Diane Keaton: Worth the Wait
To the Editors:
Waiting for my generation to produce a comedienne with half the class of Hepburn or her contemporaries, I had given up hope. Diane Keaton [Sept. 26] is here and it was worth the wait.
Stephen Erwin
Bowie, Md
Keaton's brilliance is so crystal-clear because she has remained unspoiled.
John Webb
Philadelphia
It is hard to see how two hours of viewing Diane Keaton as a nymphomaniac schoolteacher sets Looking for Mr. Goodbar apart from umpteen other films viewing women as prostitutes. In addition, if Diane's willingness to be photographed naked--"like a piece of meat"--falls under your writer's definition of modesty, what would he consider immodest? I guess her "la-de-dahs" cover a multitude of sins.
Donna L. Conway
State College, Pa.
Diane Keaton is playing the same unhealthy game that Marilyn Monroe played. Like Monroe, this "vulnerable" and "uncalculating" behavior is obviously an act--to everyone but Woody Allen and TIME. No one is doing Keaton a favor by falling for it.
Kenneth Anderson
St. Paul
Reverse Discrimination
All these complaints regarding the admission of minorities to American medical schools [Sept. 26], unjustly excluding white students with higher academic standards are absurd. I am an American studying medicine in Italy, and I was denied admission at home because of the enormous number of applicants.
The doctor shortage has become a major concern to the American people But instead of blaming the low number of openings in medical schools, people are condemning the minority quota system, probably the only fair policy to have hit American medical education in the past decade.
Steve Ribaudo
Padua, Italy
The real question is not whether merit should be the guiding standard for admissions but how best to achieve selection, based on merit, in evaluating minority and nonminority applicants.
It is little wonder that many gifted minority students have poorer grades and test scores than less able white students who are not handicapped by the same socioeconomic disadvantages. The goal of the minority-admissions programs is to seek out minority students who, notwithstanding inferior grades and test scores, are believed to be as able as their white classmates and therefore equally deserving of higher education.
Steven Finell
New York City
Racial discrimination against whites does not make up for racial discrimination against blacks. How can most black and some white leaders support discrimination of any kind?
I really thought our country had made more progress than that.
Susan S. Stout
Finley, N. Dak.
A Healthy Experience
As a quadriplegic, I was gratified to read that disabled children are now being given an opportunity to learn in a normal school environment [Sept. 19]. As a psychologist, I see the healthy experience that this provides able-bodied children in the classroom.
Rather than seeing the disabled as freaks let out of a closet, able-bodied children may now see the disabled as their peers. They will learn with them, play with them and come to understand both their gifts and their inabilities.
Roberta M. Diddel
Chestnut Hill, Mass.
As a public high school English teacher, I sympathize with the goals of mainstreaming the handicapped, but deplore the results for the main stream. In a class of 35 students I taught last year, one was totally deaf. By law, I had to make special lesson plans for him. Reality required that he be able to see my lips at all times --thus no talking while I wrote on the board. Class discussions were crippled by the need to proceed at a pace that alowed him to lip-read every speaker. Theoretically, there could be a number of handicapped children in such a class. Under those conditions, how much time do you suppose the average kids can get?
Claudette Warlick
Savannah, Ga.
Mengele at the Gate
"Wiesenthal's Last Hunt" [Sept. 26] brought back a very sad memory, my own meeting with Dr. Josef Mengele.
I will never forget the day in October 1944, as our cattle train with a transport of people from the Theresienstadt ghetto arrived at the gates of Auschwitz. There was the infamous archway of the entrance, through which we passed into the camp, and just inside stood Dr. Mengele, very elegant in his parade SS uniform. The short, quick move of his hand selected people to one side for immediate death in the gas chamber, or to the other side for slow death by torture, malnutrition, starvation and disease. At his whim I lost my best girl friend, who arrived with me in Auschwitz, and by the same twist of fate I remained alive to record the incident above.
Ruth Weinstein
Fresh Meadows, N. Y.
Bogged Down
The women's movement is bogged down [Sept. 26] because it has become too closely associated with pro-abortion-ism and has been too prone to downgrade homemaking. These causes should be completely separated from the cause of equal rights. If this does not happen, women who consider abortion to be infanticide and/or who believe the career of homemaking has great value will continue to refrain from joining feminist organizations to which they could add much strength.
(Mrs.) Lee Jens
Glen Ellyn, III.
The "liberated woman" is in fact a transient anomaly produced by the overindulgence and ill-conceived altruism of misguided men. In his efforts to ameliorate the disparity between himself and woman, man has inadvertently spawned a breed of creatures whose primary characteristics are ingratitude, boorishness, extremism, irrationality, egoism and unmitigated hypocrisy. Today's liberated woman, far from being the more complete human being she professes to have Become, is in reality little more than a spoiled, petulant, overpampered child choking on the deserts of unmerited prosperity.
Frank Lester Adams III
Tampa, Fla.
The Perils of Paul
Hooray! Religious leaders taking a stand against too much sex and violence on TV [Sept. 26] are speaking for us in the pews. The next step is some leadership in deciding what could replace the present junk. How about a series called The Perils of Paull There is enough suspense, excitement and adventure in the book of Acts alone to run three seasons.
Mary W. Eick
Tulsa, Okla.
I find much religious television programming, such as the Billy Graham Crusades and Oral Roberts, to be patently offensive. In spite of this, I do not demand that religious programs be banned from TV. I am not arrogant enough to proclaim that I know what all Americans should and should not be allowed to watch. Why then should religious groups be allowed to dictate my viewing choices?
David M. Zapata
Sarasota, Fla.
New Style, Same Goals
I am angered by continual pronouncements of the death of the American student left [Sept. 26]. The left is not dead; it has changed. A generation grew up in the '60s, and thousands of us have made the principles of the movement a part of our lives. If we are now professionals and parents rather than students, working rather than demonstrating, our dedication to change is no less. We staff the free clinics, work within unions and community organizations, and incorporate political education into our dealings with people. If our style seems to have changed, our goals have not.
Erica Pascal
Chicago
Unconquered Leprosy
Your long and accurate report of the leprosy situation on Kalaupapa [Sept. 19] is most welcome. Hawaii has demonstrated that given the will and the resources, leprosy patients can be treated and the disease controlled.
However, I am afraid your article left the impression that leprosy has been conquered. Far from it. Well over 10 million leprosy cases in the world are still untreated. Late in 1976 the World Health Organization named leprosy as one of the six diseases that constitute a major health problem in the underdeveloped countries of the world. This is a disgrace to our civilization. We have the techniques and the medicines needed to cure leprosy, but their application to patients in need has been prevented by lack of funds.
Roger K. Ackley, President
American Leprosy Missions Inc.
Bloomfield, N.J.
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