Low Ratings

To the Editors:

Isn't it curious that there's such universal agreement on the poor quality of many of today's TV shows [March 12], yet these very same programs are the ones that garner the highest ratings? Someone must be watching. Who, and why?

Jay T. Lindell

Bayside, N. Y.

I hope Mork from Ork survives many five-year contracts. This old planet is ready for him!

Patricia M. Dickeson

Bloomington, Minn.

Because the best shows are pitted against one another, we viewers switch stations frantically during the commercials. Soon the advertisers will realize this, and TV will lose its revenue.

Linda Reilly

Old Orchard, Me.

Right Response

The right response to Middle East crises [March 12] would be for President Carter to issue a White Paper declaring to the whole world, foe and friend alike, that oil is indispensable to the life of the American people, and that the U.S. will use all of its might and resources to protect the supply of oil, wherever it may be.

Sam Genirberg

El Cerrito, Calif.

I am not surprised that the "U.S. has lost its power to do almost anything it wanted around the world." It must convince other nations that the U.S. has their interests in mind rather than looking on them as just a source for oil.

Ramesh Mishra

Berkeley, Calif.

The most serious dangers for America do not arise from its so-called political weakness, but from the inability or unwillingness of its people to deal with problems like inflation or the waste of oil and natural gas.

Kai-Uwe Klinge Gottingen,

West Germany

Yes, Jimmy Carter's foreign policy is inept. He has not been able to start even a little war.

Pablo Carter

Mexico City

Tax Time

Yeah, I'd feel the "U.S. [tax] system is fair and equitable" too if I were Henry and Richard Bloch with their $81 million [March 12]. When better than half of all taxpayers seek out professional tax preparers to guide them through the mind-stunning incomprehensibility and convoluted jargon, one understands why our present tax code is referred to as the "C.P.A.s' and Tax Preparers' Relief Act."

Thomas J. Adams

Acampo, Calif.

You mention income tax time as when "the ides of April draw near." According to the ancient Roman calendar, however, the ides of April were not April 15 but April 13, as shown in this mnemonic jingle that I learned in Latin classes:

In March, July, October, May

The ides fall on the 15th day

The nones the seventh; all besides

Have two less days for the nones and ides.

Muzette Z. Diefenthal

Roselle, Ill.

Eating Kosher

There is no reason to be surprised at the Egyptian delegation's ordering kosher food [March 5]. The Koran says: "The food of the People of the Book is lawful unto you." Thus, for an orthodox Muslim traveling in the West, the most convenient way to obey his dietary laws obviously is to eat kosher food.

Josef Marcuse

Wunstorf, West Germany

Harte in the Right Place

I chuckled at Historian Barbara Tuchman's [March 12] certainty that "every French town has an Avenue Victor Hugo. We never have a Mark Twain Street." Greetings from my house on Mark Twain Street, Palo Alto, Calif. We're one block west of Bret Harte Street.

Susan L. S. Dondershine

Palo Alto, Calif.

Barbara Tuchman's lament is a well-intentioned reminder of our reluctance to honor our artists and thinkers. But the comparison is unfortunate. Twain was a humorist and satirist who was as much taken in by the Gilded Age as he was critical of it; Hugo was a lyric poet and epic novelist--and, what's more, a political hero. His exile was a symbol of opposition to tyranny.

To get a street named after you, you have to be a great human being as well as a great writer or artist.

Peter Brier

Clermont-Ferrand, France

Carnival Spirit

The male-female ratio problem exists at Dartmouth [March 12], that's for sure, and most fraternity boys and sorority girls, myself included, like to go wild on the big Winter Carnival weekend, but you made it sound as though every male on campus is out to "score" and every Dartmouth female is obese, boring and uglier than sin. Not so. Dartmouth College has a lot more to offer than drunk men and homely women.

Molly Sundberg, '81

Hanover, N.H.

Some Dartmouth men appreciate Dartmouth women. And vice versa.

Katherine Van Weelden Saunders, '76

Norman W. Saunders, '76

Thetford, Vt.

On Civil Servants

I wish the "James North" who wrote so critically about federal bureaucracy [March 5] luck on his new job, or better I should wish it to his new employer. Sure, the civil service system has faults, but after two years he could only see the negative and decided to give it up. Next to him, mediocrity doesn't look so bad.

(Mrs.) Geraldine Hanna

Morrisville, N. Y.

The appalling thing is that we are forced to support these arrogant bureaucratic parasites. Sometimes I wish ours were a totalitarian society, where those who did not perform would be banished to the salt mines.

Jan Smit

Coconut Grove, Fla.

Renovation for a Landmark

Reader Steve Smalling compared the second constitutional convention to a remake of Gone With the Wind with Woody Allen as Rhett and Phyllis Diller as Scarlett [March 12]. Personally, I prefer to think of it as the renovation of a historical landmark that if left alone would soon fall into decay and oblivion. Even the White House has to have a coat of paint now and then.

Tera J. Selby

Linden, Ala.

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