Letters

Lose That Spare Tire!

Our guide to everything you need to know about getting in shape garnered personal testimonials from active exercisers, compliments from fitness trainers and appreciation from those who are happily full bodied and still in top form. Some readers, though, would have preferred a pudgier cover girl

Your special report, "How to Get Fitter, Faster," should be read by every American [June 6]. Many of my patients belong to the new breed of pill-popping couch potatoes you wrote about. I have laminated the pages of your magazine's stories and hung them in the reception area of my office. It's a little thing, but the patient has to stand up to read them.

RICHARD KLEIN, D.D.S. -- Warren, Mich.

Thanks to TV, the Internet, and video games, it's no wonder that we have lost even the most basic instinct for staying fit. Exercise should be a daily activity at the top of everyone's list of things to do. It gives a feeling of well-being that cannot be matched by any of our more stationary daily activities. Exercise should not be a chore. It should be a personal requirement that every American feels happy to fulfill.

LEON RAFAILOV -- New York City

How about ballroom dancing for exercise? It's joy, not work. Swing, salsa, tango for blood pressure, balance and alertness--all that while you hear great music and hold someone in your arms.

VERA LEE -- Newton, Mass.

I have some svelte friends who could learn a lot from your article "Can You Be Fat & Healthy?" Unfortunately, they are downtown drinking and chain smoking. Meanwhile, I am enjoying an evening with TIME, resting up from 45 miles of weekend cycling. I may wear larger-size clothes than some, but my blood pressure and cholesterol levels are low. We need much more reporting on the issue of health as opposed to thinness.

STACEY PAUL -- Chicago

Bravo for showing that fitness isn't only for the thin or the strong or even just for adults. As an exercise physiologist, I've spent my career trying to change how people look at exercise. We all need to get back to making fitness activities feel as they did when we were kids--full of fun, movement and creativity--not the drudgery of the same old monotonous 30 minutes on a treadmill.

CATHERINE CRAM -- Middleton, Wis.

With all the hype about the countless fad diets out there, it was nice to read praise for the healthier method of staying in physical shape--getting off one's duff and exercising. It was courageous of TIME to point out Americans' laziness and make the connection between obesity and our passion for convenience. Being healthy takes more than putting down the feedbag. It means getting off the couch and engaging in forward motion. What a novel concept!

JAMES C. NILL -- Detroit

I fell asleep at after reading your fitness articles, and the next morning I bolted out of bed for a 30-minute walk. I had not done that for months.

GAIL KAPLAN -- Albuquerque, N.M.

No Doubt About It

In the Essay "In Defense of Certainty," Charles Krauthammer asserted that it is trendy to disenfranchise those who hold "religiously grounded views" [June 6]. He misses the point completely. What is trendy is the unwillingness of zealots of any stripe to engage in genuine, honest intellectual debate. Krauthammer feels that legalized abortion and gay marriage are attempts to impose "secular views" on America. Nonsense! One side of the debate says, "Give us the freedom to choose for ourselves." The other side says, "No one can do these things because we don't believe in them." Who is forcing beliefs on whom?

CHARLES FINN -- Oceanside, Calif.

It is difficult to maintain certainty in an ever changing world in which all forms of behavior are tolerated in the name of diversity, but the Bible teaches that peace cannot exist where God's righteousness is not first established. We must be courageous enough to endorse scriptural values.

STEVEN STEWART -- Carlsbad, Calif.

Is the certainty that drives a youngster to blow himself up in a crowd to be praised? There are lots of people who are certain about what they believe in. That certainty doesn't make them right.

JIM CARLISLE -- Atascadero, Calif.

Back from the War

Your story about the National Guardsmen who returned home to Bradford, Ark., after serving in Iraq [June 6], began as a description of a unifying, all-American spirit. But the report suddenly left me cold when I read Mayor Paul Bunn's statement that he is still "against abortion and gay rights." After all the carnage and religious-based violence he witnessed in Iraq, I am angry that Bunn could deny rights to a minority group here at home. And this after a year spent fighting for all Americans, even gay Americans. I can't help wondering what an uproar there might be if Bunn had said he was against the rights of any other minority group. Sadly, I don't expect very many people thought anything of his intolerant remark.

JAMES BELL -- West Hollywood, Calif.

You poignantly described what Bush's Iraq war did to one American town. It is unconscionable for the Army to deploy so many National Guard reservists from one locality. Aren't there any limits to how many can be called up from one town? The soldiers who have come home from the war are mentally scarred. It's time to stop the killing and let Americans get on with their lives.

MARION KYSER -- Daytona Beach Shores, Fla.

Cruise Acts Out

Your article on Tom Cruise and his over-the-top profession of passion for actress Katie Holmes on Oprah was right on the money [June 6]. Cruise certainly didn't need to jump up and down on a sofa to prove he's an imbecile. And who is he to criticize Brooke Shields or any other woman who seeks medical help for postpartum depression? Does the idea of a strong woman taking charge of her health frighten Cruise? His opinions belong in the Dark Ages. He needs to leave health care to medical professionals and their patients.

JANICE FISHER -- Midlothian, Va.

Cruise's nutty behavior on Oprah was an example of what happens to superstars who reach the top and have no place to go but down. Look at Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. We treat celebrities like gods, then complain when they start to believe they can fly.

JONATHAN LOWE -- Tucson, Ariz.

Of Freedom and Fear

In TIME's Interview with former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky [June 6], he criticized Amnesty International for lacking "moral clarity" and not differentiating between human-rights abuses committed by dictatorial "fear societies" and those carried out by democratic "free societies." Sharansky implied that the latter are more tolerable, but the distinction is meaningless to the victims. When asked about Israel's abuses of Palestinians' human rights, Sharansky accused Amnesty International of ignoring violations by terrorist organizations. Well, two wrongs don't make a right.

RAYMOND TOTAH -- Fallbrook, Calif.

Sharansky's ideas on human rights may seem simplistic, but they aren't. So long as people live in a fear society, there is no hope for peace or democracy.

HELEN W. JOFFE -- Hamilton, Ohio

Where is mankind supposed to turn to find the noble concept of moral clarity that Sharansky says Amnesty International lacks? The Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo scandals have spoiled whatever claim the U.S. had to moral values. Israel and America are not champions of moral clarity. Both have been attacked, and both have retaliated. Sharansky also complained of the moral equivalence that Amnesty's reports seem to confer on both terrorist regimes and democratic societies. There may be no moral equivalence between a terrorist attack and a retaliation, but let's at least be honest about it. Both are atrocities.

SIMON HYTTEN -- Rome

Schroeder's Political Future

I am a German and an avid supporter of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder [June 6]. Schroeder has been a stellar head of government from the day he took office. Always aware of Germany's past and its responsibility to the future yet never losing sight of the social and economic challenges his country faces, Schroeder has followed in the footsteps of the greatest statesman Germany ever had, Willy Brandt. In my view, he is a pretty difficult act to follow!

MARTIN SAUTER -- Paris

Schroeder's idea of calling early elections is illogical. He hopes they will end the gridlock created by the opposition-controlled Bundesrat (upper house) and the government-controlled Bundestag (lower house). But if his Social Democrats win, the situation is likely to remain the same. What he should do is form a grand coalition with the opposition Christian Democrats until the constitutional end of the Social Democrats' term, in 2006. That would help break the legislative gridlock.

ALFRED JUNG -- Gau-Bischofsheim, Germany

Normally, Germans are a sedate and patient people. It took 16 years to get sick of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, but here we are, already tired of Schroeder after seven years. Kohl's shoes were simply too big for Schroeder to fill. If there had been no catastrophic flooding in August 2002 and if Bush had not gone to war in Iraq, Schroeder's term would have ended after four years, in 2002. It's time for him to go. No one will miss him.

THOMAS KANTHAK -- Braunfels, Germany

There are two possible outcomes to Schroeder's gambit of calling early elections. Either he will be re-elected, or he will discover, like King Canute, that even he cannot turn back an incoming tide.

JOSHUA SELIG -- Dorset, England

Referendums in the Dark

Re you Notebook item "The Naysayers of Europe" on the French and Dutch referendums on the European Union's constitution [June 13]: I wonder how many citizens would vote in favor of the constitution of their own country if they were asked to. Is it legitimate to ask people to vote on something the consequences of which they don't understand?

ILJA FELDSTEIN -- Lutry, Switzerland

Reality Check for the E.U.

The defeat inflicted in the referendums is not a failure for the idea of a united Europe as a whole [June 13]. Quite the contrary: it represents a purely political choice in opposition to the neoliberal character of Europe today and in favor of a Europe that is more socially conscious and responsive. It is also a vote against the elitism and arrogance of the Brussels bureaucracy, which presumes it can complete its version of European unification without ever consulting directly with the citizens of Europe. Finally, it is the starting point of a new political era in the European Union, in which issues are openly contested in public rather than settled through secret diplomacy behind closed doors.

PANOS DRAKOS -- Athens

It is rare that one hears of the progress that has been made since the movement toward the unification of Europe began. Jobs have been created and the market potential of E.U. countries improved. Non-European companies have established production facilities in E.U. nations. Free trade and democracy can result only in economic growth and political stability. The power of political and social solidarity that the E.U. provides has been proved over and over again to be the right choice for progress. Unfortunately, however, personal prejudices and lack of knowledge often hinder valid decisions by the people who are voting on the constitution.

TOM McMURTRY -- St. Paul, France