Poisonous Monsters?

Sir / Maybe your article on the energy crisis [June 12] will at last wake up a couple of million people on what is to come next Here in the Southwest we will again be exploited by builders of power plants whose benefits go to southern Nevada and California. It should be interesting to watch a modern-day range war come into play when Southwestern farmers, already severely handicapped by drought, have to give up water and clean air to run those belching poisonous monsters that provide power for electric toothbrushes, hair-setters, shavers, cutting knives, can openers and pencil sharpeners.

APRIL NEILSON

Salt Lake City

Sir / I hope that your article on the energy crisis helped people to understand the real issue. This is not a technological crisis. It is a social crisis, a sign of a confused society lacking well-defined priorities. There is no question that natural resources must be preserved and prudently managed. There is no question that growth and progress cannot be suppressed. We need statesmanship at the highest national level to assure a sound balance between the preservation of nature and the just as imperative demand to supply the energy needs of tomorrow.

JAMES SCOTT, M.D

Streator, Ill.

Sir / Why is it always assumed that people have a right to use as much electric power as they wish? A partial solution to the problem of energy supply: limit the amount of electricity an individual is allowed to use. He would be free to use his allotted supply of electricity as he wishes; instead of using his electric shave-cream warmer in the morning, he might use 15 additional minutes of light to read at night, or he could watch a ball game on TV instead of using electric edge trimmers to cut a few blades of grass growing over the edge of the sidewalk.

CAROL JO WESTCOAT

Chicago

Sir / We Americans weren't alarmed over the energy crisis. Why, any day now some Jonas Salk at Con Edison will find a way to make electricity from turnip greens, and our cars will run pollution-free for a month on just water and a tiny pill.

JOHN MCCAULEY

Tarzana, Calif.

Gutless People?

Sir / I would like to put in a nomination for the twelve most gutless people in the United States: the jury that freed Angela Davis [June 12].

ROBERT MORTON

Concord, N.H.

Sir / Thank God for the acquittal of Angela Davis and the jury that was responsible for that verdict.

It restored my faith in my fellow citizens, who were able to see and think above the prosecution's shallow non-case.

MRS. ROBERT E. MARTIN

Fort Wayne. Ind.

Withstanding Torture

Sir / Re "The Beaten Generation" [June 12]. The most ridiculous aspect of corporal punishment is the way adults, in their usual presumptuous attitude toward child raising, actually think they are accomplishing something. The adult merely settles a temporary difficulty by exploiting the child's physical inability to defend himself. If kids deserve any sort of physical treatment in schools, then it is a pat on the back for withstanding the torture of classroom discipline, physical or not.

JOAN MALTESE

(Aged 16)

San Diego

Sir / Ban corporal punishment? It will be a sad day for both the teacher and the student when the student finds out his teacher is only a paper tiger.

BUD SHAW

Auburn, Calif.

Sir / My children recently attended school in a district where corporal punishment was frowned upon. The teachers were attempting to use psychology to solve all the problems. My children learned. They learned disrespect for their teacher and their fellow students.

They are now in a school where spanking is seldom used, but every student knows that it is a possibility. The classes are orderly, and they are learning the three Rs.

LEROY M. GAINES

Davis, Calif.

Sir / "The Beaten Generation" does not give a correct picture of the paddling situation in Dallas.

Spankings in Dallas will increase for the same reasons that tornadoes have increased in Texas--just better reporting of what has happened all along.

Neither is this as much a problem of integration as you implied. I am a student who has been spanked, in junior and senior high school, and it was not a racial problem. There was not a single black teacher or black student in my schools--including myself, whom you referred to in your article as "another black student."

The problem is mainly one of control over students v. individual rights; it is difficult for students to have classes teaching democracy and due process and not have it practiced anywhere in their school lives.

DOUGLAS WARE

Dallas

No Way

Sir / One small mistake in TIME'S fine article about "The Presidential Character" [June 19] might give the impression that I have lost my historical marbles. There is just no way to make Theodore Roosevelt into a "passive-positive (compliant and other-directed)" President.

JAMES DAVID BARBER

Washington, D.C.

Good News, Bad News

Sir / "Good News, Bad News" jokes [June 5] did not originate, as you suggest, a few years ago "probably as spoofs on in-flight announcements by airline pilots." They date back far enough to have been contemporary with my grandfather. The best practitioners were Smith & Dale, their routines built around a dream one of them had, with the other analyzing it: "I dreamed my wife ran away." "That's bad." "No, that's good. But she left the children with me." "That's good." "No, that's bad; they're not my kids," etc.

ALAN SHEAN

Hollywood

Sir / The "Good News, Bad News" jokes originated more than a few years ago.

I can remember one from my high school days in the early 1950s. The Indian chief said to his assembled tribe during a famine: "I have good news and bad news. First the bad news: there's nothing to eat but buffalo dung. Now the good news: there's plenty of buffalo dung."

JAMES L. ACH

San Francisco

Sir / I believe that "Good News, Bad News" jokes derived from a group game we called "Yay! Boo!" which was played at high school and college parties in the '40s and '50s. For example: "This is your social chairman speaking. Tonight we have invited some ladies over to entertain us (Yay!). However, they will be completely dressed (Boo!)... in cellophane (Yay!)."

MARVIN S. KATZ

Hollywood

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