Letters, Dec. 20, 1976

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A Thing of Beauty

To the Editors:

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." Your Rauschenberg issue [Nov. 29] was exactly that.

John Pozza Tontitown, Ark.

To imply that a collection of colored smears and slobberings and pieces of a pack-rat nest is art and its creator Robert Rauschenberg is an artist is akin to saying that what Jack the Ripper did was surgery and he was a surgeon.

Fred W. Webster Providence

Ugh.

Carol Kerley Worland, Wyo.

I laugh at the irony of your headline "The Joy of Art." The American public already has an image of the artist as an easygoing image maker working a few hours a week in between parties, and I doubt that your story will help to dispel the falsehood.

As an art student who wonders every day why in hell I'm in this racket, I must tell you that joy is a very bad choice. Try despair.

Patrick King Philadelphia

Prisoners of Fear

Your article "The Elderly: Prisoners of Fear" [Nov. 29] presents a disturbing commentary on our times.

To think that in a country like ours, with its many affluent families and law-abiding citizens, such conditions are allowed to exist! Our elderly citizens, innocent victims of inflation and the growing decadence of society, are being continuously subjected to abuse.

Decent American citizens should undertake a nationwide campaign (similar to a war effort) on behalf of our senior citizens.

Helen Y. Trupp Greenville, N.C.

In this land of government of the rich, for the rich and by the rich—would a solution darn well be found if it were the privileged senior citizens who were being terrorized?

Ruth Ernst Shrewsbury, Mo.

My work day is spent knocking on the doors of the aging. As I wait for an elderly woman to move the boxes and chair which block the door before she can remove the chain and turn the two locks on her too thin door, I pray that the fire trap in which she and many others live will not burst into flames.

E.M. Brookbank Spokane, Wash.

Where is our pride? We export technology. Why can't we import ways to make streets safe? We spend billions to protect ourselves from the Russians, but it is the street gangs in America who frighten me. It's law-and-order and freedom from fear that allow a nation to survive, and I say no money for New York and other cities until they restore safety to the streets. I'm mad, sick at heart and disgusted with weak Government officials.

William D. Brown Hanover, Pa.

Where are the children of those old people? In the not so "civilized" countries, you don't see many old people walking the streets alone. Their daughters, nieces and friends take turns taking them places.

If we don't care for our own elders, why should a hoodlum? If psychiatrists and advice columnists refer to old parents as a plague to keep at a distance and call men who love their mothers sick, how can we persuade the young to respect them?

Vera Harding Corvallis, Ore.

Investigating Koreagate