Letters

(2 of 3)

Muslims know it, but they don't want to admit that something is wrong with Islamic law, Shari'a. They fear that if they voiced their opinion, it would endanger Islam as a whole. How else to explain the support for the Shari'a court that sentenced Lawal to death by stoning as punishment for adultery and allowed the man she was involved with to walk free? As Jesus said, with regard to the woman caught in adultery, Any one of the executioners who has not sinned should be the first to cast a stone.
BUNMI AKINSEMOLA
Akure, Nigeria

Planetary Preservation

At the end of her excellent article "A Glimpse of Home," [Special Report, Aug. 26] former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan asks, "As homeowners we wouldn't neglect or damage our houses until they weren't fit to live in. Why would we do that with our planet?" I suggest that the answer lies in what economists know as the law of the commons. When a limited, nonrenewable (or slowly renewable) resource is being consumed by a large number of individuals making independent consumption decisions, there are two possible outcomes: 1) the individual decisions will, in due course, lead to the complete destruction of the resource, or 2) only if the individuals eventually come together to husband the resource and agree on mutually accepted controls on consumption do they have a chance of saving it from destruction.
JOHN JACOB LYONS
London

Your special report focused primarily on sustainable development, and quite rightly so, as the summit in Johannesburg was taking place. However, for one to get the full value of these articles, the phrase sustainable development needs to be defined: as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. We must not take for granted that everyone understands this.
AIKA PATEL
Lisbon

I used to believe in the idea of sustainable development, but not anymore. I do not need to look at the statistics of CO2 emission, deforestation or destruction of species to reach my bleak but wiser view of our common future. In the past 10 years, how many computers, cell phones, pdas and digital cameras has each of us junked? Not to mention the array of batteries and rechargers that have come and gone with all of them. Didn't we hope that information technology, telecommunication and cyberspace entertainment would help curtail materialism? Your Special Issue proves me right. While still making rosy statements about saving the earth, you advocate products claiming to be good for a "Green Century." Commercialism has truly perfected the art of sugar-coating consumption with false environmentalism.
CY C. CHEN
Taipei

Arming the Airmen

"Pilots packing heat" suggests that we should not trust airline pilots with guns because we don't even let grannies on board with knitting needles [Nation, Sept. 2]. Before Sept. 11, I would have had reservations about guns in the cockpit, but that has all changed. I trust pilots with my life every time I get on a plane. Let's give them the means to deter further acts of airline terrorism.
MICHAEL SAVAGE
San Francisco

As a flight attendant for a major airline and a 30-year veteran who has worked for three air carriers, I strongly oppose guns in the cockpit. If we want to keep hijackers out of the cockpit, let's give the gun to someone outside it: an air marshal. On every flight.
ANN PRICE
New York City

Assaultive Advertising

I am not surprised that television advertisers are losing their audience [Business, Sept. 2]. Maybe if they refrained from the raucous, head-splitting noises that accompany just about every commercial, viewers like me would not have to hit the mute button or limit our viewing to channels that have no ads. If advertisers would make ads that are tolerable to listen to, we might watch them.
BEVERLY FARRAND
Fairfax, Va.

Correction

Our report on the city of sacramento [Sept. 2] incorrectly stated that the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University used raw U.S. Census data to determine that the city is the nation's most integrated. We should have said that Harvard used, in part, Census data analyzed by the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research. For more information on the Center, visit www.albany.edu/mumford

Reasons to Be Fearful

Charles Krauthammer's argument for invading Iraq in "The Terrible Logic of Nukes" [Essay, Sept. 2] is just that: terrible logic. Iraq wants nuclear weapons to balance Israel's, which built them to balance Arab conventional superiority. Pakistan wanted to balance India, which had to balance China, which had to balance Russia, which had to balance the U.S. and its allies, which had to balance Russia's presumed European-theater superiority. Throughout this balancing act, the world has been no more than 30 minutes away from Armageddon. The only logical way to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of madmen is to renounce them ourselves.
NEIL ARYA, M.D.
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Waterloo, Ont.