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Your article on the Endangered Species Act [Oct. 16] displays the insensitivity with which man exploits the environment for his own short-run economic gain. What a pity that the earth's innocent creatures must pay for this exploitation with their existence. One could look upon man as a cancer consuming the earth, choking other varieties of life in its path as it progresses.
Shirley Lontz
Moorhead, Minn.
Regarding your reference to the Furbish lousewort as a weed. Biologically, the Furbish lousewort is a native American. It is the Dickey Lincoln Dam that will be the weed, not the lousewort.
Tom S. Cooperrider
Kent, Ohio
Fantastic Express
I am outraged with Richard Schickel's review of the movie Midnight Express [Oct. 16]. I just saw the film and thought it was fantastic. Obviously he has no sympathy for Billy Hayes or for the thousands of other prisoners scattered in horrible jails throughout the world.
I also found Schickel's emphasis on homosexuality totally exaggerated. Certainly the film does not warrant his comment, "one of the ugliest sadomasochistic trips, with heavy homosexual overtones, that our thoroughly nasty movie age has ever produced."
Victoria Unger
Rochester, N. Y.
Rightly or wrongly, there are many young Americans in foreign jails. This film was instrumental in starting negotiations between the U.S. and Turkey for the exchange of prisoners. On that basis alone. I consider Midnight Express to be the movie of the year.
Bob Miller
New York City