Your cover story "Mirror, Mirror ..." described how Asian men are spending more time and money on their looks [Oct. 31]. The modern male's penchant for body and facial makeup would put to shame Snow White's wicked stepmother, who was always consulting her magic mirror to check on who was the fairest of them all. Your report said many Asian girls like boys to be more stylish. I say this is the beginning of a new era when women want to be more in control, making men their eventual subjects. Since the emancipation of women, men and women have gradually exchanged their traditional roles. Has the macho man now been replaced by the effeminate sissy?
John Spencer
Singapore
I think men have long been concerned with their appearance. Perhaps the phenomenon we're witnessing is that the average Asian male rather than becoming increasingly vain is merely being more open about that vanity. And now that Asian men have better access to floral shirts and facials, they probably feel it's now acceptableeven goodto admit that they want that improved access. I've seen my male friends head out to buy pink shirts. It's all an assertion of masculinity. At least in Singapore, men want to put across the message, "I'm too confident in my masculinity to let some cosmetics put it in question."
Bethel Chan
Singapore
The Future of Energy
Your stories on the future of energy lifted my spirits [Oct. 31]. With all the bad news that has inundated usthe war in Iraq, hurricanes, earthquakes and massive federal indebtednessit has been difficult to see a light at the end of the tunnel. But reading about the efforts under way to reduce our dependence on oil gives me new hope that my grandchildren are not doomed to third-class status in the future.
Ernestine Donnell
Austin, Texas, U.S.
In his viewpoint "Oil is Here to Stay," Peter Huber argues that sufficient supplies of oil exist to quench our thirst indefinitely and that we merely need the political will to extract them. His assessment implies that we should continue our addiction to using fossil fuels without fear of consequence. In fact, we are probably paying for that addiction right now in the form of global climate change. Evidence abounds that the earth is warmingmelting ice caps, rising sea levels and perhaps even more intense hurricanes devastating our coasts. Most climate scientists believe the warming is directly related to rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide that have resulted from burning fossil fuels like petroleum. Instead of increasing our addiction to damaging fossil fuels, we should develop the political will to reduce our use.
Alan F. Arbogast
Department of Geography
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan, U.S.
Huber wrote that we lack the political will to do what is necessary to continue to use oil indefinitely. He is mistaken. Inaction ensures that oil dependence is here to stay. We lack the political will to rid ourselves of reliance on a substance that damages our environment, our economy, our society and our security and that befouls all that it touches.
Louis Pradt
Wausau, Wisconsin, U.S.
How long oil reserves are going to last is beside the point. The important question is how long we can afford to burn fossil fuels without considering the long-term consequences of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Huber, like many of his compatriots, doesn't seem to give a damn about that, although he acknowledges that the U.S. government does. Washington should do more, since the U.S. is responsible for some 25% of the world's fossil-fuel consumption and the corresponding pollution.
Karl M. Ortner
Vienna
Carnage Coach
I was disturbed by Aparisim Ghosh's report "Professor of Death" [Oct. 24], on the Iraqi insurgent who trains suicide bombers. Although we know that people like that terrorist instructor are at work, I was nevertheless appalled by the explicit facts of his activities. What dismayed me most was your treatment of him as some sort of modern businessman. You utterly failed to categorize him as a raving psychopathic murderer, a class to which he belongs.
Carl Templin
Johannesburg
Re suicide bombers: many times hatred springs from not being loved and respected in one's family or society. Such hatred can be countered by focusing on humanistic values like love and respect with creativity and by practicing empathy and tolerance. There is a crucial need for society and the world's political leaders to strengthen the role of those values and finance the organizations that teach those qualities. That could prevent or perhaps reverse the spread of hatred and violence originating from neglect and alienation.
Ildi Trencsenyi
Budapest
No right-thinking person can justify in the name of religion the taking of a single human life or sadistic destruction on a larger scale. Today's young people are searching for meaning and a community with human values, which an impersonal and technologically driven Europe cannot offer them. Materialism and consumerism don't inspire them to heroism. Radical Islam on its face seems to supply to alienated young Muslims the model of a "civilized" society. It is most unfortunate and dangerous.
Valentine Iheanacho
Rome
Today's young European Muslims are angry, but no more so than young Tibetans, South Africans or East Timorese. Still, those young people have not resorted to acts of jihadist terrorism. Furthermore, Islamic extremism is not only a European issue. It also exists in Malaysia, Nigeria, Sudan, Kenya and Indonesiacountries that have had nothing to do with the war in Iraq, which TIME says is the galvanizing issue of Muslim radicalization in Europe.
Andrew Onoro
Birmingham, England
Aren't there any disaffected young Muslims in the U.S.? Aren't any of them unemployed and angry about living in a nation that went to war in Iraq over oil, a war that has cost the lives of more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers?
Stephen Spencer
London
As a Pakistani student studying in the U.S., I would like to point out that the vast majority of Muslim youth in the West are working against ideas of jihadist violence and hatred. People in the West need to know that Muslims are not all fanatics and that there are those among us who seek to build a bridge between two different ideologies.
Arsalan Usmani
San Francisco
The Comeback Iraqi
Joe Klein's column "Look Who's Back!" [Oct. 31], on the political fall and rise of Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, referred to "the greasy residue on his rsum." Chalabi was responsible for erroneous information about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction as well as the notion that invading U.S. troops would be greeted as saviors by the Iraqis. Those missteps do not make him an ideal candidate to be the next Prime Minister of Iraq. Chalabi's renewed friendliness with the Bush Administration is his key qualification to be the Bush-approved Prime Minister of Iraq. Chalabi can be counted on to open Iraqi oil fields for business with American corporations and to attempt to jump-start trade deals with the U.S. Although Klein expresses some surprise at Chalabi's comeback, it is likely that the Iraqi never really left the Administration's neoconservative camp.
Charles Orloski
Taylor, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Slow Singing
Our Milestone on the death of jazz singer Shirley Horn [Oct. 31] noted her signature 1991 album, You Won't Forget Me, which showcased her "sultry, voluptuous, plaintive" voice. TIME talked with Horn about her singing in a March 25, 1991, report: "'It's been written that Shirley Horn is back on the scene,' Horn reflects. 'Well, I haven't been anywhere. And I've been busy' ... More precisely, Horn is front and center, but her secrether jazz essenceis still intact. It's what draws you first when you hear the smoky timber of her voice, the leisured elegance of her phrasing ... Says jazz critic Martin Williams: 'She's not only good and tasteful, but SHE ALSO HAS THAT WONDERFUL SENSE OF DRAMA THAT CAN TURN ANY LITTLE SONG INTO A THREE-MINUTE ONE-ACT PLAY' ... She still understands need: all kinds of need, from longing to desperation, with all the melancholy shadings in between. Maybe that's the secret of her music. Not only the musical dexterity but the heart that's always open and eager to share. 'It's just the way I feel about a song,' she says. 'They call me the slowest singer in the world, but I don't talk fast either. You're trying to tell a story, to paint a picture.'"