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Not quite! To those of us in South Dakota and other Dust Bowl states in the 1930s, the land changed in one helluva hurry, departing in big clouds of dust that stripped off the thin layer that produced our living. When land left, the people went too, and it didn't take aeons to happen either.
CAROLYN JOHNSTON
Washington, D.C.
Sir / I must add to your mention of black flies on Moosehead Lake in Maine.
The average black fly measures 5 ft. long and 3 ft. wide. It has a wingspan of 7 ft. They usually travel in swarms of 800 or more, summer and winter, day and night, throughout the state. Needless to say, they are extremely vicious—and poisonous. THINK OREGON.
PATRICK C. DOWLING
Editor
Maine Catalog
Portland, Me.
Bored with Watergate?
Sir / Your article "Who's Bored with Watergate?" [Oct. 8] accurately expresses my feelings. After hearing such a recital of dirty tricks, I certainly sense a powerful pressure being exerted on the press and TV to make Watergate "out of fashion." If the people of our country are really bored by Watergate, I feel they deserve Watergate and will get more of the same in the future.
(MRS.) DOROTHY B. KENNEDY
Portola Valley, Calif.
Sir / To those who say they are tired of Watergate, I would ask "Are you also tired of your freedom?"
MAX FLEISHMAN
Glendale, Calif.
Sir / Despite TIME, I shall reserve my right to be bored by anything at any time I damn well please.
G.T. JOHNSON
Birmingham, Mich.
The Buzzards and the Tiger
Sir / The Watergate hearings have reminded me of a flock of buzzards attacking a sick and wounded deer. But that same flock faced a strong and healthy tiger in Pat Buchanan [Oct. 8].
W.D. GARRISON
Muskegon, Mich.
Sir / Pat Buchanan's defense of dirty tricks indicates contemptuous arrogance. Decency cannot be diluted by distorting ethics.
RUTH N. ROOCK
Dayton
In Defense of Football
Sir / Stefan Kanfer covers a great deal of ground in his Essay on TV football [Oct. 8], but, as far as I am concerned, he has missed the basic reason for the appeal of this phenomenon: the appreciation of skill, which is the greatest passive joy of intellectual existence.
It is a skill in itself, and when developed to the point where one can differentiate the great from the mediocre, it gives great pleasure.
SHERMAN W. ATWELL
Brookline, Mass.
Sir / Your Essay on sport overlooks what is probably the primary factor in sport's appeal to the spectator: sport celebrates man's accomplishments.
When we read a newspaper, most of what we see is concerned with man's failures. That is not so in the comics or on the sports pages.
EARL T. JOHNSON
Grants Pass, Ore.
Sir / So what's wrong with a sport that is essentially warring? All competition is a war to win—whether among nations or among teams or between individuals.
Far better to work off aggression (which is intrinsic in man, whether we like it or not) on the gridiron or in the bull ring or on the race track or at the chess table than on a battlefield.
JEANNE MINGE
New Orleans
Is Architecture Sculpture?