LETTERS

...they want them to grow and thrive...

...This way the sentence avoids the archaic and literally inaccurate connotations of the gender-specific "he...

...It more clearly states that the department's basis for canceling the benefits was receiving a report of the client's death...

...ANTHONY J. HOPE Washington, D.C...

...Where did any editor ever find odiferous...

...PAUL S. HEWITT Washington, D.C...

...I hope that by this time one of your staff has pointed out a couple of smelly items in the James Clark piece ["Bovine Balloons and the Odiferous Option...

...Parents who love their children don't want to monopolize and smother them...

...According to Keisling, real incomes for this group are 25 percent higher than they were in 1957, hence, young working couples must be too selfish to give up their second incomes to raise families...

...Worst of all, it distracts public attention from the real need for better day care...

...He and his playmates are more inquisitive, friendlier and more self-confident than the stay-athomes down the block...

...A particularly egregious example cropped up in December's "Tilting at Windmills" column, in an item on the training of Peace Corps volunteers...

...If the client is deceased, the notice assures the estate that at least one aspect of the client's affairs has been settled without government red tape...

...Once again, I will be delayed about one-quarter of the time...

...Your unthinking equation of day care with neglect feeds the selfishness of parents who believe that smothering their children is good for them, and unjustly faults parents who have carefully chosen a day-care setting to benefit their children...

...MARILYN MACHLOWITZ New York, New York I had no trouble understanding why Walter Shapiro had writer's block in trying to deliver on his promise to his friends at The Washington Monthly to write "a personal essay on the financial and personal reverberations of moving to Manhattan after 12 years in Washington...

...I teach journalism at a public community college in downtown Oakland...

...to mid-town Manhattan is one hour and 50 minutes by air...

...And he or she would not be distracted by New York's fashionable upper West Side...

...But their sad situation hardly proves that all kinds of day care harm children...

...He is mistaken if he thinks his readers—other than those in the Pentagon—are sick of his good labors on behalf of the taxpayers and national defense...

...Whereas in 1970 a family with an income 26 percent below the median could afford to buy the median home, by 1984, it needed an income 29 percent above the median...

...Shapiro proudly says he writes about politics for Newsweek, and his wife, Meryl, is a television journalist...

...Shapiro should give up the pretense of being a journalist and just go after the cash...

...Corresponding with the dead I was a bit chagrined to have one of our departmental notices to a client quoted in "Tidbits and Outrages" in your December issue...

...Easterbrook's talents being set aside...

...Our newsroom bulletin board features articles that chart the slightest incursion on press freedom...

...I can leave my home in northwest Washington at 6:30 a.m., park at National Airport, catch the 7:00 shuttle, and arrive in midtown Manhattan for a 9:00 meeting...

...I recall the case of a neighbor through whose lawn our municipal officials chose to lay a sewer which would serve an apartment complex their pals in the investment world intended to build in violation of traditional flood-plain zoning...

...In most other cases I will be able to telephone my apologies and the recipient of my apology will "understand" that I am a victim of The Eastern Megalopolis Transportation System...

...CONNAUGHT MARSHNER Washington, D.C...

...He should have gone into advertising...

...P. B. SEYMOUR Milwaukee, Wisconsin Statustician "The Case of the Missing Middle Class: Money Madness in Manhattan" (December) was on point...

...But it seems to me that those of us laboring in the vineyards of progressive journalism have an obligation to pay attention to such details: if we don't make an effort to consolidate nonsexist usage, who will...

...Admittedly, the idea of notifying clients that their benefits were canceled because of their reported deaths appears ghoulish at first glance...

...There are, however, sound reasons for such notices beyond the fact they are required by federal regulations...

...I grant that this is different from a social cachet based on cash, but is it truly any better a basis...

...Then, he berates us for giving in to norms that require upandcoming professionals to work long hours to get ahead...

...The remedy in this case is simple: substitute the gender-neutral plura1='they...

...My son aboard his submarine joins me in this sentiment...

...We revel in naivete...

...Legally, Chapter 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Subchapter C-431, mandates that a notice be sent to clients any time a benefit is changed or canceled for any reason...

...Why Parents Think They Can't Stay Home," Philip Keisling] begs the most important question of all: whether constant dependence on one parent is really good for the child...

...themselves...

...The fourth estate is best represented by newsmen of Mr...

...Higher payroll levies alone have sopped up threequarters of any real income growth...

...He even implies that young women should buck peer pressures to aspire to prestigious jobs...

...This analysis overlooks a whole raft of indicators to the contrary...

...My experience tilts strongly toward air transportation...

...Your series of articles on the subject, culminating in the December feature "Ending Nine-to-Five Neglect of Our Children," ["The Part-Time Solution," Deborah Baldwin...

...I admonished her: "Maybe you can't always beat city hall, but you can always fight 'em...

...In the event the client is not deceased, he or she learns that the department's receipt of an erroneous death report was the reason benefits were canceled, and they can immediately set the record straight and be reinstated, often before experiencing an inconvenient or distressing lapse in benefits...

...Progressive pronouns I enjoy your publication each month, but I'm concerned by your apparently unthinking use of sexist terminology...

...Yet these moral revelations are based mainly on a superficial comparison of incomes of couples aged 25 to 34 in 1983 and 1957...

...Early retirement One of the more disheartening items in Gregg Easterbrook's article on the DIVAD antiaircraft weapon botch ["Why DIVAD Won't Die," November] is his remark that he promises "not to write on the military again...

...Paul Hewitt is president of Americans for Generational Equity...

...She was furious about being billed $35 a foot for an interceptor sewer that would not serve her at all, but declared: "You can't fight city hall...

...Then try the first paragraph on page 25...

...Easterbrook's compatriots at The Washington Monthly will thrash him back to his senses...

...Obviously this is not a major quibble...

...But it seems that the tempting search for status has swallowed his soul...

...Alternatively, I can order a taxi the night before, hope it arrives at 6:30 to take me to Union Station to catch a 7:00 Metroliner, which will shake and rock so badly that I will have a headache from trying to read my Wall Street Journal by the time I am fighting for a taxi on the street outside of Penn Station at 10:15 a.m., trying to make a 10:30 meeting...

...The only flaw you could find was an unanswered letter, etc...

...Approximately one-quarter of the time I will be delayed...

...I object...

...Today students of childhood are finding that constant parental attention is needed for the child's first six months...

...If Shapiro feels shamed on New York's social ladder, let him cast a huffy eye at me...

...While competition for jobs and housing among the numerous "baby-boom" generation has increased young couples' needs for second incomes, public policies have also played a key role...

...I bet the feminist ideologues would like to strangle him for so smoothly cutting through all the bramble bushes they have carefully created in women's minds why careers should come first...

...Start with the title, in both the table of contents and on page 24...

...During this same period, however, after-tax incomes for all households headed by a person aged 25-34.declined an amazing 27 percent, with.the result that single-earner families have been squeezed out of the housing market...

...You were apparently chiding us for the wording of a cancellation of benefits notice sent to a deceased client...

...Half of these delays will be brief...

...I write as someone who has a son in the Navy and who is concerned about the risk of Mr...

...I have traveled by plane and train, at various times of day, in all types of weather...

...In nonrush hours, my speed record from 20th and L St...

...I suspect that Shapiro began with a healthy regard for his role in helping to uphold the Bill of Rights...

...If HE was that kind of volunteer—and that's what we quickly learned HE should be trained to be—HE could make far more friends for HIMSELF and HIS country than HE would by propagandizing...

...He may write about politics, but he and his wife appear to think only about status...

...I have many a qualified journalism student here in Oakland who would love to write about politics for Newsweek...

...To suggest that they are both better off and more selfish than their parents only perpetuates the unfortunate stereotype that blinds society to the need to worry about the futures of people in this age group...

...Our students view a free press as the last hope for an informed public that will one day right the inequities that have spawned a forgotten class...

...FRED FISKE Syracuse, New York Fred Fiske is editorial page editor of the Syracuse PostStandard...

...The only evidence you have ever offered on this point was an anecdote about children in a large day care center who spent all day pining for their mothers...

...I hope that, if his surrender statement was serious, Mr...

...MICHAEL V. REAGEN Des Moines, Iowa Michael Reagen is the commissioner of the Iowa Department of Human Services...

...Does Shapiro have any idea how fragile is the First Amendment and how badly we need political writers who are consumed with informing the public...

...And low confidence in Social Security and Medicare has led young workers to set aside more reserves for retirement than their parents ever did...

...With the uninformed smugness of a zealot, Keisling cites downward trends in office productivity and suggests that if young people worked harder, they wouldn't have to labor longer hours than their parents did...

...The best solution to the problem of child care is not to condemn all day care, but to encourage the right kind of day care: small groups of children supervised by concerned professionals...

...On a roundtrip basis this is a six-hour difference...

...Why I fly In December's "Tilting at Windmills" you took to task those of us who prefer to fly to New York City rather than take the train...

...My fastest office-to-office time on the train is five hours and ten minutes...

...DAVID J. ZIMNY Lansing, Michigan Phillip Keisling's slap at young parents working instead of staying home with their kids does us all a tremendous disservice...

...In addition, since young families have high housing demands, their living standards are closely tied to housing costs—and the real cost of a house has nearly doubled since 1970...

...And, even if I do succeed in contacting my meeting partners, they will not "understand" what I am doing on a railroad siding in Wilmington, Delaware...

...their country...

...The wording the Iowa Department of Human Services now uses for its death-related notice of cancellation is slightly modified from the version you quoted...

...Walter Shapiro reports, "In Washington our social position was based on what we did, whom we knew, and what parties we were invited to" (p...

...Today's young workers were-in big trouble well before their parents' generation began accumulating national debt at a rate of $200 billion per year...

...Deficits have raised interest rates and exacerbated the housing problem...

...Phil Keisling's article in December's issue is just brilliant...

...Easterbrook's tenacity...

...Those children were the victims of mass-production day care, and I felt for them...

...During the last ten years I have averaged at least one trip per month to the Big Apple...

...or some other more genteel reference...

...Just ask my four-year-old son, who has been spending his weekdays in a day-care home with eight other youngsters and three adults since he was six months old...

...While most of them are still clutching Mommy's skirt, Eric is exploring the world...

...How do you like the olefactory...

...JOSEPH G. FOSTER Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania Day Care Dissent As a long-time subscriber and card-carrying neoliberal, I have been amazed and saddened by your stand against working parents and day care...

...BURT DRAGIN Oakland, California Burt Dragin teaches journalism at Laney College...

...The regulations specify that the notice must be addressed to the client, a stipulation that rules out sending it to "the estate of...

...For example, the average aftertax income of a young couple has actually fallen three percent since the early 1960s, even though there are more than three times as many two-earner households...

...It is the most selective reading of the facts I've seen in a long time...

...But when my train is delayed, I am trapped without a telephone...

...Isolation with a single parent after this period may actually hamper a child's social development...