US-Cuba sports diplomacy: an expansive view

The Monitor editorial "Beisbol Diplomacy" (April 1) distorts the positive impact of the exhibition baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban all-star team.

Beyond the historic significance of this excellent game, there is no doubt that it showed that is possible to reach a high level of exchange between our peoples, when it is based on the absolute respect of our countries' sovereignty and independence. This represents the genuine expression of those who believe in the possibility of normalizing relations between our countries, from which both will benefit - extending relations not only to the sports and cultural fields but also to the economic field.

Analysis like that in your editorial is far from the best values and feelings of US people who favor contacts between the two peoples.

Luis Fernndez Washington Press Officer Cuban Interests Section

More to women than beauty-mag image

Thanks to columnist Marilyn Gardner for her article "Feminism through the beauty-mag looking glass" (April 7)! I have personally boycotted the glamor mags for years because of their dehumanizing view of women. They feed into the myth that women are made "for just one thing." They promote shallowness and deny that there's more to women than the hank of hair and a piece of bone.

It's time to look beyond the hair and the eyes and the nails and the lips to what women are really about. Hopefully the editors will feel compelled to reveal the fuller expression of women's intelligence, strength, compassion, and what women contribute to society. In doing this they could help to change society's narrow perspective of women.

Kathy McElroy Pueblo, Colo.

No group of Americans is in greater need of strong, positive role models than teenage girls. Yet magazines targeted to young women seem to ignore this need and devote most of their pages to cosmetic beauty, sexual gratification, and horoscopes. It is no wonder that these younger females have so little interest in the political and business arenas when they see so few female leaders featured in print and broadcast media.

Young women now outnumber men as college and graduate students, while receiving higher grades in most academic disciplines. You would expect more involvement from them in the leadership functions of our society. While women are entering law, medicine, and business in record numbers, magazines designed for young, upwardly mobile women show little interest in portraying individual women who have made it to the top.

Thank goodness the Monitor and several other newspapers cover the advancement of women in politics, business, and international affairs.

George A. Dean Southport, Conn.

Handguns for law-abiding citizens

Your article about Missourians voting whether to allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons really hit home for me ("Concealed guns: a crime-fighting tactic?" April 5).

I have seen one of my best friends suffer twice from violent crime: His wife was murdered during her night shift at a motel desk, and later he was almost crippled by two young hoodlums who shot him during a daylight robbery that garnered them all of $4. In both of these tragedies, a handgun could have made the difference for the victim. Yet current laws practically assure the criminal is the only one with a gun.

Raymond Lappeus Saginaw, Mich.

The Monitor welcomes your letters and opinion articles. We can neither acknowledge nor return unpublished submissions. All submissions are subject to editing. Letters must be signed and include your mailing address and telephone number. Mail letters to 'Readers Write,' and opinion articles to Opinion Page, One Norway St., Boston, MA 02115, or fax to 617-450-2317, or e-mail to oped@csps.com

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
QR Code to US-Cuba sports diplomacy: an expansive view
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/1999/0413/p10s3.html
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe