Sex and the Teen-Ager

Sir / Your story on teen-age sex [Aug. 21] is so comprehensive that I've shelved a teenage opus I've about half-finished writing. Your researchers and reporters have treated the subject so graphically, what the hell else is there to learn or prove?

LEWIS T.APPLE

St. Louis

Sir / For several years I have talked to students about the simple realities of sexual behavior in much the same way as you have done. Most of them have been able to understand and accept the importance of sex education but a few unthinking students and parents have always been threatened by the course content and managed to influence public school administrators to apply pressures to stop me. But I persist. Such articles as yours are a great help.

JAMES B.CUDD

Psychology Teacher

Corpus Christi. Texas

Sir / I admire the teen-agers for taking upon themselves the responsibility of making moral decisions. Whether they are morally right or wrong is indeed important. But one must recognize that they have learned how to think for themselves.

RICHARD C. HUNT

Greenville, S.C.

Sir / Did you ever hear of contributing to the delinquency of a minor? I charge you with this infraction of good morals.

WILLIAM A.P. MARTIN

Annapolis, Md.

Sir / You are exploiting the teen-ager and sex in general; you are making teen-age sex experimentation seem even more commonplace and acceptable than it already is.

(MRS) JANE HAMRE

Charlottesville, Va.

Sir / The sad part is not only the sickening life-styles of these young Americans but also the fact that in 25 years they will be very lonely middle-aged men and women with no lasting relationships in life.

The Brownings must be turning over in their graves.

CHRISTINE MEYER

Clarks Summit, Pa.

Sir / I am a 14-year-old girl, and I feel that for the most part the American teen-ager is being misrepresented as a drunken, high, oversexed person with Communistic ideas. What about printing something a little bit more in our favor?

ANNYWHALEN

St. Louis

Sir / If teen-age sex is so much fun, how come the two young people on your cover look so sad? Could it be because we've robbed them of their youth?

MARY ZUCCARINI

Medfield, Mass.

Sir / The picture of the poignant puppies on the cover says it better than does the story itself.

(THE REV.) JOHN J. DAHLHEIMER

Hollywood

Against Gun Control

Sir / "Another Misfire" [Aug. 21] again presents TIME'S extreme viewpoint on the highly controversial issue of gun control. It does not do credit to your usual careful reporting. Surely it is not unreasonable for you to admit the possibility that the National Rifle Association and Governor George Wallace, not to mention the United States Senate, are also thinking and acting in what they consider to be the best interests of the nation in the matter of firearms legislation.

JOHN C. SOUDERS. M.D.

Rock Island, 111.

Sir / I am under 30, believe in the legalization of pot, and sat on the streets of Berkeley before the word hippie was invented. I do not like violence; I do not care for "Saturday Night Specials." But I cannot see myself unarmed and helpless while killers, rapists (my wife was raped) and thugs can get weapons as easily as I can get a Bible.

Until someone can come up with a constructive way of disarming the underworld as well as law-abiding citizens, I will continue to utilize my right to bear arms. And God help the fool who breaks into my home.

(THE REV.) KIRT R. HARMON

Oakland, Calif.

Sparring Partners

Sir / I was not a "long-suffering wife" [Aug. 28]. We were each other's life, love, sparring partners, feisty and indestructible --until death, etc.

MRS. OSCAR LEVANT

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Nixon and the Jews

Sir / As a Jew, I am dismayed and disgusted at the defection of other Jews to Nixon's camp [Aug. 21].

Traditionally, Jews have valued economic and social justice. George McGovern entertains these values while Nixon is their archenemy.

The "new" Nixon is just the old Nixon but with more cunning.

Fellow Jews, please wake up.

JERROLD KODISH

Binghamton, N.Y.

Sir / I am sick and tired of the media telling me how I'm going to vote this November. As an over-30, upper-middle-income, liberal Jew, I have never, nor will I ever, vote for R. Milhous Nixon. For the first time in a long time I can vote for someone I believe in wholeheartedly: George McGovern.

JUDITH KELSKY LEBOVITZ

Pittsburgh

Sir / Having been both Jewish and Republican all of my life, I am elated by the sudden surge of support for President Nixon manifested by others of my faith. It is true that Israel's existence and safety remain paramount among my interests, but it is the rest of Nixon's outstanding accomplishments and programs that keep me a "true believer" in the Republican Party. I only hope that this is a permanent shift among my co-religionists and that they, as I did many years ago, are at last "seeing the light."

LAWRENCE J. TABAS

Wynnewood, Pa.

Sir / As a Jew and an ex-Democrat, I resent Senator McGovern's telling me that because I have been a "traditional" Democrat, I will "come home again" and vote for him. I feel positions in Government and elsewhere should be won on the basis of merit, not quotas. I have been against quotas for Jews in medical schools, government, banks, etc.; I am still against quotas.

This year I vote Republican.

RUTH B. CRAIR

Agoura, Calif.

Predicting Solar Flares

Sir / Allow me to correct TIME'S misinterpretation of my remarks about our ability to predict the outbreak of solar flares [Aug. 21]. It may be true that a sixth sense would be required to predict the precise moment of outburst of a solar explosion, just as such a sense would be needed to predict the exact path of destruction traced by a terrestrial tornado. Nevertheless, solar forecasters routinely identify times of high flare probability and issue flare alerts, quite analogous to tornado alerts. The accuracy of these forecasts has increased enormously over the past few years as new observational data from the ground and from spacecraft, combined with theoretical study, have improved our understanding of flares.

ROBERT W. NOYES

Harvard College Observatory

Cambridge, Mass.

Bayreuth's Director

Sir / TIME errs flagrantly in calling the Bayreuth Festival's new stage director Gotz Friedrich "an honored member of the East German Communist Party" [Aug. 14]. East Germany has indeed honored him, with a National Preis and a professorship, but Friedrich at 42 remains a member of no party. Anyone who knows his work knows that he beats no political drum in his productions, in East Berlin or elsewhere.

Even before the house lights dimmed, Bayreuth's ineffable, big, rich premiere audience had mentally already turned Friedrich into a symbol of what they hate the most in the entire world. What he in fact did not provide on the stage they literally had to invent--to conform to their own preconceptions.

PAUL MOOR

West Berlin

Kenya's Kenyatta

Sir / As a former Peace Corps teacher in Kenya. I must protest your portrayal of President Jomo Kenyatta [July 31] as an "oppressive" black leader. This representation is inaccurate.

Open parliamentary debate, including criticism of government policy, is published daily in Kenya's free press, which is neither government-owned nor -controlled.

Kenyatta's pragmatic approach to government and development has produced expansion impressive by any standards. The people reap the benefits of continuing economic growth through agriculture, tourism and foreign investment. President Kenyatta represents enlightened leadership in Africa.

JOAN LEONARD

Mooresville, Ind.

Thompson's Ideas

Sir / Re the interview with William Irwin Thompson [Aug. 21]: it is heartening to read ideas instead of data for once. I agree with Thompson on consolidation if taken as synonymous with interiqrization. In urban terms, for instance, the interiorization of the cityscape is therefore the spiritualizing character of the miniaturization process (and, in the long run, mandatory). The Middle Ages are seen then as the age of centro(middle)-focal interiorized phenomena carrying on as bridges from matter into spirit, for matter becoming spirit--the consolidation of the soul of the earth.

PAOLO SOLERI

Scottsdale, Ariz.

Sir / The interview is probably one of the most significant articles you have ever done. Thompson's broad view of our planet and his emphasis on the long-neglected personal/emotional/spiritual side of life are both fundamental to any real concept of where we are and where we are going.

PHILIP B. BRADLEY

New York City

Sir / The interview is one of the finest examples of incoherent trash that I have ever read. It is a clear case of rampant intellectualism turned into gibberish.

GREGORY S. POKRASS

Madison, Wis.

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