The Coal Crisis

To the Editors:

Your cover for the article on the coal crisis [March 20] is probably the most poignant you have ever presented!

Marilyn J. Martin

Cambridge, Mass.

The countenance of the miner on the cover should make all of us think. That miner represents all suffering Americans who have been exploited by the wealthy and powerful of our country.

The energy for a strong America is built into the very fiber of that miner and other hard-working men like him. Let's stop exploiting our real wealth before it is too late.

(The Rev.) James Daly Philadelphia

As one who works in a dull, hard, sometimes hazardous and completely dead-end job for about half the hourly rate coal miners get, and who will have to pay increased energy prices because of their inflated demands, I am totally without sympathy for their self-pitying whining about the slavelike conditions they claim to work under.

Dick Nickerson

Southport, Conn.

I watched my grandfather live a life struggling for each breath he took because of black-lung disease. I remember him covered with the black coal dust of the mines. How many coal users think of the miner as they load their furnaces with this precious fuel? I am with the miners.

Anastasia M. Kalechitz

Hallstead, Pa.

Not only the United Mine Workers but all unions are a threat to the American economic and social systems.

Their demands cause an escalation in prices and inflation, and endanger domestic companies that must compete with foreign manufacturers. It is clear that the employer not the employee is being treated unfairly.

Robert J. Moore

St. Louis

The consequences of the inability of our Government to cope with the demands of coal miners may be the strongest argument yet for nuclear energy.

Raymond M. Wilenzick

New Orleans

Spouse Beating

I have never seen or even heard of a "severely thrashed" husband [March 20] in my 11 1/2 years as a trial judge, handling about 10,000 divorce-case hearings in Peoria and Bloomington-Normal.

Sam Harrod, Circuit Judge

Eleventh Circuit Court of Illinois

Eureka, Ill.

Battered husbands, indeed! Of course it happens, but it is a little like a case of man bites dog and occurs with the same degree of frequency. It's like asking for pity for the millionaire's ulcers or having a symposium on the plantation owner's hangnail.

Essie Sitacen

Pittsburgh

May I suggest that one night be set aside for a battle-of-the-sexes program? The aggressive husbands meet aggressive wives for a real bash; meanwhile, the poor battered husbands and wives could relax at the Roseland Ballroom.

Fred Asbornsen

Livingston, N.J.

Discussion should not revolve around whether wife beating or husband beating is the more prevalent; rather, we should take a good look at the institution of marriage. Perhaps the wedding license should read WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT MARRIAGE IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH.

Karen DeCrow

Syracuse

The Dollar Dilemma

Christopher Byron's Essay, "What's Behind the Dollar Debacle" [March 20] is certainly on target. America's standard of living has cost us more than we realize. It's obvious that, as Byron mentions, we all look to the President for results. However, it is the President who has been looking to us to adjust our attitudes and lifestyle. We Americans should stop passing the buck and realize that we have a problem that we must solve.

Richard F. Reihl

Boston

The Government could do three things easily that would immediately stabilize the dollar. First, institute an energy policy to bring prices and consumption in line with the rest of the world. Second, encourage U.S. firms abroad to disinvest, bring profits and capital back to the U.S. Finally, reduce or eliminate U.S. military presence overseas, particularly permanent installations such as those in Germany and Britain. The dollar is too valuable an item to the U.S. and the world to be handled with such ineptitude.

Geoffrey Wascher

Neu Isenburg, West Germany

When you get right down to it, the underlying reason for our inflation is the continuing popularity of across-the-board wage increases and massive Government spending. The latter supposedly comes "free" via the trickery of deficit spending. I am very much afraid that our politicians, and perhaps also our economists, haven't guts enough to face up to this dilemma.

William B. McLean Coraopolis, Pa.

The Shooting of Flynt

Who are you to label as absurd Larry Flynt's charge that the shooting was an attempt to stop his assassination investigation [March 20]? Are you psychic?

Fred Warfield

Los Angeles

Action and Reaction

The recent abhorrent Palestinian raid in Israel [March 20] along with all the others makes it terrifyingly clear that if a Palestinian state is established in Israel it will be only a beachhead from which to launch attacks on Israel. War and more bloody terrorism will be the result, not peace.

Asita L. Weiss

Summit Station, Pa.

I fail to understand how anyone could possibly expect Israel to recognize the so-called P.L.O., who have no respect for human life, not even their own.

Joyce Cohan

The Bronx, N. Y.

The Israeli action reminds me of the incident during World War II when French patriots killed a few German soldiers and the Nazis promptly retaliated by murdering the population of a whole village.

S. Paul Tyksinski

Saratoga, Calif.

Dispossessed, deprived, desperate and daring Palestinians, living outside of Palestine, are more of a danger to the security of Israel than 3 million independent Palestinians settled in a homeland on the West Bank under the observation of the U.N., the U.S. and Israel.

The Israelis have two choices to eliminate Palestinian terrorism. The first is to kill every Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and in other Arab countries as well as anywhere else in the world. The second is to return the West Bank and other occupied lands to their rightful owners, and let the Palestinians have their independence under the eyes of the Israelis, who can watch them.

George Haig

Washington, D.C.

Floccinaucinihilipilification?

I was somewhat astonished to find that the longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary was floccinaucinihilipilification [March 13]. Having long been an aficionado of language oddities, I had thought the longest word to be pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a disease of miners caused by inhaling silicate dust).

William Needham

Lieutenant, U.S.N.

Groton, Conn.

Many of my high school students consider spelling and definition to be a floccinaucinihilipilificating task at best. You may well imagine how they judged their route to a more rounded education to have been subtly floccinaucinihilipilificated when they were finally confronted with floccinaucinihilipilification!

Erskine Carter

Colchester, Conn.

Roll-a-Role

Following your article "Games People Play" [Dec. 26], we have received numerous telephone calls and letters from our customers asking if we have developed a new version of our recently introduced game Roll-a-Role. Their confusion is understandable. Your article presented Roll-a-Role, a game that uses the technique of role-playing to create fun and foster mutual understanding, as a thinly veiled sex stimulant.

Roll-a-Role was not designed as an icebreaker for swinging singles. It is a game designed for families, for kids, and for adults and kids to enjoy together.

Lew A. Herndon, President

The Ungame Co.

Anaheim, Calif.

On Polydoxy

Why must TIME call "polydox" adherents Jews [March 20]? Although Christianity was originally a sect of Judaism, would anyone in 1978 venture to call a Roman Catholic priest a liberal rabbi? Of course not. There are so many new religions that one cannot keep up with them any more, but don't confuse a new religion with a sect of an existing belief.

The "Jews for Jesus" would love to be considered Jews, but the name of this group implies the renouncement of Judaism, and thus they cannot be called Jews. The same rule holds true for the "polydox." They do not believe in God and thus are no longer a sect of Judaism but rather a new religion.

Zvi Friedman

New York City

The peoplehood (am) of the Jews is a congenital condition I accept, along with a share in their fate. At the same time, I refuse to be burdened by such supernatural anachronisms as God, the Covenant. Divine Revelation, the Chosen People, the Messiah (what a mischievous and tragic notion!), etc.--although I know and respect the ethical content of the Jewish view of these ideas. It is enough that I am and my people are. To the orthodox, metadox and paradox Jews, the polydox are a welcome new strain.

Neil Bruce

Holbert Scarsdale, N. Y.

I was reminded of the observation that the attempt to have a religion that is no religion in particular is like trying to speak a language that is no language in particular. Polydoxy is warmed-over Deism.

Patricia Lyons Basu

Elizabeth City, S.C.

Judaism is not only a religion but a way of life--a way of life that is hard to live because it makes you different from everyone surrounding you. The people submitting to polydoxy are admitting defeat. They are saying: "It's too hard to be Jewish, and we can't hack it."

Cindy Feinstein

Portland, Ore.

Good Investment?

In "Gutenberg Sale" [March 13] you state that these famous Bibles are usually thought to be a splendid investment. But are they?

You say that one would have cost about $1,000 in 1454 and possibly could be sold for $1 million today. That appreciation corresponds to only 1.3% per year at compound interest over the period, which does not make it sound like a great investment.

Gilbert N. Plass

College Station, Texas

The Survivors

As a stained-glass artist, I applaud the bravery of TIME'S writers who in the article "Stained Glass, Back and Booming" [March 13] tiptoed through the broken glass of standardized, commercialized designs to recognize several of the handful of American artists who survived the lean years and are preserving the integrity of stained-glass art.

Martha B. Sollberger

Mandeville, La.

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