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You come close to truism when you list their Presidential choices, with Snoopy first. That's as serious as the majority of them get. Snoopy at least has a dream objective. I'm sure Snoopy will get the Red Baron long before TIME gets me to believe it is serious in this year's selection of Man of the Year.
Still, a lot of them are nice people.
DON E. MANNING, AGED 34 Chicago
Sir: It's sad, but I betcha that 25 years from now you won't be able to tell them from us.
RUTH S. PEROT, AGED 44 Mobile, Ala.
Talk About Adam
Sir: Congressman Powell [Dec. 30-Jan. 6] has committed and is continuing to commit a crime, not just against the people of his district, some of whom do not seem to mind, but against the people of the entire U.S. He has violated and is violating the honor of the Congress, and he must be removed.
NORMAN C. FOLDEN Woodstock, N.Y.
Sir: Although Powell is not a model of virtue and fully deserves any measures that may be taken against him, it is difficult to see him as the only tarnished spot on an otherwise flawless record of integrity and morality in the handling of taxpayers' money. His suggestion that the subcommittee investigate the spending of all House committees is a noble one recommending a course of action that is long overdue.
ERIC R. GILBERTSON Athens, Ohio
Sir: As income tax time rolls round again, I am sure that most Americans share my joy in the knowledge that we are all members of the N.A.A.A.C.P.—the National Association for the Advancement of Adam Clayton Powell.
C. J. BAGBY JR. Portland, Ore.
All In the Conceptualization
Sir: "Right You Are If You Say You Are—Obscurely" [Dec. 30] brought to mind one of my favorite quotes, Oscar Wilde's observation in Lady Windermere's Fan, that "nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out."
MIRIAM KALIS Des Moines
Sir: Your Essay on jargon points up one of the most basic problems in human understanding and communication: our misunderstandings with others often arise not out of what we say but out of what others infer from what they think we've said.
WALTER H. HANSEN Chicago
Sir: There are many valid criticisms that may be made of the present-day tendency toward use of jargon, especially in the social sciences. Unfortunately, most of the sociological terms you criticize represent valuable and insightful conceptualizations.
If a term is simply a confusing synonym for a common idea, then it is jargon. However, few if any of the words you attack meet this definition. Instead, you seem to be attacking concepts that you cannot understand without exerting some effort—a common anti-intellectual tactic.
STEPHEN BEACH Graduate Student in Sociology Duke University Durham, N.C.
Sir: The art professor at Instant College would have done well to quote the Navy League's pamphlet describing Harvard's Carpenter Center for Visual Arts this way: "It exemplifies conceptualistic innuendo pyramided upon spatial forbearance and is altogether tokenish of tactile cosmological luminous volumentality."
TEMPLE G. PORTER Swansea, Mass.