Marvel of the Mets

Sir: I cannot tell you how happy your story on the New York Mets has made me [Sept. 5]. It was a beautiful story, written lovingly, with wonderful art. When I got to thinking of what the Old Master might be thinking about all that has happened this season, there was your man with the gospel according to Casey to wrap the story up.

CHRIS CONNELL

Brooklyn

Sir: Your unique blend of Biblical history and baseball is refreshing but obviously apocryphal. St. Jude, patron of hopeless cases, is more likely to show an avid interest in the Mets. On that great come-and-get-it-day, you will find that your "little team that can"--couldn't! Blessed are the Chicago Cubs for they shall inherit the East.

BILL BERG

WIND Radio, Sports

Chicago

Sir: Thank you so much for your fantastic article on our super-fantastic Mets! Fans in other cities have laughed at our "Amazins" all these years, most of the time rightfully so. But they're not laughing much any more; we're the ones doing all the smiling!

We Have Overcome!

NADJA WEHRBERGER

The Bronx

Aquarius in the Mud

Sir: From the mud of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair [Aug. 29] can be made the bricks with which my generation can build the Age of Aquarius.

EARL WILLIAM WILLIS

Wanchese, N.C.

Sir: So "the whole world needs a big wash, a big scrub-down." Granted--and why don't we start with the loonies who wallowed for days in Bethel's "beautiful" mud, litter and garbage?

Your whitewash of this youth culture may well precipitate the flood that will inundate us all. They plan to take over the helm, and apparently you've welcomed them aboard--but how long could even TIME stay afloat if manned by people who don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain?

MRS. JAMES C. FRAZIER JR.

Ponca City, Okla.

Sir: I traveled 800 miles to groove on three days of peace and music at "History's Biggest Happening"--a short journey to become a small part of history.

BERT DICKIE

Moncton, N.B.

Sir: The Message is that of all the different kinds of love in this world, there is no love to compare with the love of one bum for another. The other message is that they will, as usual, all end up in the gutter.

WILLIAM FAY

Los Angeles

Further Dissent

Sir: Dr. Bettelheim [Sept. 5] blames American parents of college dissenters for being permissive and authoritarian. Hungarian, Czech, French and deprived black American parents too? Dissent is traditional in democratic countries and feared by fascist societies.

TIME serves America badly by publishing the senile, regressive and unsubstantiated statements intended to defend the Establishment, no matter what.

IRVING SHAPIRO, M.D.

Newark

Sir: It is reassuring to know there are still men with a clear understanding of our problems and wisdom to press for sensible solutions. I agree that today's youth movement is more filled with hate than idealism. Amid the shouts and tumult, they are begging for guidance, for a firm hand. Their fathers had failed them. University administrators and officials who yield to their unreasonable demands are also failing them. To these "revolutionaries," permissiveness and overindulgence by both parents and society is not a sign of love, but of weakness and decay.

MICHAEL KECSKES

Daly City, Calif.

Eye of the Needle

Sir: I think TIME missed the point [Sept. 5] as did a small but vocal group of San Franciscans. The area of the site of the Transamerica building has been zoned for high-rise commercial development. Two such developments are already within the Portsmouth Corridor area, and because of the rising cost of land in the downtown financial district, others will follow. San Francisco can only grow in one direction, up. The question then is not whether, but what?

Transamerica might be accused of favoring a pedestrian viewpoint, for it is the man on the street who is most affected by the urban environment. We're betting that this man would rather have greater setback of buildings allowing more light and air to the street, would appreciate a public sculpture garden to retreat from sidewalk traffic, and might enjoy a terrace-level restaurant where he can look out at an historic area of the city.

JOHN H. CHASE

Vice President

Transamerica Corp.

San Francisco

Sir: How can the mayor of beautiful San Francisco say that an ugly mass of glass and cement would be "a very welcome addition to the city's skyline."

His idea of beauty must be a car factory in the middle of an unspoiled forest.

ROSEMARY HUGO

Irwin, Pa.

Sir: I noted with complete revulsion Transamerica Corp.'s proposed addition to the San Francisco skyline. While "different" and "interesting," the building itself must be considered an architectural disaster in spite of itself. Its impact on the total environment in which it finds itself would be great, to say the least, but in a negative way.

I cannot help wondering about the sense of values that Mayor Joseph Alioto, the San Francisco Chronicle and others hold for themselves and for the wonderful city that is San Francisco.

JAMES B. PETTIT JR.

Editor, AS

Baltimore

Flight Cancelled

Sir: We would like to call your attention to an error in fact in your very fine article [Aug. 29] on new directions in the insurance industry.

In describing the aggressive diversification program of INA Corp., the general business corporation formed by the Insurance Co. of North America, you mention that INA acquired World Airways, the supplemental airline. It is true that INA did announce negotiations with World Airways for this purpose on Oct. 9, 1968, but on Jan. 31, 1969, INA and World made a joint announcement that the negotiations had been terminated.

JOHN T. GURASH

President INA Corporation

Philadelphia

Building Blocks

Sir: Maybe blacks have failed to pass written tests conducted by white A.F.T. construction labor unionists. So what? In past centuries, the great cathedrals were built by masons and other tradesmen who were totally illiterate.

If Boss Meany and his phony cronies had the least interest in getting blacks into the building trades, they would have done something big long ago.

The United Automobile Workers is the only big union to make equal opportunity a fact instead of just an empty phrase. In spite of constant Northern sermonizing about the South, a far higher percentage of blacks are employed in the building trades down here--as skilled men, not laborers--than in the prating North.

JOHN MACFIE

Member U.A.W. Local 600

Chapel Hill, N.C.

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