Hollings’ Joke

In response to your editorial “That’s No Joke,” March 5:

You are right to chastise Hollings for his joking reference to the incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But do you really believe that the Speaker of the lower house of Japan’s Parliament was wrong when he called American workers lazy and stupid?

By all objective measures, Japanese workers work longer hours and are better educated than their American counterparts. This observation has nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture. As a newly minted product of our educational system, it is clear to me that American culture undervalues hard work and intellectual pursuits. The last 16 years of my life have been spent in classrooms where students have been taught by their peers that it is cool to be lazy and ignorant. This lesson, at least, seems to have been well-learned.

DAVID MANCUSO, Anaheim