Forum, Aug. 2, 1976

First Jaws and Now Bugs

To the Editors:

In the beginning there was Jaws,which sent people fleeing from the beaches, and now you've created Bugs [July 12]. Your cover alone was enough to send me screaming from the garden.

Nancy H. Garner

Moline, III.

Does putting a bug on the cover of your magazine automatically place it in contention for Man of the Year?

John R. Montgomery

Madison, Wis.

"The Bugs Are Coming" mentions new effective pest-killing innovations but declares that the evolution of the insect will outmode the best of them. It has been suggested that this would not be the case if the various techniques were intermittently applied. When one method is only used for a short time and then replaced with another, evolution of the insect is prevented without destroying the environment.

William Powell

Ridgefield, Conn.

One sure-fire way of decreasing the number of insects would be to treat them as a valuable natural resource, such as oil and agriculturally produced food. An insect industry would develop, and in 20 years we would face a shortage.

Karl Shaffer

Howard City, Mich.

Bees and grasshoppers have been served as delicacies for years, without upsetting anything worse than people's preconceptions.

I know an American who survived five years in a Japanese prison camp by loading his thin soup with bugs; there is no telling what delights Julia Child could stir up. Since the insects outweigh us 12 to 1, they could keep us alive through many expanding and otherwise hungry generations.

Schuyler Yates

Toledo

Insects can be processed to look, taste and spread like peanut butter.

Scott J. Lyford

Bloomington, Ind.

Anyone for grasshopper pie?

Robert N. Franz HI

Wilmington, Del.

There once was a fly named the tsetse,

Who thought that life was just peachy.

She looked at the earth

At her moment of birth

And said, "Veni, vidi, vici!"

Christopher Mendola

Denver

An Israeli Lesson

The Israelis have taught the rest of the world a valuable lesson in dealing with terrorists [July 12]. Violence of all kinds can be stopped only when the perpetrators are convinced that even greater violence will be inflicted on them.

Millage E. Nesler

Nogales, Ariz.

The good guys won, and the bad guys lost.

Stanley C. Shapiro

Southfield, Mich.

Has Israel forgotten her own terrorist-laden past? The Stern Gang and the Irgun were formed to undertake terrorist acts to help establish the state.

Philip Borge

Magnolia, Mass.

Are we to make heroes of the exponents of an eye-for-an-eye philosophy that could incinerate the world? Hasn't history proved that violence can only beget violence? Can we afford this luxury of revenge in a thermonuclear age?

John Schalestock

Washington, D.C.

Why don't the Israelis sentence the terrorists in their jails to execution if and when terrorists kidnap new hostages? This would render any future kidnaping counterproductive.

Richard H. Lee

Boston