Uncle Sam Ervin

Sir / I would like to propose that any future depictions of Uncle Sam be made in the image of Uncle Sam Ervin [April 16].

ALFREDO CRIADO

Los Angeles

Sir / No matter what more we may or may not learn about the Watergate case, this Administration's concept of honor and law-and-order has been made perfectly clear,

DOROTHY ATTEBERRY

Indianapolis

Sir / I suggest that the erstwhile political spies of Watergate, guilty of a sordid and stupid conspiracy, have now become victims of a political counterconspiracy and deserve sympathy

Politics is an ancient, usually harmless, and sometimes honorable human game. However, when it is the excuse for crushing human lives when merely a reprimand by society is needed, it becomes a hideous piece of cynicism.

WILLIAM E. BARSTOW JR. Hancock. Mich

Sir / Although issues like Watergate, TV advertising and wiretapping are important, they are not crucial. It is high time that Congress quit politicking and devoted its time and energies to crucial issues such as control of inflation and a better, more balanced budget; these questions concern every intelligent citizen.

M.D. RODGERS

Salt Lake City

Economy-Size Criticism

Sir / Your poignant diatribe on "Is There Intelligent Life on Commercials?" [April 16] by Stefan Kanfer was an economy-size box of well-deserved criticism.

KENNETH G. GEISERT New York City

Sir / Were it not for that memo from 45=K29- 1/4, we YEWESSERS would have simply dismissed another statement on advertising as BAYNEL at worst--an exercise in DAYZHAVU at best.

But a leaked memo .. from outer space ... on TEEVEE advertising?

RTH-SHATTERING!

SUE TEKULVE

Cincinnati

What Schools Cannot Do

Sir / With my 15 years of teaching and counseling experience, let me add some items to "What the Schools Cannot Do" [April 16]: 1) finance themselves despite local unwillingness and federal indecisiveness; 2) force free schooling on those who want paid experience and/or complete freedom; 3) teach the three Rs (by any method) to nearly everybody; 4) believe that vocational schools are for the "less intellectual ones"; 5) defeat segregation and build ethnic pride; 6) combine babysitting, body building and racial tolerance; 7) give a single diploma for the varied results.

E.M. SIMMONS

San Jose, Calif.

Sir / I have alternately attended school and worked at various trades (from factory production to tree surgery) for the past three years. Motivation to learn, and to integrate and implement learning has gradually returned over this period. Obviously this motivation is the gold sought within the lead of formal education.

BRUCE HERMAN

Gloucester, Mass.

Sir / It is interesting to note that American education was the great leveler until the majority of city children became black and Puerto Rican. Since the country finds it difficult to accept non-whites as total equals, the purpose of urban education has changed. It is now incumbent on black and Puerto Rican parents to ensure that education gives their children competency in the basic skills.

The educational system can no longer be trusted to do this.

BETH PETTIT

New York City

Search for the Sacred Sir / What the author of "Searching Again for the Sacred" [April 9] failed to discern, even though he does a commendable job of reviewing the spiritual reawakening of this decade, is that transcendence is another illusion--another idea that robs man of his true humanity and sends him scampering off to a never-never land of mysticism and onion peeling. What we need and what we really seek is command over our own lives, responsible freedom and an opportunity to learn what it means to be alive!

(THE REV.) R.G. HARLOFF Dallas

Sir / It would appear from "Second Thoughts About Man" that modern rationalists are trembling on the brink of the stupendous discovery that "man has an irreducible core of evil"--which seems to be intellectualese for the old-fashioned concept that he is a sinner. Is it possible that after wandering for years in the wilderness with Marx, Freud and Darwin, they are about to return to the Father's house?

HAROLD W. DART

Pleasant Hill, Calif,

Sir / The impression I get from reading your section on the revolt against rationalism is that you think there is a better alternative. You also seem to hint that this better alternative might lie in the direction of religion. I must vehemently disagree. I believe with an intensity that could be labeled "fanatic" that religions are, have always been, and will always be intrinsically evil.

Religions are, have always been and undoubtedly will always be based upon human terror, cowardice, animal pride and abysmal ignorance.

Every attempt at reform throughout history has been opposed by organized religion. When is the human race going to grow up and renounce its witch doctors, both modern and primitive?

HENRY L. GIRARD

Cranston, R.I.

Sir / TIME described the modern spiritual dilemma very well: the church increasingly secularized by the call to social action, while the young people are being driven to various Eastern religions by hunger for spiritual experience.

In Sufism, Islam has preserved the way of knowing God in life. Attracted by the Persian example of linking spiritual and material progress, many Americans like myself have become dervishes and have discovered the miracle described by the 11th century Persian Sufi, Abu Sa'id, who said: "It is no miracle to walk on water or the air, for frogs and birds do that; the miracle is to go about your business and never for a moment forget God."

CHARLES I. CAMPBELL

New York City

Sir / You did not give any attention to the oldest "pathway to God," namely: "Eckan-kar Ancient Science of Soul Travel."

(MRS.) NADINE S. THOMPSON

North Vancouver, B.C.

Sir / The Baha'i faith was destined by God to unite the world into one cohesive society, and mankind into one family.

MARILU NASHEL

Burke, S. Dak.

Sir / You did not mention the Ananda Marga Yoga Society, which teaches just the balance of spiritual and worldly life called for in the article.

BRUCE W. RAVENEL

Boulder, Colo.

A Betrayal?

Sir / Your brief report on Americans studying medicine abroad [April 16] is yet another example of the neglect of priorities that threatens the U.S. Now at the University of Liege, as one of those "would-be physicians," I feel betrayed by my country. But more important, the U.S. is betraying itself

PAUL M. PECKINS

Liege, Belgium

The Course of Art Sir / I am appalled at Robert Hughes' recent review of Bruce Nauman's work [April 16]. Some people liked Nauman's show, some did not--par for the course. But even Nauman's most impassioned detractors admit the high degree to which his early work at least influenced the course and development of contemporary art history.

BRENDA RICHARDSON

Assistant Director/Curatorial University Art Museum Berkeley, Calif.

Sir / At long last someone has the courage and the words to do a good job of twisting the tails of the cultists of so-called modern art.

J.H. MOSS

Stow, Ohio

Thank You, No

Sir / As a Canadian, I feel that I must tell you that an oil pipeline [April 16] "from Alaska to the Midwest through Canada's Mackenzie Valley" is one little item without which Canada's heretofore beautiful, unspoiled natural heritage could get along just fine.

Buy some of our nice clean hydropower if you must, but please keep your pipeline out of Canada.

ANDREW SOLKIN

Philadelphia

Why Ask Them?

Sir / In answer to the question in your article "Showdown in Montana" [April 16], "Should the residents of one region of the nation be asked to give up their land and traditions for the good of other Americans living hundreds of miles away?"

Why ask them?

We need that coal! Let's do the same to them as we did to the American Indians. Move 'em out! Put 'em on reservations! Strip the land! And when citizens of the Big Sky country get too angry or too loud, you can label them "militants" who are overreacting.

LOIS BLAESE

Columbus, N.J.

Violent Reaction

Sir / Most women would agree with Billy Graham that it is "interesting that the thought of castration stirs a far more violent reaction than the idea of rape itself" [April 16].

We would disagree, however, that "perhaps this is part of our permissive society's sickness." The problem is simply and obviously male chauvinism!

MARY LOU HAAS

Durango, Colo.

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