LETTERS
LETTERS Shallow waters Scott Shuger's article, "The Navy We Need and the One We Got," [March] is a shallow, out-of-touch analysis of today's Navy and the current threat. The numerous fallacious...
...Rather than burying the bosses, the New Deal and welfare-state liberalism gave them a renewed lease on life by providing a fresh source of loaves-and-fishes...
...I have yet another quarrel...
...However, to honor it in your pages, when Branch is a contributing editor, strikes me as incestuous not to mention superfluous when one considers the other, equally deserved honors bestowed on it...
...By doing a president's job cheerfully and well, Mary Maples Dunn leads us in our efforts to guarantee Smith students the opportunity to pursue lives that will be useful to society and fulfilling to themselves...
...The staff cares about their students and parents are involved...
...We can't really afford to pay tuition, but it will be worth it to us...
...Contrary to Shuger's contention, we have the right ships, right aircraft, and right training facilities for our people...
...I am so disgusted with the public school system that my ninth-grade daughter will go to a parochial high school...
...I am soon to set up my first IRA, and an investment adviser for Shearson Lehman Hutton told me this last week...
...Political machines like Chicago's remained intact until Reaganite retrenchment cut off the spigot of federal largesse, precipitating a "rainbow revolt" from below...
...ROBERT MARINCIN Fullerton, California...
...I have always been very willing to forgive the Monthly its minor sins, with my belief in the good intentions and sound intellect of the editors and writers...
...To call the lack of black coaches in the National Football League a scandal is true but outrageously hypocritical when one realizes that there have been no black editors at the Monthly, and no black or female contributors to this, supposedly self-critical issue...
...I have read Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch and consider it superb...
...Its message shouldn't be lost beneath the din of Higgins's exercise in capricious, irresponsible journalism...
...TROST Washington, D.C...
...As far as I know, IRA money is not allowed to be invested in commodities futures...
...However, I was disappointed to find not one mention that the top 1 percent of American families have as much after-tax income as the bottom 40 percent...
...Rose's shallow understanding of how a great institution stays great should have been enlightened by her visit to Smith...
...Most importantly, we have the best people and highest state of readiness the Navy has enjoyed in my 36 years of Naval experience...
...What's wrong with you...
...Smith College's first priority is to offer a high-quality liberal arts education for women, a goal clearly spelled out in our fund-raising literature...
...In this real world with real threats, Navy readiness is also real and will continue to be the vital pillar on which U.S...
...In the final analysis, that is what was successfully proven by events in the Persian Gulf...
...W. ALAN BAIRD Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Yo', Joe...
...Instead, her analysis reflected entirely the preconceptions she brought with her...
...Steffey is chair of the board of trustees of Smith College...
...There, she will have a much better chance to achieve academically, with the average class size being only 12...
...Erie's book offers a new look at what "the last hurrah" really meant for urban politics...
...BARBARA BERMAN-LEE San Francisco, California found your issue on what's wrong with this magazine very interesting...
...She is our youngest, and I wish I had had the insight to put her older brother there also...
...Not until some 300 words into it does the reviewer mention either the author or the book...
...The Case Against Joe Nocera" [Joseph Nocera, February] was excellent and so true...
...And when he belatedly moves beyond pontificating to summarize the argument, Higgins manages to miss the book's main point about the past half century...
...Admiral Trost is the chief of naval operations...
...maritime superiority rests as we approach the twentyfirst century...
...Our academic quality depends on their continued success...
...HAROLD BRACKMAN San Diego, California Pork rind futures Mickey Kaus writes about people who might blow their IRAs by investing them in pork rind futures ["Watch What You Call Welfare," March...
...Today's Navy is prepared to fight across the entire spectrum of conflict—from inshore, Persian Gulf operations to "blue water" combat with potential adversaries...
...Dunn's respect for the value of a liberal arts education is evidenced by her thoughtful leadership in all aspects of our institutional life, which includes spending time to secure Smith's financial future...
...C.A.H...
...The force structure in place today is capable of doing just that...
...That Rose chose to focus instead on a minor paragraph about our athletic facilities makes one wonder how much of our message she was able to absorb...
...Where are the pieces by Tina Rosenberg, Suzannah Lessard, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, and others...
...However, Charles Peters goes too far ["Tilting at Windmills," March...
...The pursuit of excellence will always mean the pursuit of dollars, an inescapable truth understood by Dunn and her fellow trustees...
...The numerous fallacious arguments presented—from his criticism of large-deck aircraft carriers to the D-5 missile in our new ballistic missile submarines—have no validity and have been rejected numerous times in various fora...
...There is a dress code and ethics classes are offered...
...PATRICIA HILBERT Colorado Springs, Colorado The last hurrah George V. Higgins's review of Steven P. Erie's Rainbow's End [Booknotes, January] brought to mind Mark Twain's observation on Wagner's music: "It must be better than it sounds" Erie's book is far better than Higgins makes it sound...
...But Washington Monthly readers would never learn that from this filibustering review—a product of the "look ma, no hands" school of reviewing...
...Smith strikes back In Julie Rose's article ["The Impossible Life of a College President," March] Mary Maples Dunn, president of Smith College, took a highly undeserved rap on the knuckles for all her peers...
...EUPHEMIA HARE STEFFEY Northampton, Massachusetts Ms...
Vol. 21 • May 1989 • No. 4
