Letters 
major physical correlate. These F0 states or contours are relative in height within the vocal range of the speaker.That is, the child learning to talk in such a community does not have an absolute standard of pitch contours as a model. Rather, he or she, with a very small larynx and thus a high-pitched vocal range, must respond to the tones of adult caregivers as well as those of older children. The child must learn to normalize across these stimuli that vary greatly in absolute ranges of F0 but are nevertheless very much the same in contour shape and relative position within the voice range of each speaker. 
Arthur S. Abramson ’60GSAS 
Mans.eld, CT 

One Man’s Fascist . . . 
I don’t know where Michael L. Shepherd gets the idea that France is being “politico­colonized by Islamic Fascism” (Letters to the Editor, Fall 2007), but I’ve been living in France since 2002, and I can tell him that his assertion is, well, complètement folle. 
The vast majority of the French are as committed to freedom and democracy as the vast majority of Americans are, and are about as likely to succumb to “Islamic Fascism” (whatever the term really means) as we Americans are. If I were Shepherd, I’d worry instead about the rise of Christian fundamentalism in our own country. Now there’s a real, as opposed to imaginary, threat to our polity. 
Stan Augarten ’77GSAS 
Paris, France 
I don’t really care which term is used to label Islamic jihadists, but I found surpris­ingly weak Robert O. Paxton’s statement that they don’t qualify as fascists because “they are not reacting against a failed dem­ocratic experiment” and “they are not coming to the rescue of any one particular nation state.” Even the Nazis, our quintes­sential fascists, claimed to be rescuing not just the nation state of Germany, but all the German Volk, wherever they happened to live (Austria, Sudetenland, Poland). 
As for not reacting to a democratic experiment, doesn’t it make more sense to describe a political movement by its ideol­ogy and actions rather than by the regime that happens to precede it? If we eliminate these two questionable requirements, Paxton’s own de.nition of fascism seems to apply perfectly to Islamic jihadists. 

Peter C. Moss ’63GSAS 
Cos Cob, CT 

Aren’t They the Competition? 
Was it just me or did anyone else notice the advertisement for Brown University’s master of public health program on page 52 of the Fall issue of Columbia? That would be ironic, considering Columbia has its own world-class Mailman School of Public Health. 
Andrew J. Chen ’98MSPH, ’02BUS 
Old Bridge, NJ 
We would be just as happy to run an ad from Mailman, which is indeed an excellent school. 
— Ed.