‘Go East, Young Stars, Go East’

Much as I admire Fred Kirshnit’s customary acumen, I take issue with his statement that Sergiu Celibidache “pronounced the recorded experience ‘as exciting as looking at a picture of Brigette [sic for Brigitte] Bardo'” [Arts & Letters, “Go East, Young Stars, Go East,” January 8, 2007]. Actually, as Norman Lebrecht, music’s dishmeister, points out, it was Otto Klemperer who said, more aptly and wittily, “Listening to a recording is like going to bed with a photograph of Marilyn Monroe.”

JOHN SIMON
New York, N.Y.

‘Iran’s Secret Plan for Mayhem’

As your article reported, Iran has been doing a lot more than posing for the West and threatening to wipe Israel off the map’ [Foreign, “Iran’s Secret Plan for Mayhem: Captured Docuuments Show Scheme to Back Both Sides in Iraq,” January 3, 2006]. Beside the obvious race to enrich uranium, test missile guidance systems in its southern desert, allow Al Qaeda members to walk across its border from Afghanistan, and run and ruin Lebanon (to be built again in its own image) by proxy with Hezbollah, now they are fomenting civil war by whispering in both Sunni and Shiite ears. This fueling of the sectarian fire most likely began, now almost four years old, after the fall of Baghdad. Iran is waiting for the civil war to blow wide open and America to withdraw so that Iran can create that radical Islam land bridge from Teheran across Iraq and Syria to its new port on the Mediterranean Sea, Beirut. If people think Israel, or the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for that matter, is concerned with this possible scenario today, wait until Iran makes its first batch of nuclear weapons.

JAMES GRUNDVIG
New York, N.Y.

‘Health Scares Ahead’

In her oped [“Health Scares Ahead,” January 3, 2007], Elizabeth Whelan, cofounder and president of the American Council on Science and Health, lambastes public-health “advocates” for dedicating their careers to protecting consumers from serious health hazards posed by unsafe foods.

New York City’s recent ban on trans-fatty acids provided the impetus for her attack. Trans fats, or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, are found in numerous commercial snacks and crackers, and are the bedrock of the fast food industry. Recent science implicates trans fats as a cause for weight gain, atherosclerosis and insulin resistance. Public health researchers began sounding the alarm in the 1990s, providing the food industry with ample time to change.

JACQUELINE OSTFELD
Food & Drug Safety Associate
Government Accountability Project
Washington, D.C.

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