Mail Call: Green-Challenged

What Lisa Miller misses in "Why This Pope Doesn't Connect" is a common misperception about Roman Catholicism: that our pope is supposed to represent us. How could a billion believers with different cultures, languages and perspectives have as their head someone who "connects" with all? Rather, we trust that God gives us the pope we need for the times. The pope is meant to be more of an instrument of God to challenge and inspire instead of a leader in the sense Americans know. Perhaps Benedict's de-emphasis of "feelings" in his persona or message is actually a positive point to be pondered.
Brittany Doucette
Indianapolis, Indiana

George Weigel's "How Benedict XVI Will Make History" (April 21/April 28) is worthy of becoming a historic piece of journalism. I am not a Roman Catholic, and do not understand many of the church's traditions. Nor do I condone the transgressions of morally reprehensible priests. However, the figure of the pope does retain great moral authority. Pope Benedict's predecessor played a huge role in the fall of communism. Benedict, as Weigel astutely notes, "is thinking in centuries here." This pope is using all the moral authority at his disposal to reach across lines of historic division and show that Muslims can and should be welcome in a world of peaceful coexistence where freedom of faith becomes the cornerstone in a world of lasting peace.
Dale Ledbetter
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Ethiopia: Death by Traffic
The carnage on Ethiopia's rural roads depicted in "The Overlooked Killer" (April 14) is just one of the shocking byproducts of the country's abject poverty, after malnutrition and lack of access to health care and sanitation. The key factors your article missed are the unavailability of affordable spare parts for large vehicles and lax mechanical-safety standards. Last week, on a 100km stretch between Harer and Asebe Teferi, on the main road to Addis Ababa, we saw five recently crashed trucks, two of which had come to a standstill on their roofs. In the judgment of our Ethiopian colleagues, bald tires and brake failure are an even greater contributor to these incidents than driver error, chat misuse and the ubiquitous livestock on the road. The truck drivers you see meandering on the mountainous roads at a snail's pace are only too aware of their perilous machinery and are, in the all-too-likely event of malfunction, simply giving themselves a fighting chance of swerving around an obstacle and leaping out of the cab at the last instant. We could not do our health-outreach work without the new Chinese-built roads, but we are deeply concerned about our projects while the roads—and, specifically, the largest vehicles on them—are so dangerous for our staff and patients. I fear it will take more than better seat-belt usage and speeding tickets to solve the problems on Ethiopia's open roads.
Jonathan Crown
London, England

I could scarcely believe that traffic accidents in Africa are a leading cause of death. In the news, one always hears about other problems, like AIDS. You seem to think that old cars are the issue, but I believe that tired or drunk drivers and those driving without seat belts are a greater problem. The number of accidents and their causes should be much more publicized.
Eva-Maria Binder
Via Internet

The New Colorless Art
When I read "A Room With a Hue" (March 10), I asked myself: what happened to real, open-minded art reviewers? The article laments that new artists are not using color as much as earlier generations of artists did. But how important is color anyway? What matters in art are two things. The art must give a feeling to the viewer, and it must speak to the conscience and to social change. When certain artists do use color, they are doing so not to give a particular feeling to their painting but only for esthetic effect—to make the piece look good. For example, Romero Brito, the Brazilian artist who made, among other works, an image for a supermarket, uses a lot of color, but his paintings have no feeling; they are hollow. The objective of this kind of painting, in my point of view, is to be sold to wealthy people looking to decorate their living rooms. On the other hand, there are many artists who do not care if their art doesn't look pretty or if there is an absence of color. They prefer to evoke feelings, rather than create something pleasing to the eye. These artists are often rejected because viewers think art should be "pretty." What kind of viewers are those? Can't they look at the meaning of the pieces of art?
Nuri Rubin Melgarejo
Mexico City, Mexico

Old Stories, New Format
Your March 31 article "Everything Is Illuminated" shows the latest in the trend to make classic works of literature more accessible. Thanks to Classics Illustrated, I first became acquainted with works like "The Iliad," "Frankenstein" and "Moby-Dick." I read the books themselves later, in college. Now these masterpieces can be listened to on CDs. Whether literature is for the eye, the mind or the ear, it remains entertaining and vital from generation to generation.
Michael G. Driver
Ichihara City, Japan

Putting Your Genes to the Test
Sharon Begley's "A New Reason to Frown" (April 21/April 28) was excellent and pointed out a very important but oft-ignored problem: animals cannot predict human response. Be it Botox or Vioxx, different species respond differently. Even human response varies: a drug that cures you may kill me, and vice versa. The only way society will have safer and more effective medications is if we conduct testing based on a person's genetic makeup. Not the genetic makeup of your mother or even your identical twin, but yours alone. Fortunately, this is the direction pharmaceutical companies are taking. It is time to re-evaluate the scientific validity of using animals to gauge human response in medical research and testing.
Ray Greek, M.D.
Science Adviser
National Anti-Vivisection Society
Chicago, Illinois

Correction
In the "Popular Shots" graphic accompanying "A New Reason to Frown," we reversed meanings and should have said that an eyelid spasm is called blepharospasm, and lazy eye is strabismus.

Town Supervisor

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