Letters

(2 of 2)

You said denver is America's best-run airport, but it's still not good enough. Why? The numerous checkpoints, the random searches of infants and grandmothers and the constant scrutiny are more than enough. No matter how much security is in place, there will always be people who will stop at nothing to destroy our liberty. What's next, setting up metal detectors outside every citizen's front door?
CHAIM THEIL
New York City

To read that the aviation manager of Denver International is driving to his holiday destination in the Tetons made me uneasy and told me more about airport security than anything else.
MAUREEN CHRISTIANSON
San Antonio, Texas

Is This Man a Danger?

It may indeed be difficult to pin a precise psychiatric diagnosis on involuntarily committed mental patient Rodney Yoder [TIME IN DEPTH, July 15], but do we need to? The law is clear that if a patient represents a danger to others, we are required to commit that patient, period. We psychiatrists are always going to be criticized when a person who ends up being a threat to others appears at first evaluation to have a treatable, nonthreatening condition. If you're wondering why there may be many patients locked up who shouldn't be, blame it on those of us who are trying our best to protect the public from that one patient who should be confined.
MARC NESPOLI, M.D.
Boston

You included the statements of psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz, who argues that psychiatry uses the assertion of mental illness to control undesirable or bizarre behavior. Thousands of former mental patients agree with Szasz's position. Together, Szasz, the bad boy of psychiatry, and Yoder, the bad inmate of the Chester Mental Health Center, might bring the house of cards down once and for all on psychiatry. History will view the Yoder trial as the trial of the century: the one that evicted psychiatry and the state from the bedroom of our minds.
MILLIE STROM
Vancouver

Kudos for "the Kid"

Richard Corliss was right on the money in his article about baseball's Ted Williams [APPRECIATION, July 15], my choice as the greatest hitter ever. To do what the Splendid Splinter did over a long career is probably something that will never be repeated. As great a ballplayer as he was, though, he was an even greater American citizen. When his country needed him, he didn't shirk his duty, flying combat missions in two wars. The word hero is thrown around so much now that it has lost its true meaning. However, in the case of Williams, hero says it all.
PAUL ROSKOWSKI
Oviedo, Fla.

One day someone in the major leagues will bat .406 again but never in as dramatic a fashion as Williams did: hitting 6 for 8 in a season-ending doubleheader. The Splendid Splinter was, indeed, splendid.
MEL TANSILL
Catonsville, Md.

Apocalypse Then

The basic difference between preterists and the futurists who believe in the theories of the Left Behind book series [Society, July 1] is that the futurists deny or ignore the clear time statements of the Bible. The last days were simply the last days of the old Jewish covenant, which ended forever in A.D. 70. Preterists take God's word to mean what it says, leaving it in its 1st century context. More information is available at www.lighthouseworldministries.com .
JOHN ANDERSON, PRESIDENT
Lighthouse World Ministries Sparta, N.C.