0.cached.png
By Newsweek Editors
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Readers pondered the idea of stress as beneficial to our well-being, the subject of a Feb. 23 article, but most weren't buying it. A busy college student doubted that stress is "really worth the slim margin of benefits." Another reader saw it as something we all "need to avoid … to live long and stay healthy."
An Upside to Stress?
I am stunned and dismayed that you would suggest that somehow stress is good for us ("Who Says Stress Is Bad for You?" Feb. 23). The United States is facing a period of massive layoffs, home foreclosures and record deficits. Many of our citizens lack health insurance, and people's loved ones are getting killed overseas in two wars. In light of these circumstances, it seems, at best, highly insensitive for NEWS-WEEK to suggest that stress is a positive thing. Your story might as well have been entitled "America: A Nation of Whiners!" or "Suck It Up: Things Aren't Really So Bad."
Mary Bloser
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Good stress and bad stress certainly do exist. Good stress has motivated me to solve innumerable problems by putting together disparate ideas to form acceptable solutions. I love to "clean up messes" and find alternative solutions of every sort. On the other hand, bad stress descends when every conceivable alternative has been explored, but there is no acceptable solution. That's when bad stress causes health problems. I've lived happily through much good stress that gave me scads of opportunities to be challenged to find acceptable solutions, but a couple of bad stress situations have resulted in medical problems.
Eloise M. Stendal
Burlington, Washington
Read More on News
When I retired eight years ago, a friend warned me to look out for the first three years of retirement. He had needed a major operation each year of his first three years of retirement. I talked with others who had had similar experiences, although not quite as extreme, and approached my early years of retirement with trepidation. Turns out I didn't do too badly. In light of Mary Carmichael's article on stress, I am thinking that beginning my practice of tai chi five years before retirement may have turned me into a Zen baboon.
Dick Walton
Montpelier, Vermont
Herbert Benson, one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of stress, described it simply as "the wear and tear on our system." Yes, of course, stress does have its positive side, as your writers so cogently argue. But to the extent that our stress results either from overly exerting ourselves or not exerting ourselves enough, I think it can safely be pronounced a bad thing—something that all of us need to avoid if we are to live long and stay healthy.
Leon F. Seltzer
Del Mar, California
Your article tries to convince us that stress might actually be good for human health, but the fact that baboons are the primates being studied makes me question its validity. If Robert Sapolsky is suggesting that I process stress like the "minimalist Zen master" baboons he studies, then he is completely out of touch with human life. Whenever am I going to have the option to lounge around in a tree thinking about where my next meal is going to come from like these baboons do? That just doesn't seem like the equivalent of stress that a young college student with a full academic load and a full-time job would have. Yes, stress gets our heart racing and may sharpen our performance, but is all the stress really worth the slim margin of benefits, like a short burst of energy?
Jessica Suess
Via internet
Israel's Arab Minority
Fareed Zakaria is right in insisting that one of the biggest dangers to the state of Israel is its burgeoning Arab population, which has increased more than eightfold since 1948 ("Israel's Biggest Danger," Feb. 23). With questionable loyalty amounting in some cases to treason, they are a threat to the very existence of Israel, as they have supported Hizbullah, Hamas and even the intifadas. While the remarks of Avigdor Lieberman, head of Yisrael Beytenu, which garnered 15 Knesset seats in the recent election, may be considered to be discriminatory, the Arabs who profess no loyalty to Israel should be asked either to leave or else to stay on with permanent visas, but not as citizens. Apparently economic well-being compared with that of their fellow Arabs on the West Bank has made staying preferable to joining them.
Nelson Marans
Silver Spring, Maryland
One of the principal reasons many Israelis are drawn to Avigdor Lieberman is due to the fact that a large number of Israeli Arabs openly displayed their support for Hamas during the recent conflict. This is treason, plain and simple. When your own citizens support the enemy, they are traitors and should be stripped of their citizenship. In this case, I agree with Lieberman. Muslims who live in a country where they are a minority—whether they are citizens or not—are often not loyal to that country. The train bombings in the U.K. were committed by Muslim citizens; the movie director who was stabbed to death in the Netherlands was murdered by a Dutch Muslim. By and large, Muslims around the world are getting radicalized. Moderate Muslims must speak out against this.
Gautam Se
Via internet
Revisiting an Old Peace Proposal
"Revive the Saudi peace plan" (feb. 16) by Abdul Rahman H. Al-Saeed is a clear attempt to mislead your readers. The so-called Arab Peace Initiative was presented at first by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in a way that could have led to peace. But the more radical Arab states, which reject any attempt that might lead to peace, insisted on the inclusion of a demand for the full return of the Arab refugees, and that the plan was nonnegotiable, thus in effect turning it into a dictate. They knew very well that the idea of flooding Israel with millions of Arab refugees, who have been brainwashed for more than 60 years to hate Israel and Jews and for whom killing and harming Israelis is an article of faith, could not be acceptable to Israelis. This turned a peace proposal into a propaganda item to confuse the ignorant. As usual in Arab conferences, the extreme views won, and the "Saudi peace plan" that Al-Saeed extols remains another piece of Arab propaganda.
Rafael Ruppin
Michmoret, Israel
Penmanship: So Last Century
I must take issue with Jessica Bennett's view on penmanship and the written word ("The Curse of Cursive," Feb. 23). From the time my children were in elementary school, very little time was spent on learning to write legibly and a great deal of time was spent on "keyboarding." As a result, my son's handwriting is abominable. I realize times have changed as computer technology has overtaken our lives, and I e-mail and text-message like everyone else. However, nothing thrills me like receiving a handwritten letter or thank-you note in my mailbox. It means that someone thought enough of me to put pen to paper and take time out of their busy life to communicate. These are things I can tuck away and reread years from now, long after the writer has passed away. While helping my mother move, I found scores of missives my grandmother had written to her while my dad and she were living 2,000 miles from home. It was like a morsel of living history as I ran my fingers over the words she had so thoughtfully penned; a piece of herself, lovingly crafted. Hard drives crash, old computers become obsolete, cell phones get thrown away as newer, more tech-savvy ones are acquired, and then the messages on the old equipment are lost forever. Take the time and effort to learn to write legibly. Your great-grandchildren may find a wonderful segment of yourself, forever preserved for future generations.
Leslie Coles Heironimus
Morgantown, West Virginia
Jessica Bennett says that "penmanship represents a simpler, prettier way of life—slower ..." It may be slower than typing, but cursive handwriting is actually much faster than block print (with its unconnected letters). And that's why I still compose my many unpublished letters to NEWSWEEK in handwritten cursive—before I use a keyboard to e-mail them to you.
Richard Siegelman
Plainview, New York
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines