Cambodian Hell

To the Editors:

A question that has been brought to my mind by the suffering in Cambodia [Nov. 12]: How do we know that life on this earth is not another world's hell?

Muhammad I. Kabir

Austin

1979--the Year of the Child? Someone should tell that to the starving Cambodian children.

Danny Jong

San Francisco

Let us be at least as daring in delivering food to Cambodia as we were with bombs. The cost is so much less and the good done so much more lasting.

Connell J. Maguire

Captain, U.S.N. (ret.)

Snead's Ferry, N.C

Having thrown extra C rations to clusters of starving Vietnamese children from moving trucks as a G.I. in Viet Nam just ten short years ago, I now see that same look in the eyes of the mother and her child on your cover. This to me leads to the same root cause: politics as usual.

Richard F. Walz

Hampton Bays, N. Y.

It is ironic that while the Western world--the so-called archenemy of the downtrodden people, according to Marxist doctrines--is trying to send much needed aid to starving and disease-stricken millions, the Communists are fighting about their highfalutin ideologies.

Nirupam Haldar

Jamshedpur, India

A Nuclear Countryside?

As a country dweller, I was appalled at the Kemeny report's recommendation [Nov. 5] to build no new nuclear power plants near large population centers. I moved to the country ten years ago to take myself out of the rampant consumer addiction that has created the nuclear industry. And now the recommendation is to build plants near us in the country, near our solar homes and our children.

I say that those people who use so much electricity should be the ones to breathe the stuff and raise their children in it. Those who have chosen otherwise should be left alone.

Jo Carey

Taos, N. Mex.

It now looks like Three Mile Island may turn out to be the Hindenburg of nuclear power.

Stephen M. Donnelly

Westfield, Mass.

Greensboro Shootout The article about the Ku Klux Klan shootout [Nov. 12] makes Greensboro, N.C., sound like the most racially disturbed city in the South. It is correct that Greensboro has been the scene of many civil rights protests in the past, but our community has grown together, both blacks and whites, to become one of the best of cities to live in.

The shootout on Nov. 3 was not an act of Greensboro citizens but of two sickminded organizations from outside our community. Why Greensboro was picked for such ill-considered actions by the Ku Klux Klan and the Communist Workers Viewpoint Organization is a question that everyone here would like answered.

T. Richard Beard Jr.

Greensboro, N.C.

I wonder how many more Greensboros will occur before this country realizes that the Ku Klux Klan is the most dangerous element in today's society, trying to take race relations back some 400 years. Wake up, America; an ugly disease is spreading across the land--the Ku Klux Klan.

John A. Hindsman

Glendale, Ariz.

Camelot or Elsinore?

If Senator Kennedy [Nov. 5] is elected President, Americans will not see a resurrected Camelot. Indeed, we might witness Hamlet's Elsinore--a realm preoccupied with the unrealized and abstract legacies of ghosts.

Robert del Valle

Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

You can call him Ted. You can call him Ed. You can call him Eddie. You can call him Teddy. But please! Never Mr. President!

John L. Morgan

Bell Buckle, Tenn.

Ted Kennedy may have Chappaquiddick hanging over him, but Jimmy Carter has inflation, unemployment, lack of leadership and Brother Billy hanging over his head. The Republicans have the constant reminder of Watergate. I'll take my chances with Ted and Camelot.

Brian T. Kowal

Joppatowne, Md.

Campus Drinking As a college freshman, I found your article "Going Back to the Booze" [Nov.5] to be true. We too had a "flurry of pamphlets on how to fight alcohol abuse," but they fell to the ground, dropped by those who chose to remain uninformed.

James Dann

Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

I can only assume that none of the students interviewed about drinking were employed. For those of us who are, we have more realistic worries about rent, tuition and so on. If I were an employer looking for fresh talent, I would take a dim view of the graduating students if they had to drink to face up to their problems.

Pamela S. Beyer

Mesa, Ariz.

You stated that alternative beverages were being promoted at the University of Virginia. The Jefferson Society has directed me to inform you that the society does not have an alternative beverage policy, nor will it institute one. The society was founded in 1825, and has a long tradition of alcohol consumption. Teetotaling is a flagrant slap in the face of tradition.

Robert R. Dively

Charlottesville, Va.

A Hobson's Choice

I have a question for the members of the Christian-Patriots Defense League [Nov. 5]: I am a patriotic black American, also interested in survival. In the event of a Communist-inspired takeover, would my chances be better with the Communists . . . or you?

Leamon J. Abrams

San Francisco

Selecting the Chief Justice

"Inside the High Court" [Nov. 5] leaves me with the feeling that perhaps our present system of allowing the President to appoint a Chief Justice for life should be scrapped. If the President appointed the Justices, but allowed them to select their own Chief to preside over the court prior to the opening of each new session, it would at least allow the Justices to work under leadership that the majority considered competent.

Don Marshall

Laguna Beach, Calif.

An Awesome Number

Frank Trippett's Essay [Oct. 29] on astounding numbers was excellent. But how could he possibly leave out one of the most intriguing units of measurement known to man, the light-year--the distance that light travels in one year's time?

It must become apparent that the light-year is one of our most awesome concepts, as are stars millions of light-years away.

Richard A. Honaker, M.D.

Austin

Thinking up the googolplex

May be mankind's biggest

blunder.

But in a million, billion, billion

years

We won't be here to wonder.

Eric Elfman

Los Angeles

Even TIME's Frank Trippett was overcome by the magnitude of a billion. An airplane propeller spinning 2,400 r.p.m. would actually spin 1,261,440,000 times in a 365-day year.

Ray Simms

Chillicothe, Ohio

I wish Frank Trippett could write a "googol" of articles as enjoyable!

George J. Chovanec III

Toledo

Our Friends, the Vegetables

If we feel that we must decide between eating plants or eating animals [Nov. 5], then we should avoid eating plants and indeed cherish them with loving care. Plants not only produce all the food for both themselves and animals but also keep the oxygen supply of the earth constant against our ever increasing destruction of it. On moral grounds as well as biological, if we feel we must choose, it is clear that we should insist on eating only animal products.

George R. Tracy

San Clemente, Calif.

Not all vegetarians would take amiss John Leo's remark about their preverbal innocence. It might remind a few people of another remark. Something about a little child leading . . .

Kay Sparks

Midlothian, Va.

Perelman and the Angels

I read about S.J. Perelman's death [Oct. 29] shortly after I had discovered and was still reading A Child's Garden of Curses. There's no doubt about the man's ingenuity, and the death of such an amusing character is a pity. I'm sure that now even the saints won't be able to keep a straight face with him and his writing around.

Emmanuel Manalo

Wellington, New Zealand

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