Aristotle Will Live

Sir:

Congratulations and thanks for the excellent portrayal of Alfred Korzybski and account of general semantics [TIME, Feb. 14]. It is a remarkable feat to give a clear account of a complex system and of a great (though often difficult) man,all in a page . . .

FRANCIS P. CHISHOLM State Teachers College River Falls, Wis.

Sir:

Let not Korzybski sell Aristotle short. The philosopher will be studied long after the count has gone the way of all intellectual faddists . .

RALPH P. JOLY College of Great Falls Great Falls, Mont.

Man With Horn

Sir:

Congratulations on your excellent articles on the work of Korzybski and Louis Armstrong [TIME, Feb. 21].

May I point out a curious relationship between the two stories? Korzybski says that what's wrong with people with "Aristotelian orientations" is that they tend to build their attitudes and their lives on verbal definitions . . . His "non-Aristotelian" theory is directed toward getting people past their definitions and words, i.e., blasting a few holes in the verbal wall that stands between them and reality.

In this light, your quotation of Louis Armstrong's famous reply to the man who asked him to define [New Orleans] jazz, "Man, when you got to ask what is it, you'll never get to know," appears as a beautiful and proper non-Aristotelian rebuke to an asker of Aristotelian nonsense-question. What is jazz, indeed!

S. I. HAYAKAWA Editor

ETC.: A Review of General Semantics Chicago, Ill.

Sir:

. . . Louis, the One & Only. Satchmo the magnificent by Artzybasheff the admirable. Boy, oh Boy . . .

JEAN L. RELDY Manila, Philippines

Sir:

You stated that when Armstrong played Chicago, listening musicians did their listening, "worshipfully." Among those mentioned was Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke . . . One night at the Plantation Cafe on Chicago's South Side, Armstrong and Beiderbecke were having a battle of the horns. When Louis heard Bix, he broke into tears and admitted he could never play as well . . .

R. R. RAUSCHER Tacoma, Wash.

WHO's Who

Sir:

The photograph you printed of Dr. N. A. Vinogradov, Deputy Minister of Public Health of the U.S.S.R., who has been his country's delegate to the World Health Organization [TIME, Feb. 28], was incorrect. We would appreciate very much if you would make a correction.

ROBERTO RENDUELES World Health Organization New York City

P: TIME tripped on an erroneous picture-agency caption, wrongly ran the photograph of Dr. Feodor Krotkov, chief of the visiting Soviet delegation to the U.N. Health Assembly in 1946 and a predecessor of Dr. Vinogradov.--ED.

A.M.A. & Blue Cross

Sir:

TIME, Feb. 21, correctly reported that American Medical Association will "fight compulsory health insurance tooth & nail." Your article, however, carried erroneous statement: "The A.M.A. has also turned its back on such individually financed measures as the voluntary health insurance plan offered by the Blue Cross-Blue Shield Commissions" . . . Both the Blue Shield and Blue Cross plans have had and will continue to have the vigorous support of A.M.A. . . .

DR. GEORGE F. LULL General Manager American Medical Association Chicago, Ill.

P: In 1946, A.M.A. supported a forerunner of Blue Shield, but it turned down, as TIME reported (Dec. 13), a Blue Cross-Blue Shield proposal for a non-profit national health insurance company.--ED.

Scots, Wha Hae

Sir:

As one who has always appreciated the interesting liberties with nature [which] TIME has introduced into American cartography, let me say that your portrayal of Scotland

[TIME, Feb. 21] is an especially intriguing bit of plastic surgery. Is there anything symbolic about the scowling eye, the gloating mouth, and the lantern-jawed chin?

ROBERT G. BOWMAN

The State University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa

Sir:

Did Mapster Chapin innocently represent Ireland as a rather apprehensive little animal and Britain as an avaricious neighbor -- or is Chapin Irish too ?

BETTY McCABE West Lafayette, Ind.

P: Mapster Chapin's middle name is Macfarlane. -- ED.

Caesar Fell Here

Sir:

"In the majestic shadow of the Roman Forum . . . Brutus stabbed Julius Caesar . . . One hundred yards from the spot where Caesar fell, divorced Tyrone Power married a Hollywood starlet ... in the Church of Santa Francesca Romana" [TIME, Feb. 7]. Why drag Caesar into this Hollywood transaction? The Church of Santa Francesca Romana, built on the ancient Temple of Venus and Roma, stands at the east end of the Forum. Caesar fell in the theater of Pompey, which stood in the Campus Martius, well over a kilometer west . . .

FREEMAN W. ADAMS Cambridge, Mass.

P: TIME dozed. * -- ED.

* As did Shakespeare, who placed Caesar's murder in the Capitol, almost a kilometer east of the Campus Martius.

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