Our readers write...about old friends, small print, startling coincidence, and definitive decals. (print version)

Our kind of letter Let me compliment you on the high quality, imaginativeness, and seriousness represented by the December/99 issue of the University of Chicago Magazine. [ MORE ]

Alumni board nominees sought Do you know some alumni who could make a difference? [ MORE ]

Nobel hat trick? Is this Chicago or what? Robert Mundell, 1999 Nobel Prize winner in economics, was Chicago’s 71st, Chicago economics’ 19th, and the third and final supervisor of my dissertation committee to win the prize (“For the Record,” December/99). [ MORE ]

How MAB got U2 to U of C The December issue’s notice regarding MAB (“Major Activities Board lures MTV to campus”) brought back a few pleasant memories. [ MORE ]

Medieval theology Regarding Jenny Adams’s article, “Positively Medieval” (December/99), I find it strange that Adams describes Fulton as seeming to assert that “Before that time [the turn of the first millennium], pious Christians prayed to Christ as the all-powerful King of Heaven rather than as the man who died a humiliating death.” [ MORE ]

Medieval muddles The Magazine might be misrepresenting the excellence of the University by reproducing a fine Trecento painting in the Smart Museum of Art accompanied by an outdated attribution and a typographical error (“Positively Medieval”). [ MORE ]

More on wandering wombs It is of interest that the Hippocratic Corpus describes the wandering womb syndrome (“Coursework,” December/99) in the Parthenoi (“Illness of Maidens”), stating that its cure is early marriage followed by childbirth. [ MORE ]

Déjà view This year my son Ben is happily enrolled in his first year as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, which provides me with the new and pleasant experience of being an alumni parent for the first time. [ MORE ]

Why crime has dropped The October/99 issue presented the rather interesting thesis of University of Chicago economics professor Steve Levitt (“Chicago Journal”), which was summarized as follows: “[A]s much as half of the U.S. crime drop in the 1990s can be explained by the legalization and high frequency of abortion in the 1970s, which prevented the birth of many potential criminals.” [ MORE ]

Delighted with decal I wish to thank the University of Chicago Alumni Association for the splendid University decal that came with the October/99 issue [included with the Alumni Gateway].
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