Tears and jeers

Boy, you guys have really screwed up. First, Jack Katz, in the manner of many academics, has expanded a simple and hoary concept into a long, boring, repetitive article ("The Stuff of Tears," February/00). Everyone knows that crying is the result of great emotion: tears of sorrow, tears of joy. His people who cried all fall into those two categories, even if he insists on calling it ontological transcendence. He insists, e.g., that the people listening to the principal were moved by an understanding of her dilemma at being forced to reply to a "casual participant" whose "bright ideas…threatened the collective understanding." Isn't it far more likely that they cried because they recognized that the principal's denunciation of scabs meant that the strike would occur, and they felt sorry for both the teachers and their kids?

Second, you wasted oodles of space on those inane photos of eyes with tears painted in. Why not save the Magazine some space and money?

Bill Kamin, PhB'47
Menlo Park, California