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Bravo, Marc Leepson! It's about time the word got out about the travesty orchestrated by Robert McNamara ('McNamara and Me,' December) and his Camelot cronies blindly serving John F. Kennedy [...]

In Guinaang Bontok, there is a phonological contrast between singletons and geminates in all consonants (/p t k ? b d g m n ŋ l s w j/) (Reid 1963, 1973; Thurgood 1997). All phonological geminates except for the oral voiced stop geminates are phonetically long consonants (Reid 1963), allowing a phonological distinction which is primarily based on phonetic duration for nasals, fricatives, liquids, glides and voiceless stops. In a cross-linguistic examination of geminates (Thurgood 1993), there were more languages listed as examples for having stop and nasal geminates than for glide geminates, and it was suggested that alveolar was the cross-linguistically preferred place of articulation for geminate consonants. In this study, it was hypothesized that the cross-linguistically less common length contrasts, such as the length contrasts in glides, were phonetically less clear than the more common ones, such as contrasts between short and long stop and nasal consonants. Similarly, it was hypothesized that contrasts in the cross-linguistically common place of articulation (i.e. alveolar) is phonetically clearer than less common contrasts (e.g. velar). In order to test these hypotheses, duration measurements were conducted on single and geminate consonants in Guinaang Bontok. The average durational contrast between short and long glides was smaller than the contrast in stop and nasal consonants. The hypothesis was therefore partially supported.

A 54-year-old white man with chronic renal failure developed toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) due to an infection by Staphylococcus aureus of phage type 2. Analysis of host defenses in this patient revealed normal humoral immunity and neutrophil functions, but a deficiency in cell-mediated immunity. This deficit was characterized by negative delayed skin tests, no sensitization to 2,4-dinitrochlorobenzene, no phytohemagglutinin stimulation of peripheral lymphocytes, and inability of the patient's lymphocytes to release macrophage aggregation factor. This deficiency may have contributed to the development of the syndrome. It should be recognized that TEN may occur in an adult secondary to staphylococcal infections and that therapy with a penicillinase-resistant penicillin is needed.

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to the articles in the October 2009 issue including "Ripley's Believe It or Not!," "The Madness of Mini Tet," and "Weapons of Mass Persuasion."

The article relates several ideas of Americans on the news coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Robert E. West stated that there are some who support wars and some are against. Ed Parr asserted that the news media hates U.S. President George W. Bush and all the news features the negative effects of wars. Dennis M. Harvey said that the media is so slanted in which it only present half of the story.

TO THE EDITOR.— Bushkell et al1 have reported important immunofluorescent findings in a case of herpes gestationis that confirm and extend the observation by Provost and Tomasi2 that there is a deposition of complement components and immunoglobulins along the basement membrane in these patients. We have recently cared for a patient with herpes gestationis in whom immunofluorescence studies established the diagnosis in the prebullous phase of the disease. REPORT OF A CASE.— A 26-year-old woman developed a pruritic nodule near the umbilicus at 28 weeks gestation of her fourth pregnancy. The nodule enlarged during a period of days to form an annular lesion 6 cm in diameter that encircled the umbilicus. Other nodular and annular lesions consisting of red urticarial rings with caféau-lait-colored centers arose elsewhere on the trunk, and a diffuse red induration appeared on the palms and soles. Studies for fungal and internal disease were negative,

TO THE EDITOR.— We thank Dr. Elias for his timely comments. We agree that in our case it is difficult to define whether deficient cell-mediated immunity or the metabolic disturbances of uremia were responsible for the development of the staphylococcal scalded skin syndrome (SSSS). However, the suggestion that normal adults may develop SSSS is open to question. In the case reported by Rothenberg et al1 and quoted by Dr. Elias, the evidence for normal immunity is scant. Their 64-year-old patient had staphylococcal septicemia, was a chronic alcoholic, had hypoalbuminemia, had treated advanced syphilis, and an atonic bladder, with chronic urinary tract infections. Furthermore, Rothenberg et al did not investigate cell-mediated immunity beyond performing a single skin test. It is difficult to classify their patient as a "normal" adult.Although uremia had been present in both our patient and the first adult in the case reported by Levine and Norden,