Venom for Profit

Sir: Some fighter this Muhammad Ali [March 8]. He should use his venom to protect his poor black buddies sweating it out in Viet Nam.

If he abhors violence, why is he making a very profitable living by using his hands against a fellow black?

(MRS.) EDYTHE CUMMINS

Pensacola, Fla.

Sir: It seems to me an insult to all of the young American men who have bravely and not always willingly fought in our armed forces to have Cassius Clay's picture on the cover of TIME. As the mother of two draft-age young men, it makes me sick to my stomach.

(MRS.) RUTH M. LANGSTAFF

Sacramento

Sir: The Establishment certainly does have a peculiar sense of values. It cannot stand the sight of nudity and lovemaking in public, labels them obscene and passes laws against them, but it rushes to pay huge sums for the "pleasure" of watching two people beat each other to a pulp or worse in the prizefight ring.

(MRS.) WINIFRED B. LOMBARDI

Van Nuys, Calif.

Sir: Viva America! Only she could spend millions to see "two men whack at each other in a ring" and refuse support to a space program designed to increase man's knowledge of his world.

LYNDA GAIDIS

Framingham, Mass.

Sir: It seems as if all writers in their subconscious hoped to hell that Frazier would beat Ali. Why? Because as they have said in not so many words, Frazier is an ignorant jackass, the kind of black man they like to have around. For a black man not to have thought about the black movement simply means he is not a "Black Man," but what most whites like to see.

RHONDA WILLIAMS

Jersey City

A Cloud of Ink

Sir: Congratulations to Melvin Maddocks for his Essay on "The Limitations of Language" [March 8]. After 30 years of reading technical articles on biology, I am convinced that obscure prose shows that the writer is not sure of what he is trying to say. He is like the proverbial cuttlefish that is supposed to evade its enemies by disappearing in a cloud of ink.

KENNETH D. ROEDER

Medford, Mass.

Sir: We should pass a law setting up a word bank. Pay writers and speakers and other communicators not to write and speak. Give them a base of 10,000 words a year. For every word under 10,000, give them a subsidy of 100 a word. This would stop this communication explosion and would go a long way to make sure that when people write or speak, they have something to say.

JIM ATKINS

Alexandria, Va.

Sir: Mr. Maddocks sounds like the Miss Fidditch of the 1600s who was constantly admonishing her school charges not to use that "vulgar" word you, but rather the "correct" thee, thou, thy and thine. Languages have always changed, such change is neither "healthy" nor "unhealthy," and neither the admonitions of a Miss Fidditch nor a Melvin Maddocks will do very much to affect our use of that magnificent and mysterious thing we call language.

RICHARD L. LIGHT

Latham, N.Y.

Sir: Your Essay was pointed and perceptive, but you're talking about terminology, not language. Language is alive and human; terminology is stagnant and mechanistic. When "war" (language) can easily be transformed into "pacification" (terminology), then "right" and "wrong" (language) become matters of "rationalization" (terminology). Language like "open housing," "poverty" and, "My Lai" require people to take stands; terminology imposes no such moral imperative because it explains away conscience and integrity and thus makes man less human.

THOMAS F. MADER

Syosset, N.Y.

Sir: Contrary to Mr. Maddocks, I would like to suggest that the reason most people rate "semantic aphasia" so low is that they intuitively recognize the problem for what it is--a pseudo problem.

LOUIS V. ZUCK

Ann Arbor, Mich.

The Cool Moon

Sir: Maybe James Taylor [March 1] does not know how to talk, but he certainly knows how to sing. It is true that his guitar fingering lends sudden lights and shadows to the barest melody. But there is something more in Taylor's music than that. It enters through the ears, chills in the pit of the stomach, melts and dissolves the heart.

If Janis Joplin was a twinkling star, James Taylor is the cool moon in the sky of rock music.

M.Y. PRABHU

New Brunswick, N.J.

Sir: If Taylor sings with "dignity," "restraint" and talent, then what adjectives, pray tell, are we to use for the Bernsteins, Coplands, Mozarts and even Sinatras of the world?

I find reprehensible the publicizing and glamorizing of, in my opinion, another example of a lost, freaky youngster who, like countless others, is engulfed in his own esoteric world of egomania, copping out, cacophony, inarticulateness and insignificant ideas.

PATRICIA B. KIRK

Denver

Sir: You continue to amaze me with your ignorance of pop music. It is a fad, and fads come and go. James Taylor is In because he looks like Jesus Christ Superstar and that's that.

ALLEN ELDRED

Jacksonville, Vt.

Discarded Orange Peel

Sir: Bucky's Bubble in Montreal and scores of other geodesic domes stand as monuments to Mr. Fuller's well-rounded genius [March 1]. However, I cannot accept the proposal that "dome-iciles" are the answer to the global need for low-cost housing. When a designer cannot economically achieve warmth, friendliness and informality with square walls, I hardly think it appropriate to blame the walls. Your photographs illustrate how cold and uninviting a dome can be on the interior and how the exterior can be made to resemble a piece of discarded orange peel.

WAYNE TOBIASSON

Hanover, N.H.

Sir: I've enjoyed it and I've had it! My round house in Los Angeles is up for sale, and I'm looking for a conventional square one. The architecture is magnificent, but there is no economy in the round and even less comfort. It's a great bachelor pad, and she will never feel cornered in it, but wait until you try to buy furnishings for that oval and wind up having them made at four times the usual price, plus having to design them yourself.

PAUL BINDRIM

Los Angeles

I Am Not a Water Plant

Sir: As first-year Latin students, our class became curious about your title Civis Britannicus Non Sum [March 8].

We think the correct adjective you wished to use was Britannus, so the title would translate as "I Am Not a British Citizen." The adjective Britannicus refers to a water plant, and your title translates: "I Am Not a Water Plant Citizen."

DARRYL CHOY

Latin Class Representative

Francisco Junior High School

San Francisco

>Either Britannicus or Britannus can be translated as "British." As to the vegetation, Pliny the Elder wrote: "Why the plant was so called I greatly wonder, unless perhaps, living on the shore of the British ocean, they have so named the britannica because it is, as it were, a near neighbor of Britain."

Massive Exams

Sir: The President's plan for health [March 1] should read "Prescription for Illness." This country's ills would be better treated by establishing massive programs for prevention. Why not make annual, thorough physical examinations of every citizen mandatory under law with penalties for violators?

Granted the cost involved in implementation of such a program would be high, but once such a system were established, a great many dollars would be saved since disease and hospitalization could be kept at a minimum.

JANET DOMBROSKY

Cleveland

Sir: "In the U.S. today, only the rich can afford to be ill." Are you kidding? From where I sit, only the indigent can parlay a simple headache into a comprehensive physical exam, blood and urine studies, brain scan, E.E.G. and skull films--without ever seeing a bill.

NORMA W. COUTURE, R.N.

Methuen, Mass.

By the Sea

Sir: Your interesting piece on Painter John Marin [Feb. 22] ends with his remark: "Isn't it funny that Dictators never never never live by the sea?"

Apparently old Marin did not know that the prototype of dictators, Generalissimo Rafael I. Trujillo Molina, lived his happiest years in power in a seaside mansion with open windows and balconies to the Caribbean in Santo Domingo. He only moved to other quarters because his wife got tired of fighting the dampness and abundance of termites.

O.B. CLOUDSHIRE

Toluca, Mex.

Come Wednesday Night, Mr. Chayefsky

Sir: It would be better if the World Conference on Soviet Jewry [March 8] were more like a Wednesday night Hadassah meeting. Hadassah women support a multimillion-dollar hospital, training and research centers, and a large youth program. Has Mr. Chayefsky attended a meeting lately?

(MRS.) BARBARA LUBEL

San Antonio

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.