Buying Glamour in Paris

A Demain

I ADORED JANE HODGES PIECE ON procrastination. I have seldom had the impression of having a part of my own life as well chronicled down to the last Twinkie. I too lurked in that serious lurking place, the Downstairs of Kiewit, spreading rumors that it actually goes down another 15 floors (and trying to squeeze out one brilliant idea about Tom Sheppard, moral philosophy, and Magritte.)

It was wonderful, being so far away both in time (I'm from the class of '85) and place (Paris), to find this kindred spirit. I only have one bit of bad news for her: It doesn't get any better. I read this article and wrote this note in order to put off facing the mountain of work at the office and I know where to buy Glamour at 3:00 a.m. in Paris.

PARIS, FRANCE

Sprawl Mart

PROFESSOR JERE DANIELL '55 should have done some research before he talked about the naming of Vermont as "An Endangered Place" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation ("On the Hill," October). Professor Daniell dismisses the action as "Good press, and, possibly, a good fund-raising scheme," thus missing entirely the point of such a program. In actuality, the Trust simply called the principle threat in Vermont "Sprawl-Mart," a very serious threat to businesses on main streets everywhere, as well as to the rural way of life. The group also offered a sensible solution: "Support for sensitive planning, zoning, and growth management." Much of that support will come from the Trust's Main Street Program, which for many years has helped communities and states to face their current preservation problems. Flashy? Hardly.

I am one of those retirees characterized by Professor Daniell as devoted to "preservation of both image and landscape." And I've been at it for a long, long time. In fact, as one of the founders and as first director of the National Trust, I have spent most of my life trying to raise the consciousness of the nation to its heritage. In my day we strewed the preservation message as widely as we could, hoping we might find receptive minds. So I am happy about what the Trust is doing so vigorously now, for there is a larger audience and it is listening. What the Trust is doing makes sense to me; what Professor Daniell has written does not.

COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK

The Market Will Save Us

I FOUND NOEL PERRIN'S ARTICLE "An Environmental B- for Dartmouth" (Winter) interesting for what it said but disturbing for what was not mentioned. His descriptions of the power our everyday appliances use, and ideas for how the College might do a better job of recycling, are interesting. His talk of apocolypse, and his failure to discuss the role that markets play in conserva- tion, are disturbing.

Professor Perrin seems to speak seriously of a scenario that "predicts the crash of human population back down to a billion. When? Next century." We have heard such warnings for hundreds of years; as the predicted times for such crises draw closer they have all proved ephemeral. Why? Because if a threat is real, people spontaneously adapt their behavior to prevent a crisis. When oil was thought to be running short, people reacted by exploring for more oil, employing conserva- tion measures, and finding other sources of energy. One seldom hears talk of oil depletion any more.

The mechanism for averting these crises is functioning markets. Professor Perrin talks of recycling and conserving power as if they were categorical imperatives. Instead, it makes more sense for individuals (and the College) to recycle or conserve power when and only when it starts to pay them to do so; in other words, when the monetary rewards are worth the trouble. The price system generally does a wonderful job of incorporating the values of all who buy and sell goods and services. The price system is not perfect, but that only means we should pay more attention to improving the markets so that their prices can more accurately reflect people's preferences, and spend less effort promoting conservation as if it were intrinsically valuable.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Our Proud Neighbor

I WAS NOT AT THE UNH- Daartmouth game described in Michael Ransimier's sensitive letter in the Winter issue, but if there is substantial accuracy in his charac- terization of its half-time show, Dartmouth College presented a churlish and ungrateful image of itself and a highly inaccurate image of UNH. I am concerned about this, and I think you should be, too.

I have been on the faculty at UNH since 1975, and have been chair of its Earth Sciences Department since 1990. I can assure all those associated with Dartmouth that UNH faculty have no cause for feelings of academic inferiority. In fact, UNH has programs of national and international repute in many areas, including space physics, the sociology of families, music (especially jazz), English, history, the monitoring and modeling of global change, oceans, space, and complex systems. External support of research at UNH grew 20 percent in the last year and now totals more than $40 million a year. Many Dartmouth alums teach at UNH, and there is in- creasing collaboration between UNH and Dartmouth faculties.

My own department has been a leader in forging a broad approach to the earth sciences, with strong programs of research and teaching in hydrology, oceanography, geochem- istry, and geology (one of our faculty is chief scientist of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project, which just recovered the 250,000-year ice core for detailed climatic analysis; as I write, another is in the Alvin scientific submersible collecting water samples from the mid-ocean rift system). And we do a damn good job of teaching. However, UNH faculty would acknowledge one clear area of inferiority to Dartmouth colleagues: In spite of our impressive accomplishments, we are considerably less well paid.

DURHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE

On the Books

READING "BRICKS AND MORTAR" in the Winter "On the Hill," I am comforted that a useful future is in prospect for Webster Hall. There is another question that arises upon learning that special collections will be spaciously housed in a renovated Webster. What then of the '79 Room? I hope and pray that Baker management has a suitable use in mind for that most attractive of rooms.

KEY WEST, FLORIDA Anti-Doctor Doctor

AS AN ANTI-DOCTOR DOCTOR (ONE of more than a handful) I was surprised that a half page with picture was devoted to my efforts in the Winter 1992 issue. I assumed such exposure was reserved for alumni gar- nering more conventional accolades in the upward, onward march of human society.

Tig Tillinghast '93 implied that the advice I give is similar to that offered in women's magazines. That's about as accurate as his reporting my class as '63, when it is '66. Health & Healing subscribers have received specific suggestions of safer, less expensive, more effective alternatives to bypass surgery, angioplasty, ulcer and arthritis drugs, and surgery or Proscar for benign prostatic hypertrophy, to name a few. That most conventional physicians scorn these alternatives more than justifies the negative rhetoric of my promotional literature.

My partners in notoriety are Tom Phillips '64, chairman of the board, Phillips Publishing; and Bob King '70, president and CEO of the health division of Phillips Publishing.

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA

MacDartmouth

I HAVE JUST READ IN THE NEW York Times that Dartmouth now requires all incoming students to buy a Macintosh computer. Outrage!

As an alumnus, I try to meet the challenge of accepting inevitable change at my alma mater. I have no problem with Dartmouth offering courses in deconstruction, women's studies, multiculturalism, film, environmental studies, intertextuality, polysexuality, or multimedia. (Indeed, I happily took some of these courses while at Dartmouth.)

But the New Orthodoxy has simply gone too far when the College starts dictating personal choices about personal computers. And especially when it requires unsuspecting young people to buy into the Macintosh—a notoriously overpriced, overly cutesy, awkward, and soon-to-be-obsolete sacred cow of digital Political Correct- ness.

Why, in my day, computing at Dartmouth consisted of the College's mainframe—period. Computer use was required in a few courses, and encouraged in many others; but hardware purchases were strictly a matter of individual conscience. In fact, such purchases were virtually impossible.

Some cold winter mornings, we had to rise at the crack of dawn and cross-country ski ten miles through the blinding snow to get to Kiewit Computation Center. (Of course, that was only when we wanted to get some exercise, and started from a cabin ten miles from campus. But why let stray details mar a good story?) Once there, we could use any operating system we wanted, as long as it was the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System. And DTSS was neither user-friendly nor pretty—but it was good enough for us, and we didn't complain. It built character. Today, some of us have gone on to achieve modest success in high-technology fields.

Should today's Dartmouth students really be denied the self-esteem that comes from mastering a "C:>" prompt? Should our graduates be stigmatized in the workforce as "the Ivy Leaguers who only know how to use a single-button mouse"? Couldn't they at least be given the option to use Windows? I hear Harvard students are.

Dartmouth's watering-down of the digital canon is no mere academic concern. World domination is at stake.

MONTREAL, CANADA

Dartmouth students are required tobuy a computer.; not a Macintosh. Thenew rule allows students to use scholarshipand loan funds toward a computer TheMacintosh is the dominant machine oncampus; Dartmouth is the second-largestMac-using institution in the nation (nextto the University of Texas at Austin).Students who buy Macs gain access to freesoftware and on-campus expertise.

As refugees from the MS-DOSregime, the editors of this magazine findour self-esteem, such as it is, has been diminishednot a bit by its encounters withthe playful delights of the Macintosh.

Whether the Mac becomes extinctwould seem to be beyond even Mr. Katz'sprognosticative ken; see the story in thisissue on Lou Gerstner '63 and IBM.

Needed: Tune Carriers

lAM LOOKING FOR SOME SPECIAL Dartmouth alumnae: former a cappella singers. Please take pity on me and publish this letter.

We are forming a new women's a cappella singing group in the Philadelphia suburbs. The group will be small, secular, and fun. Our goal is local gigs and charity work. Anyone who wants more information can call me at (215) 657-5786.

If we accept a Dartmouth alum into the group, I promise a free a cappella concert at a (Philly area) Dartmouth admissions or alumni event.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA '83 HUNTINGTON VALLEY,