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LETTER FROM A THEATER- GOER

SLASHING AND SINGING FOR ALL

In an effort to steer you away from the road of rash generalizations, I'd like to object to your preview of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd, in which you wondered how the film's "buckets of gore" and singing and dancing might attract or repel "fogies" and kids [Dec. 3]. I'm a 17-year-old theatergoer, and I don't think kids are looking to Sweeney Todd for Saw IV thrills. Besides, the R rating precludes the Disney audience. And have you checked out Broadway lately? I believe the "fogey" audience has become accustomed to situations that are more violent than the graveyard scene in The Sound of Music. The true problem with the upcoming version of Sweeney Todd is whether the principal players can do vocal justice to Stephen Sondheim's powerful score.

Maureen Davies, PARK RIDGE, ILL.

Mind Your Morals

The article's title, "What Makes us Moral," contains the basic mistake we make in trying to understand ourselves and our fellow human beings [Dec. 3]. Nothing makes us anything. We make choices, which then affect our brain chemistry. In trying to be scientific, we often reverse the relationship. While Jeffrey Kluger may value the choices we make, he did not use the word choices in his story. Our community is a powerful factor in how we choose to behave, of course, and we do place others outside our community. This can help us understand how a person we label a terrorist can be considered a hero within his community. We have much work to do yet.

TOM EDGAR, BOISE, IDAHO

While the insights you reported are astounding, science is unable to address morality with any degree of certainty. Better that scientists stay within scientific parameters. Although they accurately describe the mysterious condition of the "planet's most noble creatures," they have not moved one iota beyond the ancient biblical description of beings made in the image of God.

AL HOKSBERGEN , SPRING LAKE, MICH.

Morality is bunk. What separates man from the beasts is the capacity to reason. Yet we seldom do--we're too busy moralizing. Reason is the only frontier left.

GARY E. NORDELL, BELEN, N.M.

I wish that you would stop featuring cover stories claiming scientific discoveries of human nature. These questions should be equally explored from the perspective of the humanities. Reports like this subtly reinforce the idea that science is the best, if not the only, way of knowing. Even your cover picture implied that a question as mysterious as our capacity for good and evil could be answered with the reductionist idea that it's all in our brains.

LUKE TIA, GAINESVILLE, FLA.

The universe is amoral. It is an endless series of creative and destructive processes. As creatures of the universe, we are immutably subject to its ways and thus have the capacity to brutalize and destroy as well as create and protect.

JAMES M. RIDGWAY JR., TUCSON, ARIZ.

You ended the article with the hope that "the struggles still to come are fewer than those left behind." I believe that the vast majority of people realistically fear that mankind has a tremendous amount of killing and savagery ahead of us before we truly civilize ourselves. But let's hope you are correct.

JOHN CARTER, ATLANTIC BEACH, FLA.

Sizing Up a Fresh Face

RE "Obama's Iowa Surge" [Dec. 3]: Americans are tired of the same old bait and switch from Hillary Clinton. We need a new beginning, a fresh face with original ideas for the future. What makes anyone think she will protect us if she's in the White House? She is transparently phony. People have opened their eyes and see a new beginning with Barack Obama.

ALBERT JACKSON, NEWARK, DEL.

If the four years Sentaor Obama spent attending Indonesian elementary schools qualify as his foreign-relations experience, then having my tonsils removed qualifies me as a surgeon. I love Obama, and I think he represents the future of the progressive Democratic Party--just not yet. It will take someone more experienced to help us recover from the damage inflicted on our nation by the blunderer placed in the Oval Office by the Supreme Court.

NICHOLAS ZIZELIS, NEW YORK CITY

The Democrats on Security

Joe Klein just doesn't get it: to say that Senators Christopher Dodd and Hillary Clinton were right for saying that national security is more important than human rights is a slap in the face of every U.S. citizen [Dec. 3]. Does Klein advocate torturing every Iraqi and Afghan to get information because what we learn supposedly might stop a terrorist attack? This way lies fascism.

JEROME M. SATTLER, SAN DIEGO

Klein is wrong about the Democrats being "tone-deaf" on national security. The problem is, nobody has yet figured out the good answer for the bad question "Are human rights more important than American national security?" The right answer is that without human rights, America cannot have national security. It is not "our freedom" that Osama bin Laden hates. It is the fact that we preserve our rights here in America but deny the same freedoms to others. Every time we infringe on human rights in an effort to bolster security, we lose both. Denying human rights has always been the greater risk to security.

DAVID P. VERNON, TUCSON, ARIZ.

Klein called the Democrats "tone-deaf" for acting on the demands of the American people that we bring the Iraq war to a close. And he says we are "well beyond stupid," but he got most of the facts wrong about the debate over changing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Klein falsely claimed that the bills supported by Democrats in the House and Senate would require individualized warrants to wiretap calls made by foreign targets. Instead, the bills require such warrants only when the government targets Americans, something we should all agree is necessary. Klein was also flat-out wrong when he suggested that there is bipartisan agreement that the government should destroy any records on nontargeted Americans that it obtains using this broad new authority. In fact, the Administration and its allies are fighting against far more modest proposals to protect innocent Americans who are swept up in this new, essentially warrantless surveillance. For nearly 30 years, the secret FISA court has provided judicial supervision and oversight when the government carries out surveillance of Americans. President Bush ignored and bypassed that court and the law in approving a warrantless-wiretapping program after Sept. 11. Only after the program was revealed to the public in December 2005 was the Administration forced to comply with the law. Now the Administration is asking for broad new powers that could very well lead to the collection of vast numbers of communications involving U.S. citizens at home. Congress must make sure that the new law requires independent court review and that it protects the privacy of innocent Americans, as required by the Constitution. That's not tone-deaf; that's our sworn and solemn duty.

RUSS FEINGOLD, U.S. Senator, Wisconsin WASHINGTON

A correction was printed with Joe Klein's column in the Dec. 10 issue.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

The Dec. 3 Numbers column erroneously reported that three black women have appeared on the cover of Vogue since its founding in 1892. That number represented only black women entertainers. The magazine has in fact featured a total of 33 black women on its cover.

The Dec. 3 Briefing story on Cyclone Sidr mistakenly included a picture of Bangladesh's President, Iajuddin Ahmed, instead of the country's chief adviser to the caretaker government--or de facto Prime Minister--Fakhruddin Ahmed, pictured here.