Dear Editor
Dear Editor Dubious Service In his letter attacking my "iconoclastic view favoring some kind of protectionism," Lloyd McAulay ("Dear Editor," NL, March 23), adopts the fashionable view that we...
...Is that so...
...for relaxed contemplation and enjoyment of God's creation, and for the cultivation of the arts which help fill the human longing for wholeness...
...Leisure demands a constant flow of attention, inner quietness, and an unwillingness to be distracted from that which is most worthy...
...utters at least once on every installment of Firing Line...
...Leisure demands that we experience the most ordinary things as if for the first time: this is how the sense of wonder is given birth...
...Since, as is also customary, he neglects to show how free trade might contribute to that future, I can't very well respond to that part of his letter...
...Leisure demands that "useless" things be pursued to redeem us from a world of profit and utility...
...Bronxville, N. Y. Melvtn L. Rogers Semantics Ray Alan, in his "Niceness (Seasonally Adjusted) is All" (NL, April 6), noted in passing that "nice" used to mean "ignorant and persnickety...
...maintain vigilance against "being swept along by a lack of cultural values and by the changing fads of an affluent society...
...Aside from the oil sheikdoms, there are five countries (Denmark, West Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland) whose gross national product per capita is higher than ours...
...Sure enough, upon checking the etymology in my dictionary I found that "nice"derives from precisely the same Latin roots as "nescient"—a fancy word for "know-nothing" that William F. Buckley Jr...
...Dear Editor Dubious Service In his letter attacking my "iconoclastic view favoring some kind of protectionism," Lloyd McAulay ("Dear Editor," NL, March 23), adopts the fashionable view that we are becoming service oriented, and that that's dandy...
...Sarasota, Fla...
...One must The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...Dare I ever call someone a "nice guy" again...
...Time is needed, the bishops note, for building "family and societal relationships...
...And," he adds, "the richest countries are now service oriented...
...Allow me to call your readers' attention to the fact that the letter also speaks of leisure as being part of the Christian Vocation...
...Of these, only Switzerland is arguably service oriented, its services being skiing, hosting international conferences and hiding dirty money...
...As is customary with unrestricted free traders, McAulay imagines a roseate future...
...The bishops recognize that "the use of leisure may demand being countercultural...
...George ?. Brockway Leisure George P. Brockway's "Bishops Move Diagonally" (NL, March 23), in citing many of the key passages of "Economic Justice for All," the pastoral letter approved last fall by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, understandably focuses on such issues as social programs, defense spending, union organizing, foreign competition, and income distribution...
...New York City Ralph Cohen...
...Continuing my browsing, I was astonished to discover that the word "guy" has undergone an even more bizarre semantic reversal: It originally designated the effigies of Guy Fawkes that are burned each year in Britain on November 5 to commemorate the infamous Gunpowder Plot (1605...
...We must discover, in our restless roaming from experience to experience, that frequent eruptions of nervous energy and a parade of meaningless impressions add up to what Wordsworth characterized as a "fretful stir Unprofitable...
...In any case, certainly the bishops, in this an admittedly very short section of their pastoral letter, have spoken about something that should make us all stop and think...
...Max Picard observes in The World of Silence that "we cannot 'do much' with the ancient languages, but they bring us into touch with something that takes us beyond the world of pure expedience...
...Perhaps we should follow the ancient Greeks and learn to work our leisure: skolen agein...
...Switzerland also kites its GNP per capita by not counting the Italians and Yugoslavs it imports to do its menial labor...
...On the other hand, Great Britain, the archetypal service-oriented nation, has a GNP per capita among the lowest of developed countries—and sinking...
Vol. 70 • April 1987 • No. 6
