Fast Food for Peace

Blessings on Joan Kroc for putting up the money to get Dr. Helen Caldicott’s latest alarm on the nuclear arms race into the hands of 500,000 people in important positions around the country (“On the Circuit” by Marylouise Oates, May 3).

This act, along with her many other good works, makes it obvious that Kroc’s wealth has not immunized her from being aware of the illnesses that afflict our world and from doing something to overcome the.

If this is all part of what comes from the billions of Big Macs that McDonald’s has dished out through the years, I guess I’ll have to discard my disdain for fast food and join the crowd.

ED MITCHELL

Eagle Rock

Apple for the New Yorker

Re your well-documented comments on the takeover of the New Yorker (“Inside the New Yorker: Fear and Trembling” by Elizabeth Mehren, March 27): It appears we extol excellence in our society but often, when we encounter true excellence (a reputation few would deny in full measure to the New Yorker), we pick at it, denigrate it, undervalue it or underestimate it.

This applies to our national views on the arts in general, education, etc. Let us value the 60 years of superb journalism and praise the sincerity, seriousness and nurturing of its two splendid editors.

These men have thoroughly conquered “the little old lady from Dubuque” and turned her and her kind, as well as those thousands to whom the magazine directed its productions, into avid, devoted readers.

Let us all move over and praise famous editors, and writers and articles and printers and the circulation department and the advertisers and all those responsible for 60 years of consistent progress.

MRS. DOROTHY Y. KRISE

Laguna Hills

Steve Makes Her Day

After scanning the articles in the May 7 Times about murderers, rapists, thieves and crooked politicians, what a treat to find the article on

Dr. Steve Bernocco (“Another Nice Day: Just What Doctor Ordered” by Dick Roraback).

I wouldn’t trade one day of his life for the entire life spans of the villains who fill the newspapers. Thanks for telling his story.

JOHN DEGATINA

Studio City

Health Consumerism

Re “Soviets Wary of Aerobics Buildup” (by Garry Abrams, April 30), Yuri P. Lisitsyn may be correct--what other animal on the planet endures regimented exercise for physical and psychological well-being?

Until children go to school and are mandated to participate in regimented exercise programs, the natural joy for play is uninhibited. But, starting from the regimented schoolyard exercise, come commercials-hyped “junk food” diets plus the sports craze of heroes and now the sell-a-book, tape, etc., exercise fads.

When we attempt, in our health-degrading life style, to maintain the physical fitness of a cycling Chinese citizen or a migrant worker by the varied commercial-regimented (exercise) and diet charades, the (result is) physical and psychological wreckage.

Maintaining the good health of our once agrarian society in a high-tech age with credit-card gadgetry defies reality.

CHARLES THOMPSON

La Habra

A Prosthetist ‘Genius’

Luis Hernandez (“A Commencement for Luis Hernandez” by Mary Ann Callan, April 30) and others interested in prosthetics might like to read a splendid book, “Whole Again” by Lee Whipple (Ottawa, Ill, Caroline House, 1980).

“Whole Again” is the true account of two men: a millionaire developer, Bill Barr, who lived in constant pain for 10 years before finding a competent prosthetist after losing a leg in an explosion, and Jan Stokosa, the genius prosthetist whom he finally found.

In gratitude, Barr established, with Stokosa at its head, the Institute for the Advancement of Prosthetics, 4424 S. Pennsylvania Ave., Lansing, Mich. 48910-5695.

Along with the stories of these two men, the book gives a fine analysis of modern prosthetics.

If one writes to Stokosa, as I did, he will recommend the competent prosthetists in one’s own area.

A good attitude, institutional support, a fine doctor, love of family and friends are all essential in recovering from a traumatic limb injury. However, there must be one additional factor: a competent prosthetist whose skills mean all the difference between joyous living and daily misery.

RUTH E. STOUT

Los Angeles