Software Scripts

To the Editors:

Your story "The Wizard Inside the Machines" [COMPUTERS, April 16] gives credit where credit is due. I find my job as a high school teacher more challenging thanks to the software manufacturers and programmers you mentioned. These outstanding innovators have provided exceptional educational programs that allow students to develop their minds commensurate with their ability. As a classroom aid, this software has brought about a significant change in the attitude of my students. The result is improved attendance, motivation and attention span.

Pamela Porr Beer Nevada, Mo.

As a word-processing instructor, I was disturbed by your use of the word magic on the cover. The great problem I have found is that adults are afraid of computers because they believe the machines are magical and not within their control. This fear inhibits these people and prevents them from developing the skills that are necessary for survival in our society.

Anne Weil South Harpswell, Me.

Few people realize how competitive the software industry is. One must look over one's shoulder at all times. Take it from someone who did not, and is now, after 2 1/2 years in the industry, retired at the age of 22.

Barry E. Printz Former President

Cavalier Computer Corp Del Mar, Calif

We think your readers might want to know that the educational software product listed in your Best Sellers chart is called Math Blaster!, not, as you had it Math Buster!

Janice G. Davidson, President

Davidson & Associates Palos Verdes, Calif

While schools have had little problem finding appropriate hardware, they have run into difficulty unearthing low-cost, quality software. To help alleviate this situation, I have introduced a bill to establish a National Educational Software Competition, which would get the computer industry and the educational sector ,to work together toward producing software for all teaching levels.

Ike Skelton

U.S. Representative Fourth District, Missouri Washington: D.C.

Farrakhan's Fury

Jesse Jackson has committed a grave error in not dissociating himself from Louis Farrakhan [NATION, April 16]. With his foolish threats and racist rhetoric, Farrakhan and his group, the Nation of Islam, are bad company for a presidential candidate. Jackson will have a hard time convincing voters that he stands for equality and an end to racial misunderstanding.

Robyn M. Haire Coconut Creek, Fla.

Children's Cholesterol

Having been around magazines, I feel compelled to say that I have seldom seen a more knowledgeable or valuable handling of an important theme than your article on cholesterol [MEDICINE, March 26]. This is public service as one might always wish it. A recent study of schoolchildren in New York and Los Angeles shows that their cholesterol levels are about 35% higher than they ought to be. This is when the time bomb begins to click.

Norman Cousins

U.C.L.A. School of Medicine Los Angeles

Torture as a Weapon

It is amazing that the international community has not cried out against the epidemic of torture we are witnessing [WORLD, April 16]. The victims of these horrors are often the people who have the most to contribute to their countries.

Dickson Murgazi Hamilton, N.Y.

The flogging and amputation that you mentioned are neither tolerated nor accepted by the people of Pakistan. The military regime imposes such harsh sentences and carries them out to terrify the masses into submission.

M. Yahya Qureshi, President

Council of Concerned Pakistanis Abroad Ontario

Greer's Gripes

Every woman knows that the truth about motherhood falls somewhere between the recent outpourings from Germaine Greer [BEHAVIOR, April 16] and the canned wisdom of Phyllis Schlafly. What perplexes me is why a woman like Greer, who has experienced almost everything but maternity, salutes her sisters with respect, and Schlafly, the mother of six children, pats us on the head with tender-loving superiority.

Kathleen Maley Pittsburgh

Tax Bite

The tax legislation that would make the most profound change in the U.S. economy would be the elimination of the withholding tax [ECONOMY & BUSINESS, April 16]. Most taxpayers think of take-home pay as their income and regard their withheld tax money, which they never see, as not their own. If we all had to sit down and go through the bloodletting of writing a check to the IRS once a year, we would no longer joke about $9,000 screws for fighter planes.

Spensley M. Schroder Denver

Your roundup of proposed ways of making the federal tax structure fairer and more productive, "Tax Ideas from Flat to VAT," is incomplete. The House Ways and Means Committee has before it my progressive consumption-tax proposal (H.R. 4442). The consumption tax would drastically reduce the number of exclusions, deductions and credits that now make the Internal Revenue Code a cabala for tax lawyers and C.P.A.s. It would allow the deduction of all savings and investments, on the theory that people should be taxed on what they take out of the national economy by way of consumption and not on what they put in. To protect the poor, personal exemptions would be double those under the current income tax, and the tax rate for the bottom income brackets would be lower. The estate and gift tax would be restored to check the growth of dynastic wealth. Americans would thus be encouraged to save and invest during their lifetimes, and the Government would at their death recoup some of the taxes forgone.

Cecil Heftel

Representative First District, Hawaii Washington, D.C.

Street Leaks

The Wall Street Journal's decision to expose on its front page the unethical deportment of R. Foster Winans was admirable [ECONOMY & BUSINESS, April 16]. However, the attempt by the Securities and Exchange Commission to police leaks based on insider information is as futile as patrolling extramarital sex. Loose talk cannot be inhibited by bureaucratic regulations, nor can the "What's in it for me" reflex be controlled.

Howard J. Carswell Naples, Fla.

Decimating the Roost

All Americans would benefit if G. Ray Arnett, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks [ENVIRONMENT, April 16], would put down his gun and pick up a golf club.

Karen Hill New York City

That we have a man like Arnett in a position of power over our endangered species is the fault of the insensitive and unenlightened President who put him there.

Linda O'Connor Van Nuys, Calif.

I object to the implication that "environmentalist" means "non-hunter." To hunt and to be concerned about the environment are not mutually exclusive. Theodore Roosevelt, an avid sportsman, was one of the driving forces behind the conservation movement.

William J. Comai Madison Heights, Mich.

G. Ray Arnett makes James Watt look like St. Francis of Assisi.

Mary Fisher Schaumburg, Ill.

Healing Prayers

God must consider us very strange creatures. He gives us the finest medical technology in the world, yet he sees parents who refuse to allow their children to accept it [RELIGION, April 16]. Many of these parents consider abortion to be murder. Do they then call withholding medical treatment from children justifiable homicide?

Randi Rosete Omaha

Preferring prayer to medical treatment is insane. Religion has been, and always will be, the cause of too many innocent deaths.

Hal Brown Buffalo

Over the years Christian Science periodicals have published 50,000 carefully verified testimonies of spiritual healing, including cases where medicine has proved ineffective. Intellectual integrity, not to mention scientific curiosity, demands that such results be taken seriously. An occasional failure no more discredits the method than a patient's death on the operating table discredits medicine.

Pierre Pradervand Le Mont Pelerin, Switzerland