Sporting Women

To the Editors:

Thank you for your article on "Women in Sports" [June 26]. I have been a jock all my life. Your story made me realize that I haven't been wrong.

Susan Pitts

Lafayette, La.

Your profiling women's participation in sports is like encouraging a snail to enter a foot race. Let's face it, women just aren't made right to enter a man's realm of sports.

They have cluttered up the baseball diamonds and football fields, and now they have invaded and completely tied up our handball courts with their sissy game of racquetball.

George Dorsey Eugene, Ore.

Thank you for your article on women in sports. I'm a twelve-year-old girl going to a school that doesn't really give girls a fair chance in sports. In eighth grade next year, I want to play flag football with the boys, but I'll never get permission from our school board or superintendent. Most of the boys try to discourage me and tell me to go back to cheerleading. Now, with the help of your article, I may be able to win over the boys and (I hope) the superintendent.

Monique le Conge

Cottonwood, Calif.

Women will only have achieved equality in the sports world when they are offered men, as well as cars, as inducements to being recruited by glory-seeking coaches.

Ann P. Boland Clemson, S.C.

Solzhenitsyn's Right

I say, God bless America and the rest of the Western world, which not only let Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn speak his mind [June 26], but were also willing to stand ready to defend his unquestionable right to speak it.

Gerda Kelly

Ajijic, Mexico

When Solzhenitsyn vividly chronicled the evils of the Soviet system, we hailed him. That called for no courage. Now that he is scourging us for spearheading the decline of the West, we should heed him. This is our test of true greatness. The "intellectual elite" that did not see his point showed its smallness.

Wadie Farag Medicine Hat, Alta.

If Solzhenitsyn is wrong, then Judaeo-Christian ethics is wrong.

(The Very Rev.) Yaroslav Sudick

Sts. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church

Endicott, N. Y.

Solzhenitsyn is a Martin Luther deprived of persecutors, a Savonarola deprived of a stake, the anticlimax of a cause he left behind.

John Russell Philadelphia

Knighthood for Jarvis?

Having read that Howard Jarvis [June 26] has been asked to extend his crusade to 40 American states, may I use your column to invite Mr. Jarvis to place his abilities at the service of the citizenry of these islands? There is scope here Mr. Jarvis would hardly dare to dream of. More than a quarter of the employed population is on the government payroll. What a proposition!

Please take a Laker, Sir Jarvis.

Tom Kyte Nottingham, England

The tax revolt in California made the best news for Americans in a decade. Still, to curtail local government is like hitting the neighborhood bully's little brother --just a way of sending a message until we can figure out how to get at the federal establishment.

William G. Smith Rockford, Ill.

Nazis and the Court

I find the beliefs of the Nazis disgusting; if they were not serious, they would almost be comical. However, the Supreme Court's ruling on the Skokie demonstration [June 26] is the only one possible in a free society, not because of any merit or lack thereof in the Nazis' position, but because forcibly silencing ridiculous ideas does not make them go away.

Walter L. Harrison

Grand Rapids

It would be comforting if it were safe to adopt a humorous tolerance toward even the most heinous ideas and their proponents. Unfortunately, there must always be a "watch on the Rhine," whether it be in Europe or on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Janet Blair Dominick

Altamonte Springs, Fla.

The A.C.L.U. has lost its meaning and usefulness. It's a tool of the demented lunatic fringe. Freedom of speech is not absolute when it advocates violence, destruction and genocide.

Harold H. Rubin Lafayette Hill, Pa.

New Rock Religion?

Rock music for the past five to seven years has been directionless and unmotivated. The fact that power is coming back into rock [June 26] delights me. People don't write songs, at least good songs, about oil embargoes, world economic problems, detente or other assorted unromantic difficulties. I yearn, crave, ache for the days of rock as a religion, with its electricity and excitement. A new religion might grant those of us with '60s mores and ideals living in the disenchanting '70s at least a brief reprieve from the raisin-less oatmeal that spews forth from supposedly FM rock radio stations without having to live in the past.

Andy Jordan El Cerrito, Calif.

Snail Darters

Congratulations to the little fish, the snail darter [June 26]! Perhaps humankind is at last using its brain and realizing that as we exterminate life around us, we are narrowing the gap between us and our own extinction.

Fran Alexander Madison, Ala.

Any idea that a useful construction in which $116 million of taxpayers' money has been invested should be abandoned because of the belated discovery of snail darters is utter nonsense.

Joseph Behr Danbury, Conn.

Mother, may I go out to swim ?

No, my darling darter.

You'll be dammed when the water

tops the brim. Why must you be a martyr?

James Wharton Weems, Va.

For love of gold we routed the Indian from his homeland and livelihood, and now we sink the dam at Tellico to save the snail darter. O temporal O mores!

Denis Wharton Natick, Mass.

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