LETTERS
"Sure,
the flag is an icon. It's a fine one."
Nobel notes
Allen Sanderson's interesting article, "Wealth of Notions"
(December/01), omitted at least one other economics Nobelist who
had an affiliation with Chicago, albeit not becoming a member
of the Chicago School of Economics.
[
MORE
]
What
remains
I can't help feeling uneasy reading your three articles on 9/11
("The Remains of the Day," December/01). They were thoughtful
and rational in their stylized way, from the ethicist Jean Bethke
Elshtain's use of Aristotelian methodology to analyze a just war
vs. a holy war (funny how her categories just reek of the Aristotelian
bias of Chicago) to the iconologist W. J. T. Mitchell's pop references
to video games and his focus on "image" to philosopher
Jonathan Lear's attempt to understand 9/11 through psychoanalysis.
[
MORE
]
Fermi
remembered
The University's celebration of the life and work of Enrico Fermi
("Beyond the Bomb," December/01) reminded me of his
habit, often cited gratefully by his students, of seeing physical
problems in daily experience. I remember two examples.
[
MORE
]
Teens
and intact families
Harris School assistant professors Thomas DeLeire and Ariel Kalil
("Citations," December/01) confirmed numerous other
longitudinal studies by finding that children of divorced or never-married
parents fare far worse on many social indicators compared with
children from intact families.
[
MORE
]
The proof isn't in the provenance
In your December/01 issue, one of your correspondents who addressed
the subject of college rankings referred to them as absurdities.
In my 40-plus years as a college teacher of history, I have also
found them to be irrelevant. Citing a few among many examples,
I can verify this contention.
[
MORE
]
Is Stanford really the standard?
I think the University should not concern itself about its relative
status vis-à- vis Stanford [as suggested by Gautam Parikh
in "Letters," December/01] and the Ivies, or whether
Chicago is the first or other choice of its students.
[
MORE
]
Some like it, some like it not
John David Sturman ("Letters," December/01) writes
that the new Max Palevsky Residential Commons is "unsightly,
disagreeable, distasteful, repellent, repugnant, repulsive,
and ill-conceived." While I don't quite agree with the
University of Chicago Chronicle's claim that the complex
is "a blast of Mexican sunshine on any gray Chicago day,"
I do take issue with Sturman's opinion.
[
MORE
]
Buying
and spending we lay waste
Jennifer Thurber's letter on advertising-fueled consumption
(December/01) raised issues which have been of great concern
to me for a long time. While I recognize the long-term risks
to the environment of overconsumption, I am more concerned about
what our society has become, with much of human activity centered
around work and making money for the specific purpose of funding
that consumption.
[
MORE
]
Collectors
we missed
Your feature "Collective Efforts" (October/01) struck
a responsive chord. My husband was out of town when it arrived,
and I read sections aloud over the telephone so he did not have
to wait to hear about the joys of collecting bobbers and ceramic
cow creamers.
[
MORE
]
Dean Boyer gets high marks
The College and the University are blessed with good fortune
in the appointment of John Boyer to a third term as dean of
the College (College
Report).
The
Magazine invites letters on its contents or topics related
to the University. Letters must be signed and may be edited.
Write:
Editor, University of Chicago Magazine
1313 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
E-mail:
uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu
©2002 The University
of Chicago® Magazine