Dear Editor
Dear Editor Bell-GIazer For Daniel Bell and Nathan Glazer's article, "The Shame of Richard Nixon," (NL, January 22) many thanks. It appeared at an opportune moment. The end of the Vietnam war is...
...Can he not keep his Stem-like personality out of his remarks...
...Equally important in assuring proper performance on the bench, as Kuh noted, is an improved method of discipline and removal of judges for misconduct or disability...
...Brooklyn, N.Y...
...It is timely, too, because some who style themselves Socialists are arguing that Nixon is not such a bad sort after all, that bombing civilians is sometimes unavoidable, and that the end justifies the means in the meanest of all wars...
...Moreover, Simon's erudition would stand without his unnecessary introduction of foreign phrases, his use of recondite words and his espousal of arcane structure...
...That he accomplishes this with verve and wit in no way diminishes the cruelty of what he is doing...
...Washington Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, Member of Congress Criminal Justice Richard H. Kuh's article on the shortcomings of the courts ("The Politics of Criminal Justice," NL, January 8) was very interesting...
...As a newcomer to the House, I get the distinct impression that Congress is resolved to lake action during this session...
...The New York State League of Women Voters does not necessarily share his assessment of the extent of mediocrity and the low level of performance in the state's judiciary today, yet we have been concerned enough about improving the quality of justice to have worked for reform for the past 17 years...
...Here the League of Women Voters would urge that citizens and legislators seriously consider the suggestions of the Temporary State Commission to Study the Court System, released in January and designed to effect basic changes in how the courts are run...
...We are interested in a critic's perceptions, not in his individual fears and fetishes...
...There is a consistent substratum of physical carping in most of his reviews...
...Shame indeed attaches to Richard Nixon and to all who aid and abet him...
...Would that Simon were more Simple...
...New York City Elizabeth B. Hubbard Judicial Chairman, League of Women Voters of New York State Simon Reading John Simon's review of Up the Sandbox ("On Screen," NL...
...We proposed legislation last winter, modeled after techniques in use in other states, for a perma-ment commission to receive and investigate complaints from all sources, and recommend action on retirement or removal to the state's highest court...
...The second major means of reform lies in restructuring the administration of the courts and assuring state responsibility for adequate financing in short, constructing a manageable system that would be a far cry from the existing situation...
...he should solve his particular horror of being Jewish instead of damning those he chooses to reject...
...Justice must be administered ably, impartially and equally...
...Pleasant, Pa...
...I am appalled by his discussion of Barbra Streisand's physical endowments...
...Miss Streisand's putatively bad legs are an irrelevancy unless she is starring in a film about ballet, perhaps, or playing Miss America And Simon's personal vindictiveness belongs not in a column of film criticism but in the lived out fantasies of a nasty man...
...Already the Senate has repassed the water pollution bill that had been denied funds by the President...
...I am repelled, too, by Simon's defensive-ness...
...Two major avenues for reform are available...
...The end of the Vietnam war is of such transcendent importance, so much hoped for, that it may diminish the anguished critical faculties of those of us who opposed this war from the very beginning as unjust, immoral, wrong, self-destructive, and of benefit only to the Communists...
...And there is something paranoid to his belief that qualities he deems unpleasant are being Judaized by the movies...
...Kuh dwells primarily on raising the quality of the judiciary, and divorcing the selection of judges and conduct on the bench from partisanship...
...He in part discredits the appointive approach by mixing observations on screening procedures and nominating functions, and on voluntary and mandatory plans...
...He totally destroys the attempts made in society to judge the whole person: by isolating arms and noses and knees he dehumanizes people and substitutes his own visions of an atomical delight...
...February 5) has prompted me to write my first letter to an editor...
...But the League of Women Voters believes that experience in other jurisdictions indicates an appointive system whereby a nonpartisan (or bipartisan) nominating commission of lawyers, laymen and judges recommends the best qualified attorneys to the Chief Executive would be highly preferable to the present elective process in attracting superior candidates and reducing the role of politics...
...Joseph Clark I read with interest Bell and Glazer's article...
...We agree with Kuh that there is no place for politics in running the ccurtsjust as there is no merit to the demand for "home rule" in controlling judicial procedure...
...Sally Levin John Simon does not happen to be Jewish.ed...
...I believe we will see a confrontation soon...
...Certainly, the growing power of the Presidency must be checked, and the failure of Congress to exert its authority in the past, in such matters as the Vietnam appropriations and the draft, must be remedied as soon as possible...
Vol. 56 • March 1973 • No. 5
