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All I (as an old Navy guy) can say about Gen. Wesley Clark is that he'd better secure for sea and stand by for heavy weather because it's already started. Opponents will accuse Clark of fathering illegitimate Vietnamese children, of torturing women, cutting people's throats. They'll trot out every enemy he ever made in his 34 years in the Army to make every kind of accusation imaginable.

There is no lack of right-wingers in the military to do their bidding. I just hope that the American people recognize it (this time) for what it is and reject it.

LENDON GILPIN
New Braunfels, Texas

Research breaks no new ground

Paul Plotsky, like so many other animal researchers, annually wastes millions of dollars of taxpayers' money to tell us what we already know. In this case it is that behavior is influenced by one's genetics and one's environment.

Plotsky offers no new insight into human behavior that was learned by observing animal behavior. In fact the most important conclusions he offered came from his observations of the mother and her child.

So what does he do? He goes back to observing animals to learn about human behavior. This is akin to learning to work on a car by studying the mechanics of a go-kart.

Animal research is invalid, unethical and unnecessary.

DINO VLACHOS
Chamblee

Take sufficient time in death row cases

The article "New evidence idled in death row appeal" (News, Sept. 21) was a sad commentary on our justice system. A man may be put to death without a court hearing evidence of his innocence because of the government's need for expediency.

It's even sadder than the fact that a lack of money kept Tony Davis' lawyers from meeting the arbitrary deadline set for presenting the new evidence in his case. I can think of nothing less "frivolous" than appealing a death sentence. The government ought to be more concerned with the blood on its hands than its need for speed.

MARY SIDNEY KELLY
Atlanta

Iraq rationale a house of cards

Just in case some AJC readers missed Jay Bookman's column ("Scholar's fallacy fed push for war," @issue, Sept. 21), I suggest they go find it and read it. He tries to figure out why 70 percent of the American people would get the (incorrect) idea that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with Sept. 11.

Certainly not from President Bush, who just last week said, "We have no evidence that Saddam had anything to do with Sept. 11." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had earlier made similar statements.

I may have missed something, but I could swear that they have all been telling us there was a direct link between al-Qaida and Saddam, and since we know al-Qaida was responsible for Sept. 11, obviously Saddam was guilty as well.

So Saddam had nothing to do with Sept. 11, he had no weapons of mass destruction (no clear and present danger to the American people), he had no air force, no real military hardware to speak of, a decaying infrastructure, including the oil fields; so again, why did we pre-emptively attack Iraq?

PAT FAGAN
Woodstock

Wrong person to belittle Bush

Cynthia Tucker describing George W. Bush's accomplishments as "thin" is like Idi Amin giving Mahatma Gandhi a lecture on human rights.

Undergrad from Auburn vs. undergrad from Yale. No graduate degree vs. an MBA from Harvard. No military service vs. an F-102 pilot in the Texas Air National Guard. No political experience vs. governor of Texas. Baneful racial fomenting vs. record-setting minority appointments in terms of numbers and rank, along with $16 billion to combat AIDS in Africa.

Bush has made and will make mistakes as president, but there are few among us who should dare call his accomplishments "thin."
STAN HUNT
Decatur

Nothing stops attacks on Bush

Cynthia Tucker's ad-nauseam attacks on President Bush do nothing to enhance her or The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's reputation.

They serve only to point out that she will say anything to ridicule him, true or not, fact-supported or not, out of context (often) or pure opinion (usually).

ED ROBINSON
Smyrna

Clintons hatch master plan

It appears that Bill (impeached) and Hillary Clinton may have schemed to maneuver a notorious military "bungler," Gen Wesley Clark, into a presidential election bid only for him to somehow bungle the race at an opportune moment, leaving Hillary as the "last one standing."
ARMOND "SI"
SIMMONS
Pell City, Ala.

Guard, Reserves serve honorably

Cynthia Tucker made the statement "Bush, who neglected his duty when he was in the National Guard."

I consider the statement an insult to those, including myself, who served in the National Guard or Reserves during the Vietnam era because it directly implies that we so served in order to avoid being sent to war.

I chose to serve in the National Guard because it allowed me to complete my military obligation and simultaneously begin my professional career after college. The unit I joined was undermanned and was actively recruiting anyone who chose to enlist. During my six years of service, all National Guard and Reserve units were subject to being called into full-time service, and many were.

All the men and women who honorably served their country as members of the National Guard and Reserve during that time deserve a complete apology from Tucker for her inappropriate statement. By the way, Cynthia, how many years of service did you give to our country?
PHIL RUSHING
Dunwoody

High taxes drive up unemployment rate

On several occasions The Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page has referred to President Bush presiding over the loss of 2.5 million jobs, the most since President Hoover in 1932. The most recent reference was in Cynthia Tucker's Sept. 21 column.

These numbers need to be compared with circumstances at the time. In 1932, the U. S. population was 125 million, few women worked outside the home, and the work force was about 50 million. In 2003, the U. S. population is 285 million and the work force is 150 million.

If high taxes hadn't required homemakers to hold jobs, we wouldn't have any unemployment.

JAMES RUST
Atlanta

Childhood friend deserves better

"Can a child of the segregated South lead a discussion on race in 21st-century Georgia?" My answer is a qualified absolutely -- if that child becomes a student who loves education.

Absolutely, if that student is hungry enough to seek a part of education he or she has been denied and if that student makes the effort to read enough to learn the missing history that was left out of texts of his or her time.

But, with all due respect, there is one big, glaring statement in that article that would lead me to doubt the intent of our governor to convince us that he is not racist.

All right, he was foster parent to both black and white babies -- when he was old enough to know that he might be looking at a political career. But the article indicates that the grave of his childhood friend, who even might have saved Perdue's life and certainly did save his home, remains unmarked. When I married years ago, there were unmarked graves of babies in my husband's family. Upon learning about that, I started saving (even during those lean years), and I still am thankful that I was able to provide markers for those graves.

If our governor was that touched by the death of his childhood friend, why does that grave remain unmarked?

THELMA HEYWOOD
Lawrenceville

Let governor lead the way to healing

"Can a child of the segregated South lead a discussion on race in 21st-century Georgia?" As a black woman, a Roy Barnes Democrat who is the same age as Gov. Sonny Perdue, my answer is unequivocally yes.

Perdue's background and experience with race is almost identical to mine and many other African-Americans. If he can't do it, no one can. Where is it written that only those of who experienced the brunt of discrimination are qualified to facilitate reconciliation? Besides, we have tried that for almost 40 years to no avail.

It's time we stop being held hostage by our past and embrace our future. We need to let this man lead the way to racial healing in Georgia.

IVORY DORSEY
Mableton

A small step that's long overdue

If Gov. Sonny Perdue truly wants to be a healer for racial issues in Georgia, he has missed a golden opportunity with his best black childhood friend, Hollis Watts.

I read with sadness and shed a tear to learn that after 49 years, Perdue's best black childhood friend's grave still goes unmarked. Is this any way to treat a friend who by his own admission saved his life and possibly his home?

This could be the smallest giant step Perdue will ever take. His friend's grave deserves a marker.

MARILYN WYLIE
Mableton

Attorneys' closing fees vary widely

The article on real estate closings by lawyers ("Bar battles to keep real estate role," Sept. 21) implies a ruling against the Georgia Bar could potentially save consumers only $225 to $250 on a typical closing. However, the impact could be far more significant outside metro Atlanta.

Upon our 1997 move to southwest Georgia from Alabama, the attorney charged $1,200 for a real estate closing (the fee was 1 percent of the mortgage). This was quite a shock considering 10 months earlier we paid $400 for a similar closing in Birmingham.

We are selling our southwest Georgia house, and the good-faith estimate by the listing real estate agent is $900 for attorney fees. I concede that my anecdotal evidence may not be statistically representative, but at least within certain areas of the state, the savings could easily be $1,000.

JIMMY BRANDON
Cumming

Humans have ability to overcome

The story "Nature/Nurture" (@issue, Sept. 21) states what humans (except for "scientists" and "behavioralists") have known since time immemorial: animals are affected by both deterministic nature and environmental occurrences. Watch any dog/cat/monkey/ after it suffers a trauma or consistent bad/good treatment. Those animals exhibit permanent changes in their personality.

What sets humans apart is our volition: our ability (choice) to "override" our environment, our traumas, our treatments with thorough analysis and reworking of our past, our emotions, our thinking, our judgment. Our environmental experiences become ingrained (like in lower animals) only when we abdicate our choice to change our psychology.

Our brain size, our neural hookups, our physicality and some nuances of individuality are of course determined by nature. But each of us with a full faculty of reasoning has the full and complete ability to be a self-made man/woman.

DAVID ELMORE
Marietta

Pain animals endure clearly established

The research described in the article is a clear and compelling example of why the animal rights movement will have to take up violence as a tool to end cruelty.

Paul Plotsky correctly points out the similarities between abused human children and abused monkey children. Studies such as his have been endlessly recurring since at least 1934. We've known for a very long time that children who are reared without proper nurturing go on to be parents who do not provide adequate nurturing to their own children. This has been shown repeatedly in humans and monkeys.

If the mental experiences of monkeys and rats are so much like our own that we can predict harm to our own psyches after seeing emotional duress in the animals we use, then we must acknowledge that the pain suffered by each is of a like kind.

This means the abused baby monkeys that Plotsky finds so interesting are suffering in ways indistinguishable from the suffering of children reared in similar circumstances.

RICK BOGLE
Goleta, Calif.

Don't throw water on certification

Compensation for National Board Certification is not an incentive plan but an increase for attaining a higher level of qualifications. It brings a higher level of professionalism that can be compared to achieving an advanced degree -- with some major differences.

One difference is that National Board Certification is performance-based, with evidence derived from actual classroom teaching and analyzing student work. It also requires involvement in professional learning communities that include peers and parents.

With the growing teacher shortage, it is vital that the spirit of National Board Certification be kept intact and allow its momentum to flourish. The task for our state's leaders is to find ways to use our expertise -- not find ways to diminish the accomplishment.

SUSAN COLLINS
Flowery Branch

Excellence often goes unrecognized

It seems that local politicians, parents and even journalists love to blame teachers for low student achievement test scores, insisting that teachers need to become more "accountable" for what they are teaching.

Talk about not being accountable. Isn't it our legislators' job to know and understand what laws and policies they are voting for before they vote for them?

They underestimated how many accomplished and talented teachers Georgia has. Now they do not want to pay those teachers (or future teachers) who have proved that they are not only accountable, but also have gained national recognition for their excellent teaching methods.

Perhaps the policy-makers in Georgia need only to look in the mirror to find out why we still rank 50th in the country for poor test scores.

LYNN CHOQUETTE
Woodstock