Her Majesty Turns 80

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She first graced Time's cover in 1929 as a solemn, curly-haired 3-year-old. Elizabeth has tended to be serious, not glamorous (that was sister Margaret), beloved (her mother) or idolized (Diana). Yet her story inspired in our readers respect, devotion and admiration for how she has guided Britain with grace and dignity

Over a number of years, I have met Queen Elizabeth both on formal occasions and less formally at family weddings and horse races. I have the greatest admiration for her sheer professionalism and charm but also for her sense of fun. She has the ability to put everyone at ease and has a phenomenal memory for places and people. The Duke of Edinburgh is still a ball of energy and, yes, thankfully, still positively flirtatious — though not inappropriately. They have given a lifetime of service not only to Britain and the Commonwealth but also to the whole world by their example of steadfastness, courage and sense of family and loyalty. We should cherish them.
Christine Richard
Edinburgh

Having grown accustomed to your derogatory, ill-informed and prejudiced articles on the royal family, usually relegated to the People page, I was surprised by the balance, objectivity and depth achieved by your report on the Queen's 80th birthday. Congratulations on an informative, insightful and thoroughly professional piece of journalism. I hope you will continue to treat the Queen with the respect she has earned and so richly deserves.
David Hipshon
Twickenham, England

In your excellent article on Her Majesty, "A Woman's Work Is Never Done," you quoted a man saying about Elizabeth's position, "Helluva job she's got. I wouldn't want it." That reminds me of the retort an old northern English countryman made about the job: "I never saw it advertised."
John McLeod
Saskatoon, Canada

I must take exception to the questions raised about the relevance of the British monarchy. Quite the contrary! Anyone watching President George W. Bush post-9/11 can appreciate the value of a nonpolitical constitutional monarch. Bush wrapped himself in Old Glory and accused his opponents of being unpatriotic, presenting himself as the embodiment of the American nation: a role for a constitutional monarch. It is significant that Margaret Thatcher — no shrinking violet — feared no politicians yet freely admitted that she faced her weekly briefing sessions with the Queen with trepidation. I greatly enjoyed your story about the Queen, but please don't dismiss her role as "self-evidently nonsensical." Let the monarchy evolve.
Michael Alan Peate
Ottawa

A General Disagreement
It's a pity that the American public was not privileged to hear the dissenting voices of professional soldiers such as Lieut. General Greg Newbold [April 17] before incompetent civilians like Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney — and our own Tony Blair — committed the U.S. and its allies to a disastrous war. I wonder whether Bush & Co. ever go to the many war monuments just down the road from the White House and look at the memorials to a terrible waste of good men. I pray that in the next presidential election, someone will appear who will make the U.S. a respected and honorable country once again.
David Landau
Peacehaven, England

Still Struggling in Kashmir
Strangely enough, beauty with brains and guts is what comes to my mind when I think of Kashmir [April 17]. My assumptions about the war-broken land were completely proved wrong when I visited two years ago. The landscape contained not only lush mountains and breathtaking scenery but also amazing numbers of schools and students. I had expected to find dismay and destruction in this problematic region; instead I found an optimistic and budding economy trying to put its past behind it. To see Kashmir in ruins again pains me, but I know it will make a comeback. I know that when I return I will once again be impressed by its people's strength of mind and body.
Urfa Suhaib Khan
Lahore, Pakistan

Up from the Ooze
Michael J. Novacek's Viewpoint [April 17] sustains the old-fashioned belief that biological evolution is incompatible with the idea of a Creator. What makes it so incomprehensible that evolution could be the method that a supernatural Creator has used to bring organisms into being? There is incontrovertible evidence for biological evolution. Why could there not be a God who brought life into being and gave it the ability to evolve by what we call natural selection? We have to just log our observations and continue the search for explanations without boxing ourselves into one particular viewpoint or another.
Ikechukwu Obialo Azuonye
Purley, England

Olmert's Ambitions
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert states that it is time for Israel to end the struggle with the Palestinians with the goal of "living in peace" [April 17]. The delusions of politicians never cease to amaze me. Can Olmert explain how he would achieve peace by unilaterally setting the border, thereby annexing as much as half of the West Bank and Jerusalem and leaving 4 million Palestinians in a series of disconnected cantons?
Mike Barnes
Watford, England

Lessons Unlearned
In his Viewpoint [April 17], Josef Joffe traces the trajectory of the economic rise of China and compares it to the past examples of Germany and Japan, which, of course, ended badly. He concludes that this time things could be different because of the lessons of history and a price of miscalculation, which is now obviously very high. What a forlorn hope! As recent events have again demonstrated, the arrogance of power obscures all reference to the past. How else can one explain the naive belief of Rumsfeld & Co. that they could march into Iraq and, in a few months, pacify a region with a centuries-old tradition of turmoil?
Harold Jones
Erbach, Germany

The Future for Italy's Young
Re your report on the under-40s [April 10]: I'm an American who has been living in Italy for more than 20 years and loving it. My daughter earned her degree in chemical engineering two years ago with highest honors at age 23 at the University of Genoa. She was able to find her current job five months before she got her degree. She was recruited and hired because she was a native English speaker — and because she was willing to leave home and move to another province.
Gina Della Bosca
Genoa, Italy