Letters

...ARTHUR H. BRYANT Washington, DC A High Price Robert Pastor’s perceptive review of American Prisoner: The Memoirs of Manuel Noriega (June 1997) is unfortunately marred by its final sentence...

...GRAYDOJONH N FORRER Alexandria, VA...

...Counted as day care were all arrangements other than full-time care by the biological mother...

...LESLIEW . DUNBAR Durham, NC Self(ish)-Audits Alexander Volokh’s “Case For Environmental Self-Audits” in your June issue may, as Volokh claims, “foster an atmosphere of cooperation between the regulators and the regulated,” but it sure won’t increase compliance with our environmental laws...

...At a time when more decentralized government begs for more oversight, not less, the press too often seeks out the observable over the explanatory...

...When wealthy, famous people sink into alcoholism or drug abuse because of the stress of success, then use their fabulous medical benefits and bottomless pockets to pay for a detox vacation, we slap their pretty faces on the cover of People and applaud their strength and courage in battling their woes...

...Finally, though not exactly a mistake, the sole reference to Mary Jordan as a “caterer for upscale Atlanta during its segregation days” is a wretched characterization of a wonderful woman who raised three sons in a public housing project...

...Here are some of Michelle Code’s misses: Jordan left the NAACP not in 1964 but in 1963, and not to head the Southem Regional Council’s Voter Education Project-he would do that in 1966but to be assistant to SRC‘s executive director (me, then) and soon assistant to VEP’s then director, the esteemed Wiley Branton...

...Aptitude for teaching is just as important as subject knowledge...

...These modern-day news hucksters take their cues from television: abbreviate and simplify, hype and infotain...

...I can think of a dozen countries that might use that example to justify their own worst excesses...

...Since extended families all over the world are the traditional means of caring for young children, and since infants readily bond to the continuous and nurturing people in their worlds, this odd notion that only mothers can do the job is a recent invention of our society...

...Yet Volokh proposes that, when it comes to environmental practices, we should rely on a system of voluntary audits and disclosure, give companies immunity from prosecution for violations, and make the audits privileged and inadmissible in court...

...Austin writes that if indeed an encounter between then Governor Clinton and Ms...

...But we expect impoverished little girls to miraculously heal themselves, or be subjected to scorn and derision from the more fortunate...

...Double Standard I was disturbed by one aspect of Jason DeParle’s review of The Myth of the Welfare Queen...

...A simple look at our handling of financial audits makes that clear...

...It strikes me as weak to damn these journahsts simply on the strength of “rumof STEPHEN THOMAS Millbum, NJ A Suspicious Study Sherri Eisenberg’s piece on the differing news reports of the NICHD study of day care (June 1997) missed one of the study’s more astounding aspects: It is not a study of day care as we ordinarily think of it...

...invasion, the world is better off with Noriega behind bars...

...government ignores truth, fairness, and justice to remove one person it came to find inconvenient and uncooperative...

...That’s what we need, and that’s what many orphaned readers want from their local newspapers...

...GODFREHYA RRIS Los Angeles, CA The Real Scandal Many of the points made in Steven Stark‘s “Local News: The Biggest Scandal on TV” (June 1997) also apply to many newspapers in today’s chain-operated, monopoly markets...

...I should have made clear that I was assuming the knack for teaching, that is, of course, as essential as subject knowledge...

...Comparing mother-only care with all other kinds is clearly not going to provide much contrast in the studies’s responses...

...I taught eighth graders for nearly IS years, and I loved it...

...I’m getting heartily sick of the disparate attitudes we take toward the misfortunes of the rich and the poor...

...One would have to be very dense to fail to understand what the investigators were hoping to find...

...Letters Careless Whispers Susan Threadgill’s lead item in ‘TVho’s Who” (July/Aug...

...BARBARAL LENK ENNEY Dunwoody, GA A Private Affair While agreeing with many of the points made by Elizabeth Austin (“Bill and Paula,” July/Aug...

...1997) castigates a pair of unnamed journalists for denouncing President Clinton’s moral character on a recent talk show...

...Jordan has been one of the few civil rights leaders who had that beginning...

...Thus, if the event occurred, although Ms...

...Austin seeks to establish...

...What the Monthly has long opposed and what I was disturbed about in the item Ohanian cites is the way public schools have used a lack of education credits as an excuse for keepingpeople who really know their subjects ?om teaching...

...In short, the alleged behavior, ugly as it may have been, was essentially private...

...If Threadgill can’t say with certainty, aren’t these journalists entitled to the same benefit of the doubt that the Monthly champions for others damaged by unsubstantiated innuendo, Clinton among them...

...That’s why I belime in auditioning applicants to see ifthey’ve got what it takes in the clasrroom...

...This dumbing down devalues reporters, underestimates readers, and ill-serves the Fourth Estate mandate of a free and responsible press...

...Also, the VEP-which began in 1962, not 1961-was not ever “launched” by President Kennedy...

...DeParle’s rather cursory reference to this young woman’s tragic history...

...But it takes sort of an off-kilter personality to put up with the slings and arrows they toss out...

...Does Dr...

...Partly as a result, companies generally comply with our financial laws or are held accountable, and our financial system has become the envy of the world...

...Clinton owes Ms...

...This conclusion is inconsistent with the dichotomy between social boorishness and actionable behavior that Ms...

...You seem to assume that knowledge of the curriculum is the only consideration...

...In the end, whatever one thinks of the U.S...

...Too many teachers-including too many university profssors-lay eggs with their students...

...So why do we expect a poor little girl with neither strong family support nor access to good professional help to pull up her own socks and become a healthy, responsible mother and worker...

...My own child has had every advantage that two loving, economically secure parents can provide...

...Bottom line: Newspapers should do what television doesn’t-give context and depth, nuance and clarity to events...

...Yet if she were subjected to the trauma of child rape, followed by the ordeal of pregnancy and birth, I can’t imagine how she-or any other child-could ever fully recover...

...Jones may be owed a heart-felt “I feel your pain” apology, this was a private affair and any apology should also be private...

...Well, did they have an affair or didn’t they...

...Jones a “public” apology...

...SUSAN OHANIAN Charlotte, VT Charles Peters replies: I agree...

...Think about what it would be like to be shut in a room with 30 of them...

...Think of your own kids when they were prepubescent...

...Threadgill’s complaint is based on the fact that said journalists were “rumored to have carried on a torrid, adulterous affair a few years back...

...What is not essential is a mind numbed by boring education courses...

...That may be desirable to those who care more about money than the environment, but, for the rest of us, it doesn’t make sense at all...

...On the contrary, whatever one thinks of Noriega, the United States is not better off when its own government puts someone in jail using a parade of self-serving sleazeballs and known secret payoffs to serve a domestic political purpose...

...In discussing one young welfare mother, he notes that she first gave birth at age 12 “after being raped,” then irresponsibly went on to have five more children with “no particular plan for supporting them...

...When smart people of good will refuse to recognize that it takes a special skill to be a teacher, and that not every retired CEO or general can walk off the street and do it, I am disheartened...

...IRVINGL AZAR Nashville, TN What Can’t Be Taught I don’t support the status quo in teacher certification, but why do you insist that a person who “spent his career computing taxes” is ipso facto suited to teach eighth grade math (“Tilting,” July/Aug...

...If the child’s father or another relative such as a grandmother or aunt took care of the child part of the time, it was considered day care...

...For decades, we have required companies to conduct audits of their financial practices that are not privileged and that can be used against the companies in court...

...1997), I am puzzled by one of her conclusions...

...As the mother of a 12-year-old girl, 1 am horrified by Mr...

...ELIZABETAHU STIN Oak Park, IL Err Jordan I do not intend to comment on the substance of your writer’s portrait of Vernon Jordan (‘June 1997), but it was said of old that reporters have a concern to get their facts straight, and are given credibility by how well they do so...

...Jones took place as outlined by Ms...

...Jones in her suit, then Mr...

...Pastor really believe that there are no consequences when the US...

...As any experienced teacher will tell you, eighth graders are a breed apart...

...The unfortunate truth is that although instrzlction in methodology is not necessarily dull and useless, it usually is...

...Reporters sincerely interested in what makes him tick might begin there...