Democratic Race

To the Editors:

It should have come as no surprise to Americans that Gary Hart overtook Walter Mondale in the early primaries [NATION, March 12]. Many people see Hart as a breath of fresh air in a country that is politically stagnant. Mondale comes across as a politician who helped give away the Panama Canal, allowed American hostages to remain captive in Iran, and used our Olympic athletes as a political tool.

Michael T. Caughey Williamsburg, Va.

Forget the issues. Americans are going to vote for the candidate who looks and sounds the way they think a President should. Senator Hart, with his good looks and his smooth, Middle American voice is perceived as representing the current fashion for Presidents better than any of the other contenders for the Democratic nomination.

George A. Young Bridgewater, N.J.

The lesson that politicians should learn from Mondale's experience is that voters normally expect the unions to endorse the Democratic candidate. But to accept labor's beneficence even before the show begins is to accept identification with the political objectives of the AFL-CIO. It presents Mondale as a one-issue, class-oriented candidate.

Christopher Kane Seattle

Mondale is not tying himself to organized labor but is aligning himself with a group that represents the concerns of all working people.

Laura Walker Washington, D.C.

Most politicians have links with some special-interest groups. Given the choice, I would rather have a President who is concerned about the needs of the working people than a President who believes his role is to serve the needs of his millionaire cronies.

Terence O. Dungan New Paltz, N.Y.

By choosing Hart, the Democratic primary voters are reflecting the intellectual caliber of their party. Today's Democrats lack a coherent philosophy; they seize on the personality who best fits the fad.

Jay Grassell Greenfield, Wis.

In the details about Hart's background, you say he is a graduate of Bethany Nazarene College, "a conservative Methodist school." Bethany is not and has never been a part of the Methodist Church. It is a private liberal arts college operated by the Church of the Nazarene. Faye J. Shelton Nashville

Jackson's Faux Pas

The long presidential selection process does serve a purpose. It can expose a candidate's faults, like Jesse Jackson's attitude toward the Jews [NATION, March 12]. Who would have guessed that deep down Jackson is a bigot?

Dan A. Sinema Tucson

Jackson is a man of the cloth cut on the bias.

Al Hamburg Champaign,Ill.

It is unfortunate that Jackson has used terms that have insulted the Jewish people. But he has apologized, pointing out that all of us need to work to rid ourselves of the prejudices we harbor.

Ernest Charles McCray San Diego

Lebanon Pullout

Lebanon might well be called the greatest foreign policy defeat for the U.S. in recent history [WORLD, March 5]. Our diplomatic decisions were a disaster because we were not an objective broker. Resorting to naval and military force only emphasized our ineptitude and reflected the desperation of our leaders.

Dallas M. Coors Bethesda, Md.

Christian Arabs

I was delighted to read your article about the Lebanese Christians and their ties with the Western world [WORLD, March 5]. As a Jordanian, I am proud to be called an Arab. My Lebanese friends deny they are Arabs. They insist they are still Phoenicians.

Zane Gazal Las Vegas

The Lebanese Christians associate themselves with the West because the French, who once occupied the country, made them feel they were more European than Arab. The Lebanese are Arabs whether they like it or not.

Ali Ghezuwi San Antonio

Phony Terrorists

The raid on Camp Lejeune by a group of reporters who wanted to show the inadequate security there [NATION, March 12] was an irresponsible attempt by the press to create its own news. Had the editors of the Wilmington (N.C.) Morning Star been sincerely concerned about the welfare of the Marines, they would have informed the camp's authorities about security shortcomings more discreetly.

Lynn Barton Shavertown, Pa.

Pornography's Rights

Your story on pornography is critical of the Minneapolis city council's attempt to ban pornography on the ground that it violates women's civil rights [ESSAY, March 12]. From the day she is born, a woman must deal with the offensive message that comes from pornography and with the real violence that results from demeaning displays. Through advertising, films, music and magazines, a woman is bombarded with offensive messages as to her purpose and worth. This does indeed violate her civil rights.

Barbara Daly Oak Forest,Ill.

Those who want to censor pornography forget that if it were not for women, there would be precious little of it around. Feminists should picket the women who pose for the photographs and films, not the shops that sell the material.

Marlou Crisp West Kingston, R.I.

Some day pornography will be considered a past social injustice in the same way slavery is viewed today. No longer will pornography be able to hide behind the First Amendment; it will be seen as the violation of civil rights that it is.

Karen McKeener San Diego

Pornography degrades those men and women who produce it as well as those who look at it. It contradicts the important relationship between love and sexual intercourse. Pornography must be restricted, and every appropriate effort toward that end should be supported.

Ralph Bergande Dormagen, West Germany

Unmuzzling Galileo

It has taken 350 years for the Roman Catholic Church to acknowledge that Galileo was correct in asserting that the sun, not the earth, is the center of the universe

[SCIENCE, March 12]. Will it take the

church equally long to accept the fact that

Charles Darwin was right in saying that

man is not the focal point of all creation?

Chuck Weaver

Waco, Texas

Good for Pope John Paul II, who has the wisdom and the courage to admit that the Bible does not contain specific scientific truths.

Paul L. Rosasco Pensacola, Fla.

Robert Cardinal Bellarmine and Galileo Galilei were both right. But they made unjustified claims and gave indefensible reasons for their views. Each thought that he alone referred to what was real. In addition, Cardinal Bellarmine thought that only the Bible should be used as an authority on questions regarding reality.

Instead, he should have referred to experience, common sense, and to farmers, sailors, and in fact to anyone who took his own perceptions seriously. Galileo, on the other hand, thought that the real was just mathematics converted into the concrete.

Instead, Galileo should have recognized that his mathematics could tell him only of an abstracted world in which there was no time flow, no voluminous space, no creative acts of becoming. What is real is the source of both their views--experienceable and scientific--neither of which has a place for the other.

Paul Weiss, Professor of Philosophy

Catholic University of America

Washington, D.C.

Coining a Phrase

Your article "Journalese as a Second Tongue" [ESSAY, Feb. 6] is very good stuff. Obviously, space limitations prevented you from referring to that sort of political mission known as "fact finding." I went on such a mission once, found a fact, picked it up with tweezers, and now keep it in a cigar box in my garage in case there is ever any demand for it.

The phrase "between a rock and a hard place" is, to my knowledge, a ruralism. I first heard it in Arizona about 1940 and had the impression it had been in use long before that. Country sayings almost invariably have a much higher poetic component than their big-city equivalents. Some of these observations have become classics, like "nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockin' chairs." One of my particular favorites is "as lonesome as a peanut in a boxcar."

Steve Allen Van Nuys, Calif.