U.S. Facelift

To the Editors:

It seems that young Southern women have bought the cosmetics mystique [Dec. 11] lock, stock and Farrah. As a result, I cannot use the campus bus system here at the University of Georgia--the perfume odor is overwhelming.

What's wrong with the ultimate natural look: no makeup, no perfume, no cosmetics at all?

Roger A. Hunt Athens, Ga.

Oh, cosmetics! America needs them badly, to cover up all deficits, inflation, decaying cities and ugly things.

Janis Silins Roselle, N.J.

Hurrah for your enlightening story on the cosmetics industry and the high price of beauty! From now on, if I buy such products I may be a fool, but at least I'll be an educated fool. Indeed, who's to say that the benefits of skin treatments are only skin-deep? One could say that a healthy mind starts with a healthy skin.

Monique M. Byer Springfield, Va.

The Military Life

Psychiatrist LaGrone's dismal picture of the transient military family [Dec. 11] is grossly distorted. Moving around is for us a way of avoiding the stifling, narrow-minded existence of one town, one state, one country. He suggests that our fathers are authoritarian figures in search of someone to bully. Except for the uniform, the average military family man is shockingly ordinary.

Michael Wagner Reseda, Calif.

What statistics does LaGrone have available for children of grocery clerks or of traveling salesmen? The military makes such a convenient, homogeneous target for studies such as his. We are just as normal and abnormal as any other segment of the population.

Sandy Seh Bellevue, Neb.

Jonestown, Cont'd

What the cult-prone people [Dec. 11] probably need are some guidelines. I suggest the following: If it sounds good, keep listening. If it begins to satisfy the inner self, take out an associate membership. If they start to talk about your money and valuables, find another cult.

Wray G. Zelt III Washington, Pa.

As former ages had Black Masses in service to evil, so it strikes me that ours has added a more subtle but all the more pernicious parody of the church and the Gospel itself--the cults.

William J. Gahoy Copenhagen

The irrational element will continue its present dominance in our society until we take the radical step of beginning formal instruction in the methods of rational thought at the first-grade level.

Steve Allen Van Nuys, Calif.

The Boat People

Enough! We can't absorb the surplus population of the entire world! Leave the Vietnamese and the Cambodians [Dec. 4] in Southeast Asia. Help to keep them from starving, yes, but send the help there. Political situations change. Perhaps they can be repatriated in a few years, but if they are brought here, we will be stuck with them forever.

M.M. Phillips Mount Prospect, Ill.

The plight of the wretched Vietnamese Boat People should make all of us cry in anguish. Can't we find a way to offer sanctuary to those desperate enough to flee from their homes instead of witnessing repeated capsizings of old tubs, drownings and miserable wanderings because no port is open to them? We are such a big country and they are so few.

Maida Cooper San Diego

The U.S. has authorized the admission of about 50,000 Boat People by the end of April 1979.

Congressional Honesty

In an article discussing the fraud conviction of Congressman Charles C. Diggs (D., Mich.), which involved a staff salary kickback scheme [Dec. 4], Mayor Coleman Young of Detroit was quoted as saying, "I don't believe he [Diggs] did any thing dishonest, or anything that is not a common practice throughout the Congress." I must take issue with him on this.

Congressman Diggs' guilt has been decided in a court of law. The act he was convicted of is definitely illegal. Mr. Young's belief that this illegal act is common practice in Congress could not be further from the truth.

Mayor Coleman owes Congress and the people a sincere and immediate public apology for his irresponsible remarks.

Douglas Applegate, Congressman 18th District, Ohio Washington, D.C.

No Sellout

In your article on Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Carol Foreman [Dec. 4], I am inaccurately quoted as charging that Ms. Foreman has "sold out" to the food industry. Whatever Ms. Foreman's failings may be in regulating that industry, they are attributable to inadequate leadership, not, definitely not, venality.

Ralph Nader Washington, D.C.

Profits in Tax Shelters

Surely the most important story of the week was that on tax shelters [Dec. 4]. I would guess that most of us think of them as a way for old folks on deflated incomes to buy municipal bonds and save a few tax dollars. Now it appears that it is a method for conniving lawyers and those with know-how to reap undeserved profits while depriving the rest of us of revenue that should have been used for our monumental governmental deficits.

Eloise Kennedy Santa Fe, N. Mex.

What good can come from removing investment incentives such as tax shelters? Can anyone deny the immense public benefit produced by such tax-sheltered investments as renovated housing, senior-citizen homes, food and job production and the like? Let us stop torturing ourselves into finding ways to spite the rich at the expense of benefits for us all.

Jerold L. Zaro Asbury Park, N.J.

Living Link

I find Anthropologist Adrienne Zihman's study of chimp bones to discover a link between man and ape [Dec. 4] a complete waste of time, money and intelligence. Can you imagine all this after reading the Book of Genesis? Will evolutionists ever give up and simply admit that God created us?

Joann R. Dorsch South Bend, Ind.

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