READERS BITE BACK

Letters

Thatcher in the Rye

have just read Maureen Orth's "Maggie's Big Problem'' [June], and Mrs. Thatcher's incredulity at losing her job reminds me of a bully's surprise when he gets hit back. She never shrank from getting rid of her rivals; now she proves just how out of touch she really was. Although we got a faintly inadequate goody-goody replacement, the British people heaved a sigh of relief when we were finally spared Mrs. Thatcher's incessant nagging. Unfortunately, owing to the British lack of a constitution, power is used mainly for keeping power: for example, election timing and the undermining of any minister competent enough to compete with his or her party leader. We should have fixed parliamentary terms, with no leader in power for more than two. I marvel at the sheer gullibility of the British public, which continues to vote for politicians who everyone knows care for little more than their own jobs.

TONY MASKELL

Plymouth, England

Helmut Newton's portrait of Margaret Thatcher cleverly highlights her hands. England's big problem now is learning how to get along without the hands-on type of leadership only Maggie provided. She may become an international power figure in the years ahead, but her upbeat, prime-ministerly handiwork is going to be sorely missed.

JACK POPE San Francisco, California

TheMiraclesWorker

Having been a student of A Course in Miracles for more than five years and having met Marianne Williamson, I felt compelled to write to you after reading "Marianne's Faithful," by Leslie Bennetts [June]. Does Marianne have an ego? I'm sure she does. Is she controlling? No doubt she can be. Does she have ambitions for stardom? She is a star. Would the constituency she serves in Los Angeles be willing to listen to such a profoundly radical message of love from anyone less than a star? I think not. God is no fool when it comes to casting. Williamson is the right woman in the right place with a desperately needed message for the times.

GEORGE MELTON San Francisco, California

I began following Williamson two years ago, when she appeared before a group of about fifty on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Since then, her audience has spiraled to thousands at Town Hall. I've watched her ego expand as well. As with most New Age self-help philosophies, A Course in Miracles puts the emphasis of man's empowerment on man himself, when spiritual empowerment really comes from Jesus—a point Williamson either fails to underline or simply misconceives.

JEFFREY PICA New York, New York

As a volunteer at the Manhattan Center for Living, I was disturbed by some of Leslie Bennetts's terminology in describing Williamson and the Course: "guru of the moment," "quasi-religious phenomenon," "dispensing advice like some hip New Age Ann Landers," "those who peruse A Course in Miracles and find banal popspeak." In describing an HIV-positive group, Bennetts herself observed that Williamson went on "for two hours straight, listening to people spill out their most agonizing personal problems... making them laugh, bringing them to tears, leading them in prayer, and finally sending everyone out into the night comforted." I'm grateful for the opportunity the center has given me. The measly two hours a week I donate there reverberate throughout my week, enriching all aspects of my life.

LEtters

KAREN DE BALBIAN VERSTER New York, New York

Your article on this trendy guru of the moment brought to mind G. K. Chesterton: "If people stop believing in religion, they don't then believe in nothing, they believe in everything."

PAUL MIKLUSKY Brooklyn, New York

A Course in Miracles incites us to teach only love, for that is what we are. My whole family has been studying the Course for five years now. At age fiftyfive, my father quit his job as a banking executive, sold the house, gave everything away, and he and my mom have been living the beauty and clarity of the Course ever since. They are the happiest, most together people I know. And I'm following in their footsteps.

AHNA LIGTENBERG McKISSON Sacramento, California

As a French Canadian raised in an overbearing Catholic environment, I refused to acknowledge the idea of God until I attended my first lecture on A Course in Miracles. I would like to point out, however, the importance of distinguishing between the Course and Marianne Williamson, the most visible and probably the best teacher of the Course. You can't judge it by her any more than you could judge the authenticity of the Bible by the politics of the Vatican.

MICHEL LAFLAMME Montreal, Quebec

Guys and Polly

It tickled me to death to read Kevin Sessums' "Good Golly, Miss Dolly!" [June]. As another singer (albeit opera,

not Opry) from East Tennessee, I have been an admirer of Dolly Parton's for fifteen years. You captured her warmth and wit without discounting her hard work, early struggles, and great business sense.

JACQUELINE MARX New York, New York

As a former sailor in the navy, I can only say it's sad Parton wasn't able to visit the boys in Saudi Arabia. She would have inspired them to finish the war in even less time. Hell, we should have sent a bombshell like her directly to Saddam; it would have been the ultimate pre-emptive strike.

JOSE A. CRUZ

Miami, Florida

I found nothing patriotic in the Dolly Parton story. I found it very distasteful and a direct plug for pornography!

STELLA SHEPARD Marysville, Ohio

Dolly is the American Dream. I'm glad our troops got to meet her. Last fall, my dream finally came true when I got to meet Dolly after winning a local radio contest. (I mailed in 957 postcards.) It was great: I gave her a bouquet of flowers backstage and had pictures taken. I also won the limo ride and dinner!

BOB SCORTI Kansas City, Missouri

The Patz Case

I was saddened all over again for the Patz family when I read Edward Klein's "The Long Search for Etan Patz" [June]. Here in California, which has had dozens of such cases in the last decade, most of us immediately think of Kevin Collins, who was ten when he disappeared from a bus stop in San Francisco in 1984. David Collins, Kevin's father, founder of the Kevin Collins Foundation for Missing Children, told me he believes that the case of Jacob Wetterling, aged eleven when he was taken at gunpoint in 1989 in St. Joseph, Minnesota, may actually be "the most famous case since the Lindbergh kidnapping."

JOAN WOOD San Francisco, California

Stanley Patz has good reason to worry about what kind of a person his son, Etan, would be if he survived his ordeal. The terrible irony is that he might resemble no one so much as Jose Ramos, who "told a psychiatrist that he was sexually abused by an uncle, and. . .began having sexual relations with one of his brothers at a very early age." Must we exchange the compassion we feel toward a sexually abused child for revulsion when faced with the sexually disturbed adults such children often become? In the midst of our pity for Etan, can we not see the damaged child Jose once was? Someone who lives in a drainage ditch and hears voices is not "satanic" or "a monster," he's pathetic and ill. Ramos has committed repulsive crimes and he must be confined so that he can do no more harm. But is our prison system the proper place for such a broken soul?

Letters

JUNE HEMMONS HIATT Berkeley, California

Stanley Patz theorizes that the intense interest in his family's case may be due to the fact that, as a photographer, he had many available photos of his son. I don't think that's it. Perhaps more to the point is the fact that Etan disappeared on the first day he was allowed to walk to school alone. In that sense, as parents, we're always raising Etan Patzes. The first time they cross the street, the first time they go on a date, the first time they go to the mall. Every time they chafe for independence and we close our eyes, hold our breath, and say yes. The reality, after all, is that you must say yes. My heart goes out to the family. Wherever Etan Patz is, so is a part of all of us.

CANDACE H. CAPLIN North Stamford, Connecticut

I Like Spike

Thanks for Gerri Hirshey's "Spike's Peak" [June]. I'm a Texas Gulf Coast Anglo, but that didn't stop me from seeing Do the Right Thing twenty-six times. Spike Lee is one of those rare filmmakers who take a project, give it a spinal column, and then get it to move.

ANN GROSS Santa Fe, New Mexico

Spike Lee's assertion that white women are consumed by a morbid fascination with and fear of, in his words, "the Big Black Dick" is a racial stereotype every bit as loathsome as saying that all black people tap-dance and eat watermelon. I imagine, too, that there are plenty of black men who take exception to Lee's comment that black men have been

taught to consider the white woman "the epitome of beauty." Lee claims to hate the racial climate in this country, but is he part of the problem or part of the solution? I'd like to see him use his considerable intelligence, talent, and drive as a healing force.

CYNTHIA RODGERS Beaufort, South Carolina

Does Spike Lee really believe that interracial relationships would not be taking place if his people had not been "dragged kicking and screaming from Africa"? Tell it to Antony and Cleopatra. As for Lee's "sexual myth of the black man," I think men think about it a lot more than we women do. Some of us have managed to transcend our cultural differences. In fact, the only people I ever hear talking about black men's dicks are insecure black men.

SHELBY BRAMMER Austin, Texas

I had the pleasure and pain of working in Jungle Fever last fall in a burned-out old theater in Harlem, playing an upscale crack addict in a bit part. During the fourteen-hour day I was able to bear witness to some of the most powerful filmmaking happening today. Lee deserves to be heralded as America's finest young filmmaker. I don't know where their heads were in Cannes.

BARBARA DOWNS

New York, New York

Dishing Mimi

Regarding "Eat It!" by Arthur Lubow [June]: I take strong exception to the statement in your otherwise fine profile of Mimi Sheraton that her departure from The New York Times was "mourned by few of her co-workers." For three years I was intimately involved with editing her Times copy, and I played a small role in bringing her to Conde Nast Traveler, where I am the editor-atlarge. Her Times work was invariably exciting, and I found her exceptionally cooperative. Many of us at the Times truly did mourn (professionally) when she left.

PAUL GRIMES New York, New York

Letters to the editor should he sent with the tenter's name, address, and daytime phone number to: The Editor, Vanity Fair, 350 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017. The letters chosen for publication may be edited for length and clarity.