Letters Archives

Letters

Empath Report As a medical educator, I appreciated the considerable insights in Heidi Julavits’s essay on empathy and doctors [“Diagnose This,” April]. Columbia University’s Program in Narrative Medicine and other…

Letters

In Memoriam We are deeply saddened by the death of Matthew Power, our friend and a contributing editor. Sixteen years ago, Matt was an intern at the magazine, and since…

Letters

Deutschland Unter Alles The February cover image that accompanied the forum on the future of the euro [“How Germany Reconquered Europe”] is offensive and thoughtless. By riffing on the Nazi…

Letters

Serve and Volley John P. Davidson did indeed train to be a household manager at Starkey International for his article on private service [“You Rang?,” Folio, January], but what he…

Letters

Chicago Style Thomas Frank’s “Chicago Is the Future” [Easy Chair, December] articulated the increasing sense of alienation I’ve felt each time I’ve returned to my hometown since my departure in…

Letters

Have It Their Way In Thomas Frank’s Easy Chair column on low wages for employees of the fast-food industry [“Home of the Whopper,” November], a reference to the plantation owned…

Letters

It’s the Dynasty, Stupid Doug Henwood nailed the rightward political drift and military hawkishness that define Hillary Clinton [“Stop Hillary!” Essay, November], but I cannot resist adding something Clinton said…

Letters

Crimes Against Humanities Thomas Frank’s insightful lamentation about the demise of the humanities in higher education [“Course Corrections,” Easy Chair, October] notes the mammoth cost of attending college in the…

Letters

Divide and Conquer I was troubled by Nicholson Baker’s essay calling for the elimination of Algebra II from high school curricula [“Wrong Answer,” September], which fails to acknowledge the great…

Letters

Buy the Book Mark Kingwell’s essay on the future of reading [“Beyond the Book,” Readings, August] reminds us that for hundreds of years books were the only tool that made…

Letters

Poetic Justice Attacks on contemporary poetry in general as too obscure, too private, and in thrall to specialists — attacks such as Mark Edmundson’s essay in the July issue [“Poetry Slam”] —…

Letters

Exchanging Fire Dan Baum misses the mark for the best way to control gun violence [“How to Make Your Own AR-15,” Report, June]. The truth is that guns don’t kill…

Letters

Having a Cow It’s telling that the photographs accompanying Ted Conover’s report on working in an industrial slaughterhouse [“The Way of All Flesh,” May] show only living animals and the…

Letters

Live Free or Die Trying Michael Ames suggests that the future of the Republican Party may be the Ron Paul movement [“The Awakening,” Letter from Tampa, April], but the Ron…

Letters

All’s Well That Ends Wells In his report on the fracking boom in North Dakota [“Bakken Business,” Letter from Elkhorn Ranch, March], Richard Manning fails to mention the rapid falloff…

Letters

Workers Undocumented In his report [“This Land Is Not Your Land,” February], Ted Genoways indicts a few citizens and politicians in Nebraska as a stand-in for the discrimination perpetrated by…

Letters

Alarmed and Dangerous I read Eula Biss’s essay about the contemporary fear of vaccines [“Sentimental Medicine,” January] days after the violent deaths of twenty small schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, and…

Letters

Electoral College Victoria Collier’s report on the precariousness of this country’s voting system [“How to Rig an Election,” November] voices legitimate concerns but misdirects its anxiety. Many election-integrity advocates have…

Letters

In Memoriam Harper’s Magazine is deeply saddened by the recent deaths of two good friends. George McGovern had served on the Harper’s Magazine Foundation board of directors since 1990, Nikolai…

Letters

Paper Routs In “The Only Game in Town” [Report, September], David Sirota unjustly mentions an old publisher of Philadelphia’s two dailies in his catalogue of newspaper owners who use their…