Reply All | Letters: The 9.8.13 Issue

In the mid-'60s, I owned a Top 40 AM radio station in Cleveland (WIXY 1260 — it rhymes!). Our very livelihood depended on playing the "most popular" songs of the day. Early on, we decided that as data sets, lists of songs in Billboard were unreliable and listener requests were unwieldy. We concentrated instead on actual record sales and sustained our popularity with listeners for many years. It was a simpler time. As Adam Sternbergh points out, thanks to today's ubiquitous media choices, rather than sharing our experiences, we are all relegated to "our own individual cocoon." NORMAN WAIN, Lyndhurst, Ohio

The Times can't believe that a show about rural America and hunting ("Duck Dynasty") can be more popular than one about sophisticated Manhattanites ("Mad Men")? Your biases are amazing, to the point that you have to toss "Mad Men" a crumb: "Yet by a different definition — the extent to which, say, a show saturates the cultural conversation." O.K. "Cultural conversation" that occurs in . . . Manhattan. I think that you folks need to get out more. MICHAEL JAMES COBB, Myakka City, Fla., posted on nytimes.com

This is not a new phenomenon — not every artist, author or musician through the ages was wildly popular in their day. Van Gogh would have been highly tweeted — think of that ear — but he was not a financial success until after his death. DAVID SABLE, Global C.E.O., Y&R, posted on huffingtonpost.com

THE GLOBAL ELITE'S FAVORITE STRONGMAN

Jeffrey Gettleman describes Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, as "authoritarian" and "repressive." But as someone who has studied collective trauma in Rwanda, I believe that Kagame's policies are a psychologically valid response to the challenge of rebuilding the social fabric of Rwanda post-genocide. It is a basic principle of trauma psychology that for people to deal with past events, they must feel safe in the present. Kagame's social policies have created a sense of security that will make it possible for Rwanda to move forward. CARL AUERBACH, Professor, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University, New York

For those of us who live in Rwanda, it is puzzling to see others call Kagame a dictator. How does an oppressive regime lift more than one million people out of poverty in less than five years? How does Kagame ensure universal health insurance and primary education, make the country one of the safest and cleanest in the world, create one of the most business-friendly environments on the continent and enable an average G.D.P. growth of 8 percent for the past five years? PAUL KAYOBOKE, Kigali, Rwanda, posted on nytimes.com

In Rwanda, I asked my guide what he thought of the fact that there is no freedom of speech in the country, according to some journalists, and he said: "People assume because conversations don't happen in English, they are not happening. Listen to radio in Kinyarwanda, and you know we are having tough discussions. Bazungu" — white people — "make a lot of assumptions." LEXA D. NGIRA, Toronto, posted on nytimes.com

Despite a few caveats, this was quite a paean to a sociopath commanding an army that invaded neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo in 1996, starting years of war and conflict in which millions of people died. Western leaders talk about stopping the next Rwanda in Syria, but what about stopping the Rwanda in Congo? It's difficult for Kagame to credibly negotiate for territory within the boundaries of Congo. Hence his army's cooperation with the rebel group M23, which, as Gettleman writes, "has murdered civilians and gang-raped women, wreaking destruction on a swath of the eastern part of that country." ANN GARRISON, Oakland, posted on nytimes.com

THE STEELY, HEADLESS KING OF TEXAS HOLD 'EM

I can't get over the feeling that the poker-playing machine deals cards and every once in a while peeks and cheats. As a programmer, I know how easy it would be to bury that code in its system. DOUG DINGLE, Los Angeles, posted on nytimes.com

A man writes an angry e-mail to his wife, regrets it and deletes the e-mail when he happens to find her in-box open on their shared computer. The Ethicist, Chuck Klosterman, wrote that this was unethical.

Readers argued:

54% — It's O.K. to delete an angry e-mail if you have the means to.

26% — It's not O.K. since he violated her privacy.

6% — It's O.K., but he should tell her what he did.

14% — He should ask her to delete it.

E-mail letters to magazine@nytimes.com or post comments at nytimes.com/magazine. Letters should include the writer's name, address and daytime telephone number. We are unable to acknowledge or return unpublished submissions. Letters and comments are edited for length and clarity. The address of The New York Times Magazine is 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018.

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