Having read all your coverage on the turn of the millennium, and having admired your rich, inspiring photos of the world’s rituals, I can only say that the millennium would not have been the same without you (“Y2A-OK!” special report, Jan. 10). From a celebration of the century’s events, to an exhilarating and insightful vision of the issues of the future, to a humorous account of the popular millennium madness, to the false apocalyptic threats of the Y2K bug, to the philosophical reflections on what it means for our calendar to be 2,000 years old–when that final second rushed past and the fireworks blasted, in my mind was all that I had experienced as a reader of NEWSWEEK through your year-end issues.
Emilio Betesh Rophie
Mexico City, Mexico
Thanks for the Eiffel Tower on your cover. The French put on the best New Year’s fireworks and light display, bar none.
Victoria Proctor
Washington, D.C.
In your article “How We Rang in 2000,” I was surprised to read that “Federal Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey was about 30,000 feet over the Mississippi River en route from Dallas to San Francisco” when Greenwich mean time rolled over to midnight Dec. 31, 1999. Heading east from Dallas to fly to San Francisco is taking the long and indirect route to get there.
Richard Baum
Bellingham, Washington
Editor’s note: Garvey’s flight was actually en route to Dallas and San Francisco.
Your full-page mug shot of guru Tony Robbins to accompany “Self-Help U.S.A.” (special report, Jan. 10) reminds me of what Muhammad Ali once said about the late sportscaster Howard Cosell: “He always wanted to be a boxer, but they couldn’t find a mouthpiece big enough for him.” Let’s face it, these hucksters want our bucksters. But self-help can be simple, free and effective. A young woman I once met told me that she had brought herself back from the despair of drugs by following the positive thoughts found as messages in Chinese fortune cookies.
Richard D. Lynde
Aromas, California
The diabolically clever secret behind self-help, religion and diet books is that they rarely work, thus requiring that new ones must always be bought.
Brian Templeton
Des Moines, Washington
In your Jan. 10 periscope section (“Hey, If Monica Can Do It, So Can You”), we were surprised and disappointed to see Sarah, Duchess of York, lumped in with other people who have not been successful with their diets. This is an injustice and, in fact, incorrect. The duchess has been a lifetime member of Weight Watchers since January 1998. She has never been model thin, nor is she currently. However, it is important to know that she is at a healthy weight, which she has maintained. Your article does a disservice to your readers who are concerned about weight issues by deflating their hopes of being successful themselves. With the current epidemic of obesity in America, it would certainly be more productive to contribute to the solution rather than tear down efforts to address this major health problem.
Linda Webb Carilli
Woodbury, New York
The dazzle of Monica Lewinsky’s new employment dims when you consider her resum???. It seems contradictory for Jenny Craig to choose as spokesperson for a group promoting weight loss a woman who, when plump, had the influence to make the entire American political system tremble and to hold a nation in suspense while she brought its leader to his knees. Lewinsky’s own supplicant position in the Oval Office changed rapidly to a celebrity status equal to any person of the last century. That news clip of a pretty, round-cheeked girl embracing President Clinton is now as much a part of history as the Rodney King tape or the amateur video of the JFK assassination. The infamous blue dress that the portly Lewinsky could no longer squeeze into (will she wear a replica in a Jenny Craig ad?) demolished a husband’s lies and pushed a president to penitence. The baby fat she is now shedding with Jenny Craig did not deter the advances of the most powerful man in the world. If any person on the planet has proved that stout has clout, it is Monica Lewinsky.
Mary Alice Altorfer
Carpenteria, California
Those who have not walked a mile in the shoes of the Kelso family should withhold judgment (“A Family’s Breakdown,” News of the Week, Jan. 10). As a nurse and the mother of a severely disabled adult, I am outraged that these parents have been criminalized. They reached a breaking point and did not abandon their son, but acted responsibly in taking him where he could receive the full-time care he needed. The fact that their son is alive today with such severe medical issues is a credit to their care over the last 10 years.
Katherine Papazoglou
Longmeadow, Massachusetts
As the mother of a 9-year-old daughter with cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder, a visual impairment and developmental delays, I sympathize with Dawn and Richard Kelso. I have traded my freedom to be the primary caretaker of my daughter. In the nine years since her birth, my husband and I have never been away alone together. A good weekend for us is one in which we take turns doing errands or chores while the other parent entertains our daughter. She needs help doing anything. I love my daughter and want to help her. Most people just could not imagine our lives. I hope I never feel as overwhelmed as Dawn and Richard Kelso must have, but I can understand the pressures that led them to their desperate act.
Elizabeth Levine Wandelmaier
Mahwah, New Jersey
Thanks for your profound and thought-provoking article on the current state of Sino-American relations (“A Goose Step Into the Future,” World Affairs, Oct. 11). With a presidential election year looming in the United States, those responsible would do well if they refrained from exploiting any elements of “Sinophobia.” Considering what is at stake for the two giants and for the world at large, “constructive engagement” doesn’t need to be synonymous with appeasement.
Werner Radtke
Paderborn, Germany
I like the Euroland cover of your Nov. 29 issue very much. However, the illustrator made, unintentionally, three grave mistakes. The exact order of Italy’s, Ireland’s and Portugal’s flag colors should be inverted, providing green near the flagpole.
Giovanna Beretta
Milan, Italy
The word “Euroland” refers to the EU countries that already are (on paper) using the common currency, the euro. In your cover photo you show a castle with flags–but what are the Swedish and the British flags doing in the picture? You also talk about the “ideal of political and economic union” in relation to the new Oresund bridge that links Sweden to Denmark. But none of these countries has joined Euroland. Don’t you respect the decisions of the British, Swedes and Danes to stay outside the monetary union? You confuse everybody by mixing the 15 EU countries with the 11 euro countries.
Leena Brandt
Helsinki, Finland
I’m 17 and will be casting my first vote in the next presidential election. I’m reading up on all the candidates now to have a better understanding of their issues. I would like to thank you for publishing the Nov. 15 articles on Bill Bradley and John McCain (“The Outside Shooter… and the Fighting Pilot,” U.S. Affairs).
Sean Calavan
Temecula, California
Although Bill Bradley and John McCain have gained substantial ground on front runners Al Gore and George W. Bush, neither has inspired me to believe he has the guts it takes, the guts to make a bold, swift, radical departure from the failed Big Government programs of the last 40 years. Instead, they ramble on about their master plans for everything from health care to the environment. By now, we the electorate realize that government can’t solve the nation’s problems with sweeping multibillion-dollar, massively bureaucratic schemes. The only candidate speaking about big change is Steve Forbes. His plan to eliminate the IRS is something previous leaders failed to appreciate as the true key to prosperity for all Americans. Government’s true role in a democracy is to provide a national defense, a stable currency and a judicial system.
Patrick M. McMeans
Euless, Texas
John McCain is rising in popularity because he is the only candidate who is correct on three key issues: campaign-finance reform, to take the country back from the special interests and return it to the people; pork-barrel-spending reductions, so politicians will no longer use your money to bribe you to get themselves re-elected, and having a strong but affordable military.
Mike Clement
Birmingham, Michigan
Presidential candidate Bill Bradley, at peace with who he is and comfortable with the authentic image he projects, is following a well-thought-out game plan that is going to take him to the White House in 2001 (“Bradley’s Game” U.S. Affairs, Nov.15). That’s good news for a public that is tired of “politics as usual.” Bradley transcends party affiliation by appealing to the best instincts of the American people. He listens to the stories of citizens from all walks of life and has a special place in his heart for society’s most vulnerable. In addition to getting overwhelming Democratic support, he will, I believe, win the hearts and votes of many Republicans and independents.
Paul L. Whiteley Sr.
Louisville, Kentucky
I hope your article “A Tale of Two Brothers,” from Joshua Hammer’s book about his brother’s turning to ultra-Orthodox Judaism, wasn’t meant to be representative of Orthodox Jews (Society & the Arts, Nov. 8). Because it isn’t. My brother also went from secular to “black hat” Orthodox some years ago. I find he’s become even more worldly, rational, tidy and tolerant. So also are his Orthodox friends and neighbors.
Andy Shane
Dallas, Texas
It is only through our strict adherence to the laws and customs of our people, as outdated and archaic as they may appear to be, that we Orthodox Jews are able to preserve our true Jewish identity.
Vicky Mamieh
Mexico City, Mexico
Hammer gives a one-sided, paternalistic view of the Hasidic movement. No attempt is made to portray any good in the movement, and things like its members’ low rates of divorce and drug and alcohol abuse are ignored. It is strangely ironic that Hammer describes himself as a liberal freethinker. He is just as closed-minded as the system he is so critical of.
Harry Joffe
Johannesburg, South Africa
To discover the ancient, ultra-Orthodox world surviving today is truly fascinating. The claim of unbroken tradition back to a public revelation of God is unique to Orthodox Jews. Others who affirm the Biblical revelation nevertheless admit to discontinuity of tradition, as a prophet or movement reforms the religion of a particular time, e.g., Christians, Muslims, Reform and Karaite Jews. Apparently it’s impossible to duplicate this claim. For many this argument, together with the contemplation of the singular history of the Jewish people and religion, is the basis of rational belief.
Israel Dubin
Jerusalem, Israel
My daughter, who has become become an ultra-Orthodox Jew, is pregnant with her ninth child. Like Hammer’s family, ours is made up of secular, liberal Jews. I find distasteful the critical attitude toward minorities and the larger world expressed by some of these people. However, my daughter’s community is very close, and each time she’s brought home a new baby, her neighbors take one or two of the older children for days on end. Although I’ve had to walk a fine line, I’ve never lost touch with this daughter.
Judith Isaacs
Marlton, New Jersey
The article “Kidneys for Sale,” on the growing trade in human organs, made for compelling reading (Asia, Nov. 1). However, I believe the statement about Romeo Roga, who sold his kidney–“With only one kidney, he tires easily”–implies a negative health consequence as a result of donating one kidney. I donated a kidney to my daughter nearly 11 years ago, and I certainly do not tire more easily as a result of having only one kidney. There is a critical shortage of available organs for individuals who need them in order to live.
Pamela Essley
Anchorage, Alaska
As horrible as it is that the world’s poor are being compelled into selling their organs to help the rich, I find it even more appalling that Roga had to sell his kidney in the hopes of saving his son from measles. Why? In this day and age, measles is both curable and preventable. Governments and health organizations would be most efficient in their fight against organ trading by improving the poor’s situation. If a person had access to proper health care, nutrition and education, would he still consider selling his own organs?
Dahlia Chan Tang
Yamagata, Japan
title: “At Least The Year Is New” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-23” author: “Angela Davis”
Thank you so much for putting the photograph of the Eiffel Tower on your Jan. 10 cover. I love it! You definitely made this Francophile’s week. The French put on the best fireworks and light display on New Year’s Eve, bar none.
I just started reading your Jan. 10 issue, but had to stop and write to thank you for the “World” item in your Conventional Wisdom feature. Thank you for reminding your readers that this is not the start of a new millennium, but the finish of the old one. I do hope organizations such as yours will keep this in mind for people like us, who are bothered by referrals to 2000 as the new millennium. In the total scheme of things, does it matter? No, not really. But it’s still annoying. So thanks, NEWSWEEK, for providing a reminder of what 2000 really is.
In your article “How We Rang in 2000”, I was surprised to read that “Federal Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey was about 30,000 feet over the Mississippi River en route from Dallas to San Francisco” when Greenwich mean time rolled over to midnight, Dec. 31, 1999. Now I understand why so many airline flights arrive late. Heading east from Dallas to fly to San Francisco is taking the long and indirect route to get there.
Editor’s note: Don’t blame the airlines; Garvey’s flight was actually en route from Washington, D.C.,to Dallas and San Francisco.
I have no doubt that if young Eli??n’s father had taken the boy away from the custody he shared with the boy’s mother, and had died while trying to escape to the United States as the boy’s mother did, the same people who are now totally disregarding the legal and moral rights of the father to be reunited with his son would have inundated the public with picture after picture of a weeping mother, and Eli??n would have been back in her arms within hours. Fathers’ rights are a joke in this country, Cuba and everywhere else. The United States points its collective finger at Cuba and says the boy cannot be properly raised there. Where was everyone, including all his now devoted Florida relatives, during the first six years of the boy’s life?
A child’s father has the right to determine his own son’s future. What if Eli??n Gonz??lez’s situation were reversed and an American ship were wrecked off the coast of Cuba, and some relatives of a young American boy decided to keep the child and not let him go home to the United States to be with his father? Americans would go ballistic. International law is ideally based on one premise: no country is better than another. I’ll certainly agree that the government of Cuba is heinous. That doesn’t change the fact that our government is holding a child in this country against his legal guardian’s will. It is only arrogance that makes us think that this child should stay here.
The diabolically clever secret behind the majority of quick-fix books about self-help, religion and diets is that they rarely work, thus requiring that new ones must always be bought.
notGeneral Manager, Corporate Affairs Weight Watchers International, Inc.
The dazzle of Monica Lewinsky’s new employment dims when you consider her resume. It seems contradictory for Jenny Craig to choose as spokesperson for a group promoting weight loss a woman who, when plump, had the influence to make the entire American political system tremble and to hold a nation in suspense while she brought its leader to his knees. That news clip of a pretty, round-cheeked girl embracing President Clinton is now as much a part of history as the Rodney King tape or the amateur video of the JFK assassination. The infamous blue dress that the portly Lewinsky could no longer squeeze into (will she wear a replica in a Jenny Craig ad?) demolished a husband’s lies and pushed a president to penitence. The fame or infamy of this young woman can be debated or preached about, but the baby fat she is now shedding with Jenny Craig did not deter the advances of the most powerful man in the world. If any person on the planet has proved that stout has clout, it is Monica Lewinsky.
As the mother of a 9-year-old daughter with cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder, a visual impairment and developmental delays, my sympathies are with Dawn and Richard Kelso. I have traded my freedom to be the primary caregiver to my daughter. In the nine years since her birth, my husband and I have never been away alone together. A good weekend for us is one in which we take turns doing errands or chores while the other parent entertains our daughter. She needs help doing everything. I love my daughter and want to help her. Most people just could not imagine our lives. I hope that I never feel as overwhelmed as the Kelsos must have, but I can certainly understand the pressures that led them to their desperate act.
