LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Offering an Unqualified Opinion

To the Editor: I will be the first to admit that generalizations are annoying and inaccurate. However, you cannot simply dismiss something as a "farce" simply because you have no idea what you are talking about. In your piece, you comment heavily about how "Kids" was a film that "denies reality" I find this accusation particularly disturbing due to your admittance that you are "not a typical member of [your] generation" and that you hung out with the "good crowd" in your earlier years. I am not supporting the position of "Kids," but I am questioning the validity of your opinion. You wonder if Larry Clark "had really spent time with kids, or if he was simply putting his illusions onto the screen." I wonder if you have. The problem with your piece is not your position -- you have the right to have your own opinions. The problem is that you simply state that Larry Clark's position is completely invalid due to the fact that he has no idea what he is talking about. What, I ask, makes you such the expert on contemporary sociology? "The 'Kids' Myth" may in fact be as such, but your experiences and background do not lend you to be the judge. MARSHALL WIELAND College '97 n To the Editor: For a brief moment while reading Charles Ornstein's column ("The 'Kids' Myth," DP 9/11/95) about the movie "Kids," I thought he was going to make a valid point. He mentioned that he "wasn't a typical member" of his generation. Maybe, I thought, he recognizes that there are lots of kids out there who don't have it as easy as he does. To be fair, he took time out to explain to everyone that he "grew up in a middle-class family in a suburb" and "hung out with "the good crowd." He mentioned that he "had yet to come across youths" such as the ones in the movie. But he then went on to question whether the director had "really spent time with kids," which failed to make any sense at all. He seemed to be saying that because HE never knew kids like these, they must not exist. He might not be so flippant about their lives being "farce" or "fiction" if he had actually known one. Like him, I grew up in the suburbs and hung out with the good crowd. I probably wouldn't have believed that there are many kids out there who live like the characters in the film if I hadn't noticed that my sister had become one of them. Like him, I might have laughed the movie off and referred to Clark's portrayal of our generation as "a myth." Instead, it made me intensely upset to be reminded that other teenagers have gone through the same problems that she did. Most of them aren't able to get out of their lives, and one cause of that is because people like Mr. Ornstein, the people who think that they are above such urban lifestyles, don't want anything to do with them. Yes, Charles, you went so far as to declare yourself "a part of" a different generation than these kids. I wish I could explain to you that you aren't better than they are, that you should stop turning your back on the real world, and that you should open your eyes a little. Kids like these do exist, and in far greater numbers than you may think. You'll notice that unlike you, I don't need to know them all personally to know that they're out there. Kabir Akhtar College '96 Hold Us to a Higher Standard To the Editor: Having read your article, "Playboy stars sign mags," I was distressed by the fact that one of the stars was a medical student. Perhaps I am being old fashioned in believing the physicians must follow a higher ethical standard than other professionals, but I sincerely believe that the field of medicine is not comparable to other fields, such as law or business. I do not wish to arrogantly claim that the medical field is more noble than other fields; but rather, it involves issues that are, by nature, more profound (issues of life and death) and thus, require more responsibility on the part of the physician. Patients who come to a physician in a time of need must have full confidence in the integrity and maturity of that physician as a human being and a healer. Without this fundamental doctor-patient relationship, medicine becomes merely a business transaction. It is a cruel fact that admission into the medical field is determined by GPAs and test scores, while the the evaluation of character is entirely neglected. In these cynical times in which medicine is reduced to dollars and cents, in which the boundary between public propriety and impropriety has been blurred, and in which the prevailing philosophy is "I'll do my thing; you do yours. Don't bother me and I won't bother you." Perhaps I am being anachronistic in questioning the public conduct of a physician-to-be. Perhaps, society does not expect much from physicians anymore. They are just businessmen or businesswomen in long white coats. In past times, this type of conduct would have provoked an uproar from the university administration and calls for expulsion. In these relativistic, post-modern times, barely a whimper will be heard. Marcus Lien Fourth Year Medical student

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