmost to put it out.

R. DUIKER

Beverwijk, The Netherlands

Sir: While thanking you for the attention given to my "case," I feel bound to point out that I cannot recognize the statements about Christ's resurrection and Mary's virginity as my own. I have, in fact, never spoken or written about Mary's virginity in the sense suggested by you, and while I could accept the negative part of the opinion on Christ's resurrection as my own (in the sense that a physical recomposition of Christ's corpse is not necessarily implied), I am firmly convinced that it does imply a new bodily life of the Jesus who had died.

E. SCHILLEBEECKX, O.P.

Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Ye Gods!

Sir: In your review of Oedipus [Oct. Ill, you castigate Chris Plummer for making the King of Thebes "arrogant rather than hubristic," his fate more like "a matter of just deserts than a result of the awesome machinations of Apollo." Face it, baby: Apollo is dead. Nobody prays in the Theater of Dionysius today. And whatever the 20th century gods do, they don't machinate. Sophocles' play, though, lives on. Ever wonder why? Chris was trying to tell you, but you didn't listen.

Maybe you're right in feeling that he understates the part--it's the Method, and it isn't noted for its ability to cope with poetic cadences. But when he says that the fall of Oedipus is inevitable, gods or no gods, you ought to believe him. The gods have been blamed long enough. Arrogance alone causes Oedipus' problems. His arrogant, or if you prefer, hubristic pride is the tragic flaw in an otherwise noble character.

ROBERT MOUNTS

Geneva, Switzerland

An Egg a Day

Sir: As a Zambian, I wish to refute your statement in the Essay "That New Black Magic" [Sept. 27] that "Zambians believe eggs cause sterility." Even if there is a community or a tribe that upholds such a belief, it is nonsense to make generalizations. At a public rally in 1966, President Kaunda declared that he was looking to the day when every Zambian child would have an egg and a cup of milk a day. It is true that eggs are not easily available in many parts of the country. To overcome this shortage, the Government has set up a number of poultry cooperatives. For your information, I am married and have two children aged two years and six months, although I have eaten eggs almost daily since childhood.

ALLAN B. ROBERTSON

Manhattan

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