To the Editors:

Will TIME'S cute animal pictures on the cover and inside [Dec. 23] inspire thousands to race out to join the American petmania? Or will they read the copy and consider the serious social, economic, health and safety problems that are caused by many pet owners not acting responsibly?

Columbus' statistics should cause people to be alarmed for the well-being of the animals: 12,000 dead animals collected from the city streets and 28,000 animals destroyed in one year because no one wanted them. With health and police costs added, it is no wonder that city halls are greatly concerned about fostering greater owner concern and responsibility. In this seemingly throwaway society, pets must not continue to be a temporary toy and whim that is cast out on the streets when people exhaust the initial novelty.

Tom Moody

Mayor

Columbus

Why not a companion piece on starving kids and shriveled adults here, there, and everywhere and why not a federal tax on pets as on other luxuries, to help feed some of those human non-pets?

Victor F. White

Taos, N.M.

Anyone who would refuse to have their pet spayed or neutered because of not wishing to deny them the "joy" of raising a family, must have cat litter or dog kibble for brains.

Katherine Evans

Lincoln, Neb.

The dog is a working member of human society. Some 50 ways in which they earn their living are well documented, including guiding, guarding, detecting, rescuing, protecting, defending, often spending and giving their lives in the service of mankind. And millions of families are able to sleep securely knowing that even the smallest family pet will warn of intrusion. Surely they earn their dog food.

(Mrs.) Elizabeth Arvin

Alvaton, Ky.

One hundred million dogs and cats?

Sixty million are dogs perhaps? They deposit 4 million tons of feces daily, do they? That comes to 133 Ibs. per day per dog. My 10-lb. poodle therefore is a more effective defecator than I had imagined in my wildest dreams.

John Berkeley

Chicago

Really, TIME, it just seems that much in New York City.

W.D. Heisel

Cincinnati

Couldn't some method be used for converting those millions of tons of feces per day to usable energy? We could supply the world with our own breed of PETroleum.

Barbara Wasylenki

Albuquerque

Those fools who spend money on gourmet foods and toys for their pets should be compelled to visit the local pounds and watch the animals being killed every day.

We have three dogs, not by choice; all were abandoned by that superior creation--man. While the industries involved in pandering to maladjusted pet owners shovel in the money, rendering plants shovel out the carcasses of the have-nots as ground fertilizer.

Edward L. Simpson

South Pasadena, Calif.

You failed to depict the average pet owner. You failed to give equal time to the countless thousands of animals mistreated or abandoned yearly to face starvation. You mentioned only the human aspects of communicable diseases, but disregarded the untold suffering and painful deaths of diseased animals who placed their faith and reliance on ignorant or disinterested owners.

As well as showing the U.S. pet owner as an idiot in a world riddled with starvation, you should present both sides. I have given a home to two abandoned dogs. They don't drink vodka; they don't sit at my table; they have no pedigrees, Marie Antoinette doghouses or caniscopes. In this crazy world--this planet governed by greed, indifference and masochism--I treasure my dogs as the last consistent remnants of love and compassion to grace my life.

C.A. Rogers

Sun City, Ariz.

Your treatise on the American pet was well researched and must have been a real "love feast" for all pet lovers. But when I see Mr. Warhol posing with the stuffed Great Dane, I begin to wonder where fancy ends and grotesqueness begins.

C.L. Skelley Jr.

South Gate, Calif.

What nonsense. The vast majority of our American pets lead ordinary lives, eat ordinary pet food and receive an ordinary amount of love and affection.

Bernard Sladen

Clayton, Mo.

You neglected to mention that only one in every 14 cats in the U.S. has an owner to care for it (the ratio for dogs is one to nine).

Mrs. John Webb

Frisco, Texas

The article "The Great American Animal Farm" states: "In every city in America, abandoned dogs rampage in wild packs through vacant lots and nocturnal streets. In New York City alone, 38,000 people annually require medical attention for dog bites." In fact, around the country, better than 85% of all bites are inflicted by owned dogs, usually between 2 and 7 p.m. (not nocturnal), and less than 1% of all bites involve more than one animal (not packs). A dog bite costs the victim an average of $50, and better than 60% of the victimized population are children; better than a third are bitten on the face.

The article ends with the usual mention of Los Angeles' sterilizing clinics, coupling a low-cost sterilizing operation with "thus limiting the number of abandoned pets." Nonsense! The type that would use a clinic would not abandon animals and vice versa. Spaying clinics are all underutilized, even where "binding" contracts for sterilizing are signed at the time of pet purchase. The fact that a vast majority of the puppy crop comes from the middle and upper classes of society means that the whole issue of tax-subsidized pet ownership has to be re-evaluated.

Alan M. Beck

Director, Bureau of Animal Affairs

New York City

Unwanted Saint

With all respect due Elizabeth Seton [Dec. 23], a truly remarkable Christian, what the Church of Rome does not need is another saint on its calendar. I am convinced that Rome is fiddling while the world burns; the Vatican still clings tenaciously to its medieval "canonization" process, whatever that term means today. Relics, miracles wrought in the name of the person considered for sainthood, etc., ad infinitum, all seem embarrassingly anachronistic. When will the Vatican face up to vital issues threatening the Roman communion? Why does Pope Paul carefully avoid issues like celibacy for diocesan clergy and ordination of women to the priesthood?

Steven M. Giovangelo

Evanston, III.

Righting Rodney

While Delaware's famed midnight rider may not be as widely known as Massachusetts'--primarily because Henry Wadsworth Longfellow did not choose to write an epic poem about him --citizens of "the First State" still are mighty proud of Congressional Delegate Caesar Rodney, who rode 80 miles from Dover to Philadelphia in order to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776 [Dec. 16].

But to call him Rodney Caesar? No, no, gentlemen. He was Caesar Rodney, a former "President" of Delaware before there were Governors.

We may be a small state, but we do protest loudly when the name of this historic figure has been twisted by such a noted publication. After all, would Ma-sachusetts stand for your "Revering Paul"?

Sherman W. Tribbitt

Governor, State of Delaware

Dover

Does Chicago Work?

Some political experts are predicting that Chicago's Mayor Daley will be elected to a sixth term because Chicago is a city that "works" [Dec. 23]. Here in Chicago, the people of the neighborhoods are beginning to ask: "Who does Chicago work for?" That question is at the heart of my campaign for mayor.

We know it works for real estate speculators, but does it work for the men and women once employed by the 500 factories that have fled Chicago, taking with them 211,000 jobs?

Does it work for the children of our billion dollar school system, which is unable to reach or teach Chicago's kids?

Does it work for the neighborhoods torn up for the "friends" of Richard Daley, or for those who would lose their homes if the Daley-proposed crosstown expressway destroys the stable patterns of a dozen neighborhoods?

With a thousand murders a year, a police force short 900 men, a threatened loss of $76 million in federal funds because of discriminatory hiring, Chicagoans are discovering that their "machine" is great for that handful inside its walls. For the rest of us, Chicago has to work better.

Alderman William Singer

Chicago

Education in Southie

South Boston High School [Dec. 23] must be the leading contender for the "summa cum lousy" award. Are the blacks being shipped in by bus to obtain an education superior to that at Jeremiah E. Burke H.S., or to mingle with the peace-loving Irish at South Boston and soak up some of their endemic culture and refinement?

James P. Falvey

Toledo

It's a shame about what's happening in South Boston, not just the racial problems, but the education the students are not getting. It's a shame for it is a national problem. As a teacher, I could cry every time I see a graduating class and know that only a few of them are educated sufficiently to make it in college or to be solidly employed in the type of jobs they want.

I hope parents will spend more time demanding, picketing, and working for an education for their child, while also spending less time over what color the school is or if Johnny can play football.

Linda J. Eades

Danville, Ky.

Keep It Clean

I would like to thank TIME for its coverage of the potential for energy recovery from municipal garbage. It is important, though, that we not create other kinds of pollution problems in dealing with solid waste. I am thinking of the air pollution problems traditionally associated with municipal incinerators. Clearly, we do have the technical ability to use solid waste as fuel in a clean manner. This means the installation of the necessary pollution-control devices, and it may well involve a separation not only of metals and glass but also of some of the exotic and potentially lethal plastics.

Of course, another and perhaps better way to deal with toxic solid waste would be to keep it out of the trash in the first place. How about a TIME article on ways to reduce some of that 125 million tons of garbage?

Michael McCloskey

Executive Director, The Sierra Club

San Francisco

False Impression

In your article "An Oil Gusher Builds" [Dec. 16], you state: "The Trilateral Commission ... is considering recommending a 10% limit on the voting power that foreign interests may exercise hi American companies." This gives a false impression of the proposal I made, since it does not indicate that the 10% limit was to apply only in the case of new investment rather than that already existing.

George S. Franklin, Secretary

Trilateral Commission (N.A.)

New York City

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