The Ultimate

To the Editors:

It's about time somebody put Linda Ronstadt [Feb. 28] where she belongs: out in front, spotlighted and highlighted. Linda is not just a superstar, she is the ultimate: she is song, she is now, she is forever. Music is alive and well in Linda.

Joseph M. Wall Jr. Washington, D.C.

Now honeybees, instead of reporting to work in Texas' wild-flower fields and orchards, will head North to worship Linda Ronstadt. She is a honey!

Rudolph Dvorak Fort Worth

So the vacuous Linda Ronstadt chews gum, is learning to live alone, sometimes takes uppers for concerts, wore jeans (good God!) to an Inaugural celebration and in general acts and talks like an addlepated twelve-year-old.

Ronald Claiborne San Rafael, Calif.

Linda Ronstadt's appeal stems from her daring to be blatantly sexy in a business in which women are commonly thrown to the wolves and gobbled for breakfast. She doesn't do the ethereal madonna bit, nor does she do the red-hot-mamma routine. She is just a pretty lady who happens to sing like an angel.

Irene Goodman New York City

The article on Linda Ronstadt would have been complete with a centerfold--perhaps of Formidable Flirt Linda seducing a priest?

Jolie Parker Zablocki Elmhurst, Ill.

I am sick and tired of hearing Linda Ronstadt complain about the priests and nuns who taught her. Having taught for 35 years myself and reading about some of the stunts she pulled in the classroom, I get the idea she was a pain.

(Brother) Raymond Long, F.S.C. Santa Fe, N. Mex.

The ZPGeneration

Your story on Zero Population Growth [Feb. 28] is laudable. With the "miracle of science" offering no solutions, responsible parenthood should surely now be fashionable.

Either you are part of the problem or part of the solution.

C.B. Raupe Arlington, Va.

Yes, I think it is possible that the quality of life could improve with the decrease in the number of people in this nation, but not without a major change in attitudes. When the economy fails and the population declines, the educational authorities do not improve the student-teacher ratio. Instead, they close down schools, fire teachers or subject them to impossible assignments, while the talents of new teachers go wasted.

Rosanne Hansel Altoona, Pa.

One major factor that your article overlooked is immigration. Legal and illegal immigration now accounts for about half of our annual population growth of 2.5 million. At these rates, our population will grow by 63 million by the turn of the century--and never stop. Also, perhaps many Americans do not need our "Love Carefully" valentine, but millions of people still do not have access to family planning services.

Roy Morgan, Executive Director Zero Population Growth Washington, D.C.

To reach ZPG is a failure, not a success. Many countries are paying their women to have children. We here in the States take money out of our already depleted budget to finance birth control because we want the luxuries of life all to ourselves. What selfishness. Our Lord said to "be fruitful and multiply." What a way for a Christian country to go!

Anthony Ruffa Erie, Pa.

I am glad I don't have to grow up in a society where the old fogies have the upper hand. Your childhood is the best time of your life. Can you imagine living it with a bunch of half-dead people running your life?

Michelle Brodie Aiken, S.C.

Obey That Impulse

As a consulting psychologist, I want to raise a vigorous objection to the conclusion of your article "Merchants of Debt" [Feb. 28]. You assert that "the advantages of widespread easy credit far outweigh its drawbacks ... psychologically, in the ability to satisfy impulse and indulge expansive moods."

Our affluent society grows more infantile day by day. I-want-it-now is characteristic of our bank robbers, muggers, embezzlers and kidnap-extortionists. Obey-that-impulse is a feature of rapists and murderers. Obviously no one is going to blame the credit-card industry for the upsurge of violence and criminality, but to the extent that opinion leaders endorse the philosophy of immediate, uninhibited gratification of impulse, they are helping to create the climate in which young people who cannot get credit cards demand--and seize--that same impulse gratification.

Ross Stagner Pleasant Ridge, Mich.

There are references throughout the article to the pain and hardship suffered by those who overindulge in credit spending, but nothing that relates to the exploitation inflicted on the rest of us who keep our cravings within normal bounds, but who are nevertheless subsidizing those free-spirited ones by paying higher prices.

Elmer Seaberg Guilford, Conn.

The Boston banker who accused Johanna McGeary of "not doing her part for the American economy" because she rarely used her charge cards is a menace to mankind. I have personally never owned a charge card and have managed to stay in debt quite easily.

Mark Woodall Port Arthur, Texas

What a good idea. I think I'll arrange to have my funeral on credit. That way I'll know that my loved ones think of me--at least once a month when the bill comes.

Kathy W. Lamb Memphis

I solved the problem of living in a credit society when I began paying my Diners Club bills with my American Express card--and vice versa.

Joel Stratte-McClure Paris

The world's best credit card is still the greenback.

Stan Frank Beaver, Pa.

The credit card is the greatest invention since the wheel.

It is able to convert thrift into greed instantly, and makes it possible for all of us to buy things we don't need with money we don't have, to impress people we don't like.

Peter Simmel Culver City, Calif.

Aid or Bribery?

Private-enterprise payments to foreign businessmen are "bribery." CIA covert payments to heads of state are "foreign aid by other means" [Feb. 28]. Come on, let's play the game fair. Put the true title on either one or the other.

David J. Poun

Redlands, Calif.

Hitler's Followers

Your article on the neo-Nazis [Feb. 28] makes me wonder whether the human race learned anything from the Hitler era. There still seem to be people who hate Americans whose ancestral backgrounds are not truly "American". I should just like to know where those Nazis themselves all come from.

Jeff Crook Minneapolis

Though a bullet killed Fred Cowan, it was his extreme prejudice that really did him in. One wonders how those on Cowan's subhuman level can survive without killing somebody. Cowan could not. Maybe all bigots should realize this.

Evan Deutsch Southfield, Mich.

Your remarks about this organization in connection with the Fred Cowan episode in New Rochelle were highly misleading. To suggest that there is any connection between that type of individual and this party represents the most despicable sort of journalistic demagoguery.

There are, after all, many Cowans and potential Cowans in our society. They are not the creation of this organization, which adheres to a program of complete and strict legality. Rather, they are spawned by irresponsible, violence-catering media which, instead of portraying National Socialism accurately and truthfully, have preferred to create a "Nazi monster" stereotype that some unstable minds will obviously find-appealing.

Matt Koehl, Commander

National Socialist White Peoples Party

Arlington, Va.

In seeking answers to the growing violence, TIME in knee-jerk fashion turns to the defunct and discredited psychiatrists. Psychiatrist Ziporyn attributes the growing violence to a "... moving from a time of restraints back to total liberty."

For how many of us does total liberty mean butchering our fellow man? Henry J. Rannin Jr. Aurora, Ill.

Security for All

In your report titled "After the Vance Mission: Signs of Hope" [Feb. 28], you say that U.N. resolutions insist that Israel is entitled to "secure" frontiers. The fact is that U.N. Resolution 242 emphasizes the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every state in the area can live in security. Separate mention of Israeli security is to be found nowhere in that document.

Mahmoud Ami

Minister Plenipotentiary

Egyptian Mission to the United Nations

To Barbara Walters

I want to come to the defense of Barbara Walters [Feb. 28]. She is witty, charming, intelligent. Even my husband reluctantly admits that ABC Evening News has changed for the better. She makes it interesting and, above all, alive.

Elke J. Wahanik Temple, Pa.

The day Harry Reasoner is given the boot is the day you will see ABC's ratings go down--and by more than 1%. Barbara Walters may be taking a licking (according to some bleeding heart), but it's good for business and that's what she's getting paid for. She can take it.

Eleanor J. Arigoni Minden, Nev

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