LETTERS

...One point the review made was that Ehrlich has attempted to avoid reasoned discourse on his work by being quick to claim that any critic must be a monster or a scientific ignoramus...

...Like our counterparts in Washington, we could find much better ways to spend our time...

...I suspected this was not a serious problem and downgraded it in the book...

...Easterbrook says, “And it may well be that exaggerated warnings such as those sounded by The Population Bomb helped inspire the environmental reforms that staved off the effects Ehrlich feared,” as if that were a good reason not to pay attention to his new book...

...They’re still treated as secondclass citizens by near-dictatorial administrators, by school boards that are used by too many as a first step for their political ambitions, and by arrogant parents...

...My personal experience during the Dominican Republic crisis, Vietnam, and he disgraceful exhibition in Grenada confirmed that the National Military Command System was really screwed UP...

...I would think that, with a name as suggestive of hope and nature as Easterbrook, this guy might care about such things...

...Easterbrook says, “Smog continues to be a problem but has fallen relative to population growth...

...Great...

...It has an aura of contention while largely being scripted...

...Recent data, by the way, do indicate a tiny drop in atmospheric oxygen concentration...

...I miss teaching-I’ve retired-but I don’t miss the administrators, the school boards, or the parents...

...It’s interesting that in response to a review containing no personal slight against Ehrlich-merely taking issue with his opinions-Ehrlich goes directly to an ad hominem attack on the reviewer...

...I sat in the “Tank” on numerous occasions listening to service chiefs engage in endless, rancorous bickering while distinguished soldiers such as Maxwell Taylor and Buzz Wheeler sat helplessly watching...

...Easterbrook’s article had so many logical lapses that the book had to be good-and timely, since his diatribe against those who would attempt to raise the nation’s environmental consciousness was published the same week Newsweek revealed that the ozone layer has become percent thinner over the Northern Hemisphere and that skin cancer rates in the United States have doubled since 1980...

...Only a former war planner who served on the Army General Staff and the Joint Staff can truly appreciate the historical significance of the Goldwater-Nichols Act...

...MICHAEL I. DURR Washington, D.C...

...Lean streets In your report on highway construction [“Why American Roads All Go to Pot,” Betsy Dance, November], you describe the foolish rules that states must obey to obtain federal highway funds, yet you fail to see the obvious solution...

...The air is worse than ever, only now there are more people breathing it...

...COLONEL J.W...

...Can it support many more bodies is the important question...

...I do not ordinarily respond to book reviews, no matter how silly they are...

...Class consciousness Charles Peters’s suggestion [Tilting at Windmills, November] that there “is a need for a large-scale national service program that will bring the brightest young people into teaching, not as a career, which most of them wouldn’t want, but for two to four years” is painfully reflective of American attitudes towards teachers and their schools...

...for the start of question period (it’s much more comfortable and easier to hear than sitting in the House itself), then rush over about an hour later to rehash the same questions with the MPs as they leave the House...

...As such, they are held by most Americans in low esteem...

...Only you liberals, who believe that all roads lead to Washington, remain blind to the obviR.P...

...TOOLEY Bonita, California...

...If anything, I let Ehrlich off the hook too easily, since, among other things, Bomb cautions that oxygen may run short because “[wle are, of course, removing many terrestrial areas from oxygen production by paving them...

...What teaching really needs is not more money, but understanding from the nation-parents, administrators, school boards, governments, and Charles Peters-that children in our schools deserve trained professionals, not well-meaning volunteers, as teachers...

...IAN AUSTEN Ottawa, Ontario MK Austen is a parliamentary correspondent for the Southam News...

...PIENKOWSKI Eagan, Minnesota ous...

...WILLIAM A. GOLD Northampton, Massachusetts Unite and conquer My compliments on Katherine Boo’s article [“How Congress Won the War in the Gulf,” October...

...It turned out that Cole, a very distinguished scientist, had made an honest mathematical error in his calculations...

...States can avoid federal red tape altogether simply by refusing federal funding...

...Bennet is correct that opposition members of Parliament (MPs) aren’t “praying to be given news for the sake of a 15-inch story...

...Instead, the opposition is generally praying its performance will be part of a 15-second clip on that night’s .television news...

...Although teachers’ paychecks have recently improved, working conditions have not...

...In fact, the act simplified procedures to the point where any competent four-star commander could have performed the mission...

...The common perception is that the brightest people don’t become teachers and that those who do are dim graduates of second-rate teachers’ colleges...

...That’s fine...

...But Gregg Easterbrook’s scathing commentary on Paul Ehrlich’s Healing the Planet [“Propheteers,” November] was the first time a negative review caused me to run out and pick up a copy...

...While it’s true that Mulroney and his cabinet face a question period every day the House of Commons sits, it’s not clear that the result is much more illuminating than Washington’s whirl of press conferences...

...And what about the press corps...

...Again, I commend you on your excellent presentation and your appreciation of the far-reaching import of the act...

...It’s not cynical to make gloomy predictions in an effort to attract attention to dire problems...

...I can’t, however, resist pointing out that Gregg Easterbrook totally misrepresented me by selectively quoting my view of oxygen depletion in The Population Bomb...

...PAUL R. EHRLICH Stanford, California The author replies: I did not misrepresent Paul Ehrlich’s writings about oxygen depletion: I quoted verbatim from The Population Bomb...

...But question period isn’t, as Bennet claims, usually used to “find out whether the government is working...

...commander has been permitted to do since World War 11...

...In addition to learning to quote honestly, Easterbrook might also educate himself slightly in basic science before he does any more writing in this area...

...And it is downright stupid to think that things will take care of themselvesthat, hell, humans have been around this long, no reason to think things won’t just keep getting better and grander...

...Concern about oxygen depletion had been raised by Professor Lamont Cole...

...If it made any sense to measure pollution per capita, we should all get to work having kids...

...Charles Peters and other Americans ought to take seriously the idea that teaching is a career-not an experience to be equated with the Peace Corps...

...Air war Sometimes, a really positive book review will persuade me to go out and buy the book...

...I can’t think of a better reason to buy it...

...By Easterbrook’s logic, if we managed to generate an infinite number of children, pollution would dwindle to nothing...

...LETTERS Northern disclosure James Bennet is spot-on in much of his analysis of press conferences [“The Flack Pack,” November...

...He also contends, “Probably the Earth can support more souls than it does today...

...Hmmm...

...Indeed, as they enter the House of Commons each day, the prime minister and cabinet ministers all carry thick binders with prepackaged replies to expected questions...

...Most of us tune our televisions in daily at 2 p.m...

...If teachers do leave teaching early in their careers, chances are they have made an interesting discovery: that the community is not supportive, that it doesn’t treat them with the same respect it treats other professionals...

...Ehrlich uses the same technique here while contending that he should not be held to account for an embarrassing passage because he, a professional scientist, could not have been expected to distinguish between a flawed scientific study and a sound one...

...Well, I’m afraid itmyself included-often gets taken in by it all...

...That statement is true but long on doomsday hype, since the portion of the world’s surface that is paved is far below 1 percent, and most atmospheric oxygen comes from the sea, not land plants...

...To conservatives, the idea that local public works should be financed with local money is commonsensical...

...Due to GoldwaterNichols and Bush’s commendable lack of interference, Schwarzkopf was able to apply the principles of war in the Gulf as no other U.S...

...But I’m afraid he falls the mark when he suggests that the Canadian political system makes the prime minister more accountable than your president...

...The resulting ritual is remarkably like a White House press conference...