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Your Letters: Egypt; Gay Soldier's Husband

SCOTT SIMON, host:

Time for letters.

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SIMON: As part of our coverage of breaking events in Egypt last week, we asked Dr. J. Rufus Fears, a classics professor at the University of Oklahoma, if democracy is a universal human value.

Dr. J. RUFUS FEARS (Classics, University of Oklahoma): It is not a value in the Middle East, its not a value in the historical civilization of China, it is not a value in the historical civilization of India. It is developed in Greece and no people have ever had a true democracy who were not touched in some way by the genius of the Greeks.

SIMON: Many of our listeners disagreed.

Graham Craft of Portland, Oregon writes, I share his love for the classics and agree with him that they teach us that democracy and freedom are hardly universal values. But to jump from that to declare that the Middle East is probably not capable of democracy and that calls for it are generally a subterfuge for something else is jaw-droppingly bad logic. It is absurd to suggest that democracy is only possible for societies that spring from the ancients Greeks.

He's right that democracy in Egypt faces huge obstacles and the possibility of disaster is very real. But he would have done more justice to the topic if he had ended his commentary there and stuck to democracy's ancient roots rather than its prospects today.

And this email from Umar Ndanusa of Los Angeles: Now it is true that Muslim countries have not given freedom and democracy to their people. But his entire comment also ignored the fact that those dictators who are currently in power have been propped up by the West and they continue to oppress their citizens.

Last week, I mentioned that while 75 percent of Britons and 60 percent of Canadians hold passports, only about a third of Americans do, though I suggested a few good reasons why we travel overseas less.

Jeffrey Bendix of Cleveland Heights, Ohio suggested one more: lack of vacation time. For the vast majority of Americans, two weeks of vacation per year is standard and compared with twice or even three times that amount for Europeans. After subtracting at least a day for travel to and from a foreign destination, you're left with very little time for actual vacationing.

Our interview with Mark Ketterson, who asked the U.S. Naval Academy to inter the ashes of his husband, Marine aviator John "Rip" Fliszar, bought this response from Anthony Hatcher of Durham, North Carolina: The piece is remarkable in its unremarkableness. When Scott Simon interviewed Fliszar's husband, there was no sensationalism or unnecessarily soaring rhetoric. Instead, there was an honest, straightforward accounting of the professionalism and compassion of the Navy toward a mourning spouse.

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SIMON: We welcome your comments. Go to npr.org, click on the Contact Us Link. We're also on Facebook and Twitter at NPRWeekend. You can send me a tweet at nprscottsimon. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.