Letters to the editor

Fox crowns the smartest kid in America
BY JOYCE MILLMAN
(05/11/00)

Joyce Millman does not examine the fact that this show "discovered" not the most intelligent child but the child who was most knowledgeable. These kids must have been driven, probably by parental influence, to spend an abnormal childhood learning trivial facts. What is important is the ability to understand and apply concepts, rather than the knowledge of useless trivia. The question, "What the Romans called the country now known as France?" is no test of intelligence.

It would be interesting to consider how some of the acknowledged geniuses of our age, such as Einstein, would have fared in this test -- most would have fared poorly. These children are being driven to have unrealistic expectations of the future and are missing out on a childhood in which they learn by experience and from their peers rather than from books. Their parents should think of how the children will react when, in all likelihood, they fail to achieve in later life the unrealistic goals they were set as children.

-- Tristan Thomas

Shop-happy
BY JOAN SMITH
(05/11/00)

My theory is that most Americans live in a state of perpetual low-grade dissatisfaction regardless of their circumstances, and they believe that buying something bigger, faster, or better will fix the perceived problem/need of the day. Unfortunately, as soon as you vanquish one perceived need with a deft swipe of the credit card, another perceived need will pop up begging for attention, and you end up endlessly buying bigger and better stuff and throwing out the old stuff. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but it is hard on the planet, requires a lot of time, energy, and money spent on shopping for stuff, cleaning stuff, maintaining stuff, and discarding stuff and doesn't do anything to solve the real problem, which is the perpetual itch of dissatisfaction. I don't know any simple method to eradicate chronic dissatisfaction, but I suspect it is like a poison ivy rash: Scratching it keeps it from healing and only makes it itch worse.

-- Andy Flach

Petty striving
BY SARAH WILDMAN
(05/10/00)

I'm so sorry that Adria Petty is having such a hard time in her Greenwich Village apartment spending daddy's money on all those parties and great schools. And still no respect! It's American tragedies like this that make me want to quit my day job and become a famous artist. Oh, I'm sorry! I can't just yet 'cause rent is due!

-- Eric Saulnier

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