tractors exemplifies the type of toxic
relationship that Dwight Eisenhower
warned the American public about in
his Presidential farewell speech. The
only sure winners in arms races are
the corporations that supply the tools
of the trade.
Sid Olufs
Tacoma, Wash.
1
REMEMBERING “BAMBI”Kathryn Schulz’s essay about the dark-
ness of Felix Salten’s “Bambi” took
me back to my childhood, more than
seven decades ago (A Critic at Large,
January 24th). I still own my copy of
Whittaker Chambers’s translation of
the book, which was given to me at
Christmas in 1944. As an only child
and a keen reader, I must have read
it at least twenty times. How I cried
when the Old Stag told Bambi to
stop accompanying him because “in
the hour which I am approaching we
are all alone. Goodbye, my son. I loved
you dearly.” I had the sudden, terri-
fying epiphany that I, too, was des-
tined to die someday.
I also read Salten’s sequel, the com-
paratively optimistic “Bambi’s Chil-
dren” (1939). In that book, Man still
intrudes into the forest, and violence
between living creatures still occurs,
but the forest society is somewhat
more integrated. Bambi plays a role
in the upbringing of his two children,
and Faline, no longer Bambi’s faded
castoff, basks in her status as the
mate of the King of the Forest. As
the story closes, Faline sends away
her grown children, and she and
Bambi presumably begin producing
a new generation of fawns—close
enough to a happy ending.
Karen B. Evans
Gainesville, Fla.MURDER AND FORGIVENESS
As the director of Just Alternatives,
a nonprofit that supports survivors
of criminal violence and helps en-
able dialogues between victims and
offenders, I was inspired by Eren
Orbey’s piece about Katie Kitchen’s
forgiveness of Joseff Deon White, the
man convicted of murdering her fa-
ther (“Fault Lines,” January 24th). In
my twenty-one years of working with
survivors, I have found that most of
the ones who initiate victim-offender
dialogues (V.O.D.s), in the states that
allow them to do so, aren’t necessar-
ily looking to forgive. Rather, they are
often seeking to express some of the
anguish and trauma that they have
endured, and to ask questions that
only the offenders can answer. Those
of us who facilitate these dialogues
understand that we cannot compel
offenders to tell the whole story; ad-
mittedly, when they don’t, some of us
are left with the feeling that they don’t
“deserve” forgiveness. But, of course,
V.O.D.s aren’t for us—they’re for the
survivors. Although forgiveness may
seem like the highest ideal, V.O.D.s
are much more about giving survivors
a chance to work through, and to con-
vey to offenders, the impact of a crime.
Jon Wilson
Brooklin, Maine
1
A.I. IN THE COCKPIT
Sue Halpern, in her article on the use
of artificial intelligence in warplanes,
and the experiences of pilots in the
face of this evolving technology, of-
fers the best illustration that I have
encountered of the issues raised by
the militarization of A.I. (“Flying
Aces,” January 24th). As Halpern ob-
serves, there are individuals and groups
who wish to place limits on the mil-
itary applications of A.I., but the es-
sential problem—that most people in
this country accept arms races as in-
evitable—remains. The revolving door
between the Defense Department,
the armed services, and defense con-
•
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