Look at the letters to the editor below and see how they introduce the subject and give their opinion. Then write your own letter on one of these topics.

Older Japanese Set Terrible Example
I am a 37-year old Japanese who frequently reads your English-language daily while subscribing to the original Japanese one. I agree with your viewpoints on most social issues. However, allow me to object to City New Editor Takuo Kikuchi's article, "Shameless young Japanese imperil national morality" (Nov. 16, Page 16).

After giving a couple of examples, he say, "One wonders how low Japanese young people's morality is falling and to what extent they are losing their moral precepts."

Obviously, he is missing the fact that those shameless young people simply reflect their parents and elders.
Just think of those scandals in politics and business that your newspaper covers every day. Is it young people in their 20s or 30s who are involved in those shameless corruption cases?

Is it only young people who have bad manners in public, on the streets and roads, in commuter trains, at workplaces? I commute by train every day, and many of those who try to shove their wan in and out of the trains without saying anything are not young people.

Also, I don't understand why Kikuchi asks, "Will this generation be able to keep this country going as it should in the future?"

Give me a break.

Your generation has already put this country in trouble! What's this long-ailing economy? How did this happen? Who at the zenith of the bubble economy were absorbed in moneymaking while sacrificing their family lives? You must understand it is we young people who will pay the price for what your generation did, and by that time, you will be retired on a pension!

This is a free country and one can say anything to the extent that it does not interfere with the public welfare.
But I do not believe this article is logical enough to be placed on your Editorial/Analysis page.

Leo Saito, Sagamihara Daily Yomiuri November 23, 2002

A Real World Series

Major League Baseball has become much more exciting this year with the addition of some of the top Japanese players. Seeing so many great players from so many countries makes me feel it is time to have a true World Series where players would represent their home country, not their professional team. Soccer has had the World Cup for years. The World Ice Hockey Championships include teams from many countries. Having a tournament with teams from the United States, Japan, Cuba, Canada, Korea, the Dominican Republic, etc. would increase the world-wide appeal of baseball. Let’s do it!

The Cost of the Shizuoka Airport

The construction of the new Shizuoka Airport is continuing, but there are many questions about it that have not been answered. The survey of the airport’s economic feasibility was carried out 10 years ago, near the end of the bubble economy. Newspapers regularly report about regional airports losing money and having to cut landing fees to attract airlines. As a Shizuoka tax-payer, I am worried that the airport will cost us much money that could be better spent on education or care for the elderly. We need a new investigation of how much the airport will really cost.