Quotes of the Day

Heroes Back to Earth
Re TIME's story on green heroes [Oct. 5]: You needn't go to Japan to find people using biofuel. My son has been collecting oil from local restaurants and converting it to diesel fuel for his truck for years. The vehicle runs well, the process is relatively simple, and it costs him next to nothing.
Dian Woodroffe,
Shrewsbury, N.J., U.S.

I read with interest Mike Pandey's claim that "I grew up right next to the Nairobi National Park, where elephants would raid my mother's kitchen garden and lion calls would wake us at night." In those years of his childhood, I was a regular visitor to that park, knew the wardens and, in addition, produced official game mapping for Kenya. There had not been an elephant within or near the Nairobi National Park area since the early days of its foundation many years before — the nearest elephant population being some sixty miles away down the Mombasa Road in the Sultan Hamud area.
Duncan McCormack,
Hamilton, New Zealand

Life in the Motor City
Re TIME's story by daniel okrent [Oct. 5]: The violence that has beset Detroit is, sadly, well known, but the utter collapse of the public-school system is just starting to be understood. Nothing captures that collapse better than the video, popular on YouTube, that shows the shocking condition of the building that once housed Detroit's famous Cass Technical High School. Cass Tech meant a lot to me and other graduates for the opportunities it gave us. The old building, abandoned for a newer facility for the school, was a war zone — a ruin of overturned desks, textbooks, TVs and other equipment that could have been packed up and reused. If any public-school leaders had cared, and clearly they didn't, they would have treated the place better.
Isaac T. Graves,
Richmond, Va., U.S.

My parents and uncles raised their families in the idyllic suburbs of Detroit, where we kids all received a good education and a leg up into the middle class and beyond. I remember my mother saying that when she moved to Detroit in the 1930s, it was the most beautiful place she had ever seen. I also fondly remember going on shopping expeditions with her to the opulent Hudson's on Woodward Avenue. It was indeed a beautiful place. I hope something can revive a city with such a rich history.
Susan Valentine,
Madison, Wis., U.S.

One point you missed: a key factor in "white flight" was government-forced busing in the early '70s. The local schools were the anchors that held together the neighborhoods for many of the young parents and kids of Detroit. It didn't make sense to walk your child to the corner to be bused across the city to another school.
Fred Kuplicki,
Fraser, Mich., U.S.

The "Committee To Save Detroit," paradoxically, featured no leaders from the health professions. Detroit has a higher burden of chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes than many comparable metropolitan areas. The city is a primary-health-care-provider desert. Hundreds of thousands of people lack insurance or are underinsured. Millions of dollars are spent each year on uncompensated care for its citizens. Detroit will not rise again unless the health of its citizens rises first.
William Nettleton,
Detroit

Detroit needs a marshall plan. A directive should be given to a group of architects and environmentalists to resurrect the city. Detroit's recovery would also provide a model for other American cities.
Charlotte Fauth,
Indian Wells, Calif., U.S.

China's Future
David Shambaugh paints a rosy picture as the People's Republic of China turns 60 [Sept. 28]. Let's not forget that China is a communist dictatorship with a one-party system (hence no meaningful opposition), a rubber-stamp congress and a judiciary under the control of the Party. Human rights are routinely trampled on, even though they are written into the constitution; dissidents are jailed for long periods of time. The Chinese government did not hesitate to send tanks against its own people in 1989, and we have seen what the government can do against the Tibetans and the Uighurs when they dare rise up against the discrimination they are subjected to and demand greater autonomy. Its policies of Han migration are effectively leading to cultural colonization and the suppression of other minorities. China has become an economic powerhouse, but one result is glaring inequalities between billionaires on one side and the millions of people below the poverty level. Maybe another revolution is brewing.
Jean-Louis Desplat,
Saint-Lo, France

A picture accompanying your article is titled Hero worship. It shows photographs of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the founding leaders of the People's Republic of China, flanking a shelf on which sits a model of the Teletubby Po. How's that for a true case of East meets West?
Cathryn Hindle,
Horsham, England