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In your article "Molasses Pace on Appointments," White House Personnel Director E. Pendleton James is quoted as saying, "Foreign policy is not being hindered because we don't have an Ambassador to Denmark."
Does this slighting remark reflect the attitude with which ambassadors are appointed? Perhaps U.S. foreign policy would even improve if we didn't have ambassadors anywhere. VICTOR BORGE Greenwich, Conn.
JULY 27, 1981
Your essay "Looking Straight at the Bomb" reveals the dilemma we face because of "no thought" and the inability of our leaders to dare to spend billions for peace negotiations rather than for armaments and bravado. Mr. Reagan and his circle should remember that pride goeth before a fall. ANSEL ADAMS Carmel, Calif.
Nov. 2, 1981
J.D. Reed's review of my novel Reinhart's Women, being utterly favorable, is of course a model of good taste. But when, in the subsequent biographical notes, I am quoted as having said, "I am so into cooking that...," I must protest. I do not speak or write (except as parody) in the dreadful jargon in which "into" is lazily substituted for "interested in" or "involved in" or "dedicated to" or "fascinated by," any more than I should say "relationship" to mean a connection between a man and a woman, or "life-style" with reference to a way of life. Please permit me to correct the record, lest I be despised by my students at Yale--all of whom, incidentally, write in a language of commendable purity. THOMAS BERGER Palisades, N.Y.
MARCH 29, 1982
Writing in TIMEstyle (which, in self-improvement, I hasten to adopt), R.Z. Sheppard judges my work to be, among other shames, "made by high intelligence." That is the kiss of death. CYNTHIA OZICK New Rochelle, N.Y.
OCT. 11, 1982
In laying out the prison problem you stopped short of telling us what works: restitution. As you point out, virtually half of all inmates are convicted of nonviolent offenses. Why not require these offenders to pay back their victims and go to work for their communities, rather than crowd them into expensive and violent jails? Valuable cell space could then be saved for the dangerous offenders who should be in prison. CHARLES W. COLSON Prison Fellowship Washington, D.C.
APRIL 2, 1984
I think your article "Journalese as a Second Tongue" is very good stuff. Obviously, however, space limitations prevented you from referring to that sort of political mission known as "fact finding." I went on such a mission once, found a fact, picked it up with my tweezers, and now keep it in a cigar box in my garage in case there is ever any demand for it.
The phrase "between a rock and a hard place" is, to my knowledge, a ruralism. I first heard it in Arizona about 1940 and had the impression it had been in use long before that. Country sayings almost invariably have a much higher poetic component than their big-city equivalents. Some of these observations have become classics, like "nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockin' chairs." One of my particular favorites is "as lonesome as a peanut in a boxcar." STEVE ALLEN Van Nuys, Calif.
JAN. 21, 1985