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Tim Gunn’s superior taste

I agree that Tim Gunn is the “deeply ethical presence” on “Project Runway” [“One ‘Runway’ Full of Catfights,” Sept. 26], a show where the judges seem to have left the building when it comes to fashion, taste, skills and design innovation. Each week we see poor work rewarded and excellent work criticized and sent home. Tim Gunn is the voice of reason on a show gone mad.

Please, Tim Gunn, start your own “Project Gunnway” show!

Sonya Maria Sargent

Los Angeles

Temperament matters too

Graham Fuller suggests that Islam is a distraction that is best ignored to better understand problems in the Muslim world [“Divisions That Have Little to Do With God,” Sept. 26]. How very true that Islam is not a root cause. However, if you read the Koran and compare it with the basic texts of other religions, you can see that Islamic teachings encourage conflict with an intensity not seen elsewhere.

And for root cause you must assess, along with the interventions of foreigners, the average temperament of the people (particularly men) in a society. There are clearly differences in temperament from regions around the globe. Temperaments find expression in such traits as compassion or lack thereof, tribalism, obsession with religion, and attitudes toward women. Unfortunately temperament is a matter of heredity and cannot be changed.

Sergei Heurlin

Culver City

Another attack on unions

Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim [“Warming Up to U.S. Education Reform,” Sept. 19] wants to improve public education in this country by turning to charter schools and undermining the teachers’ unions. Apparently not a word about the primary source of school differences: enormous differences in wealth, unemployment, drugs and violence.

Aside from the fact that many charter schools perform poorly, the salient point is that Guggenheim expresses a zeitgeist that enshrines unfettered corporate domination in a society where the rich get richer and the middle and lower classes get poorer.

The top income tax brackets have gone from the 90% plus in the 1950s to the current 35%. Corporate income taxes as a percent of the national tax burden plunged from 28% in the 1950s to 7%. The ratio of CEO pay to worker pay jumped from 42:1 in 1960 to 344:1 in 2007. Facilitating this momentous transfer of power and wealth was the precipitous drop in union membership from over 30% in 1960 to 12.3% in 2009. The data help explain Guggenheim’s willingness to scuttle one of the few areas left of union strength, public education.

Roger Carasso

Los Angeles