LETTERS

GOD OF OUR FATHERS

"If we are so neurotic that we find a group as positive as the Promise Keepers a threat, perhaps we should keep an eye on the Boy Scouts!" CHUCK BOWEN Pelham, Ga.

The U.S. was founded on the very same principles and beliefs that men in the Promise Keepers movement hold true today [NATION, Oct. 6]. They recognize the need for strong male role models. These fathers and leaders have stepped forward to reintroduce our morally bankrupt nation to God. STEPHANIE SMITH Sacramento, Calif.

While I applaud the Promise Keepers' vows to mend their ways through penance, responsibility and religion, I cannot help feeling that this "boys' club" is merely a smoke screen for an effort to gain dangerous power over others. What would happen if these men kept their promises of love, respect and commitment toward loved ones without the burden of being "in command"? I find it frightening, yet sad, that they cannot separate love from power. JANIS BABCOCK Danville, Calif.

Your report said the Promise Keepers seem "to avoid terms like integration and equality, instead advocating the fuzzier 'reconciliation.'" In case you haven't noticed, civil rights legislation hasn't ended racial hatred and inequality in our country. Reconciliation has to do with acknowledging wrong attitudes and actions and righting them; it has to do with healing, not legislation or formulas. For heaven's sake, give it a chance! MARILYN MARTIN Tucson, Ariz.

Would to God that Bill Clinton join the Promise Keepers! JACKIE BARTH Ocala, Fla.

No group should have sole proprietorship over "taking responsibility" for our world. History has shown that this formula inevitably leads to others' ending up ignored, oppressed--or worse. The Promise Keepers display newfound zeal in taking charge, but since prebiblical days women, with their minds, imagination and participation, have been helping our society thrive. Let's not assume failure when women lead. REBECCA BERMUDEZ Los Angeles

I skeptically attended the Promise Keepers rally in Washington, and was genuinely moved by the sincerity, honesty and contrition of the men I met. JOE DICKSON Cazenovia, N.Y.

Those of us who have come from poor or dysfunctional families and made it don't need to be part of a slobbering, self-pitying mob to validate ourselves. Come on, men, you should recognize the one consistent theme of the Promise Keepers and other evangelistic movements: give your time and resources. It's the money, man. Wake up! RICHARD STEPHENS Fountain Hills, Ariz.

Your cover asks, "Should they be cheered--or feared?" Neither. A movement like the Promise Keepers, whose attendance has grown in six years from 4,200 to 1.1 million, is a fad. Like every fad based on emotion and superstition, it will, in time, disappear. The answer to your question: Ignore them! FORREST G. WOOD Bakersfield, Calif.

I applaud anyone who converts from irresponsible actions to responsible ones, but I don't think such a conversion entitles a person to a claim on leadership. MICHAEL J. FLEISSNER Milwaukee, Wis.

At first I didn't want to go to Washington with the Promise Keepers. But my wife asked me to go. On a chartered bus with 30 other guys, I learned that many of their wives, sisters and mothers-in-law wanted them to attend. When feminists cast aspersions about "male supremacy" on the Promise Keepers, please keep in mind that it is, in a real sense, a women's movement as well. Women hope that when their men return home, they will be more attentive to their needs and better able to love their families. I know I was. PAUL KORTEPETER Bloomington, Ind.

POPULATION AND MOTHER TERESA

The letter you published from Bill Isbister, director of Too Many People...Too Little Earth! [LETTERS, Oct. 6], criticized Mother Teresa and stated that "overpopulation is literally greed personified." I contend that overpopulation is ignorance and poverty personified. These two things do not spell greed. If we can stamp out ignorance and poverty, overpopulation will be eliminated naturally. Mother Teresa is one of the best examples to follow. Who better understood these harsh realities? JOANN D. CURCIO Cos Cob, Conn.

We spend so much time praising the work of so-called humanitarians like Mother Teresa, and refuse to see that there would be no need for their help if human-population growth were in check. When population exceeds resources, the result is hunger, poverty, crime and many other ills. True humanitarianism means reducing births worldwide so that there is enough of everything to go around. JOANNA HATHCOCK Hartford, Ariz.

Despite what Isbister seems to think, Mother Teresa was working toward population control. Her only condition was that it had to be done within the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church. VIRGINIA A. FRANCESCHI Berwyn, Ill.

HERE COMES K MARTHA

Do people who shop at K Mart know what a drummel drill is [BUSINESS, Oct. 6]? Or a mandoline? Do they use these esoteric devices? Do they eat quinces regularly? I am amazed that life-style guru Martha Stewart thinks she can transform K Mart discount stores by capitalizing on her ideas for home decorating and cooking elaborate meals. Surely her success is due to her ability to sell a dream (not products) to thousands of would-be Marthas. Sure, we'd like to do all of the "good things" she tells us about, but those of us who shop at K Mart can't spend $10 on a cookie cutter or dedicate an entire room to storing gift wraps. Nor do we have a barn out back that we can quickly convert into a room to seat 32 guests for dinner. Yes, I watch Stewart's programs and read her magazine occasionally; then I go to K Mart and try to find a cheap alternative to the ideas she has given me. Or I just sit there and think, yeah, maybe someday. ANGELIKA DAWSON Abbotsford, B.C.

I find it very sad that middle-class America is filled with Martha wannabes. It is not Ms. Stewart's business acumen, independence or insistence on quality that is being emulated. Women are becoming slaves to style and obsessive do-it-from-scratch projects. Somehow interior design has become confused with having an interior life. KAREN SAGE-STOCKWELL Danville, Calif.

ON STAYING TOGETHER

Thank you, Robert Wright, for bringing the subtleties of adult differentiation, autonomy and egotism to the attention of the general public in the review of Peter Kramer's book about divorce, Should You Leave? [FAMILY, Oct. 6]. Conservatives who criticize Kramer for suggesting a healthy separation of the self for fulfilling, intimate relationships would do well to read Martin Buber's I and Thou for the ultimate description of the fullest and healthiest of human and spiritual relationships. Perhaps then they would understand that viewing relationships as extensions of oneself is the ultimate in self-indulgence. VIRGINIA K. GORDON Highland Park, Ill.

Wright does a fine job of explaining the opening chapters of my new book, Should You Leave?, especially the sections that deal with the solutions to marital discord proposed by the mid-century psychiatrist Murray Bowen. Bowen favored an "autonomous" posture with the qualities Wright mentions: cerebral detachment, an American "inner directedness." What Wright does not say is that I spend the rest of the book questioning the ideal of autonomy. For most people, a desirable relationship contains passion, mutuality, obligation, unselfconsciousness--the opposite of detachment. Autonomy--independence--is our premier national value, but it can make for strange bedfellows. PETER D. KRAMER Providence, R.I.

In substance-abuse groups we have heard for years about the other "disease" of the alcoholic, the co-dependent spouse. I always found co-dependency a squishy, deprecating term that most spouses of recovering alcoholics never really understood. Thanks to Wright for deftly making clear the term differentiation of self, which embraces a wonderfully positive, teachable concept of what it means not to be co-dependent. JOHN TARTARO Plano, Texas

PROHIBITION 1990S-STYLE

I absolutely agree with Charles Krauthammer's "The New Prohibitionism" [ESSAY, Oct. 6], which points out that the frenzied crusade against tobacco has allowed alcohol to get a free ride. Why do we accept the spread of alcoholism without trying to campaign against it? The fact that "alcohol is far more deadly than tobacco to innocent bystanders" should move politicians, the medical community and all others concerned to take action. DONALD J. DEFRAIN Santee, Calif.

Krauthammer asks a final question: "If you knew your child was going to become addicted to either alcohol or tobacco, which would you choose?" My answer: alcohol. I have been drinking alcohol for 60 years, but if I hadn't quit smoking 30 years ago, I would have died long ago. JOHN T. DWYER San Diego

MOSKOWITZ'S WORK

Your article on Zionist and philanthropist Irving Moskowitz [WORLD, Sept. 29] mentioned that one of his acts was to send American Jewish youth to Israel to boost morale during the Gulf War. I had friends on those flights, and they were met at the airport not by relatives and friends, but by soldiers on military alert. The troops distributed gas masks and chemical-weapons-antidote kits to the newly arrived Americans. My brother was among those who sat in a Jerusalem bomb shelter hoping that Scuds wouldn't strike. Before pointing a finger at activists like Moskowitz for the deteriorating Middle East peace process, we should remember that Yasser Arafat, whose "patience has its limits," openly supported Saddam Hussein. To blame the current problems on one man is unfair. While Arafat was giving permission for Iraqi tanks to travel through the West Bank, Moskowitz was bringing youth, strength and courage to a country on the brink of its sixth war in 43 years. ELIE SCHOCHET Troy, Mich.

Moskowitz's funding of the Jewish zealots who set up housing in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem is nothing less than a step toward "ethnic cleansing," formerly called persecution. It was wrong in the past, and it is very wrong and sad when it takes place in Israel. PETER MANASSE Monte Carlo

CRACKING THE JONBENET CASE

If the pressure of the nation, the eyes of the media and the forces of the law cannot crack the door on the JonBenet Ramsey murder [LAW, Oct. 6], who can? To see her parents smiling in a picture-perfect pose sickens me. The information regarding this murder should be handed to capable persons outside the good-ole-boy network in Boulder, Colo. If time is everything during an investigation, then the march to justice in Colorado is about as efficient as the pony express--a lot of clippety-clop, a slow delivery and far too much dust. CINDY SENG Libertyville, Ill.

MASSACRES IN ALGERIA

We are astonished at the seeming indifference of the world to the savage killings taking place in Algeria [WORLD, Oct. 6]. How many thousands of people have to be murdered before the spiritual leaders of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and other faiths unite in condemning such butchering? PALOMA MANSFIELD BLANCA SIMMONS Fullerton, Calif.

Graphic photos of violence like the ones you published of the Algerian massacres serve no purpose other than to push the limits of acceptable journalism. You are known for quality reporting of events, not for in-your-face photographs. SUSAN SCHWARTZ Dedham, Mass.

Would TIME have published those grisly photographs of the victims if they had been white? THOMAS G. REPENSEK New York City