Reply All | Letters: The 10.27.13 Issue

China's chesty claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea islands follows the example of the United States in annexing Hawaii, seizing the Philippines and Puerto Rico from Spain, maintaining a naval base at Guantánamo Bay and constructing the Panama Canal. As regards the latter, Attorney General Philander Knox reportedly told President Theodore Roosevelt, "Oh, Mr. President, do not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality." Can the United States lecture China about international law with any credibility? BRUCE FEIN, Washington

Scroll down the page on "A Game of Shark and Minnow," Jeff Himmelman's New York Times Magazine story about a disputed region in the South China Sea, and you may notice something the story doesn't ask you to do: Stop. . . . On a desktop screen, the "camera" rises from an aerial view of the region to a wider map that shows contested boundaries. Water burbles peacefully on either side of a rusting, grounded ship that Filipino troops occupy, trying to keep an eye on Chinese activity. Rain from a storm pours through the ship's decks into the interior, where a rooster tries to keep dry. . . . If "Shark and Minnow" represents a step forward, it's in its use of scrolling imagery. Readers never have to adjust their behavior to read it. ANDREW BEAUJON, on poynter.org HEROES OF THE UNDERGROUND

It's nice to see a story about government workers as heroes. I especially liked the part about "institutional memory." Older workers have more information at their fingertips and in their brains than any set of documents and three-ring binders could provide less-experienced and lower-paid workers in a week. Perhaps corporate America could take a lesson? RICK STARR, Knoxville, posted on nytimes.com

It is worth pointing out that the effects of a Sandy-like storm were well known beforehand, as documented in the ClimAID study written for the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency, of which I was an author. It was eerily accurate, except for two important differences: 1) The Harlem River tunnels didn't flood because of the heroic efforts by the M.T.A. to dam the tunnel entrance, so well described in the article; and 2) the ClimAID study overestimated the subway-system recovery period by more than a week, because of the decision by the M.T.A. to remove the electric signals in those tunnels that were expected to flood, thus preventing saltwater damage. Congrats to the M.T.A. for this preventive action. It has been underreported. KLAUS JACOB, Special Research Scientist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, N.Y.

THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT BEING ERNEST

While reading the article on Mariel Hemingway, the term "orthorexia" came to mind — an obsessive fixation on eating "right" (however a person defines that) to the point that food is as much a focus of life as it is for anorexics and bulimics. You run into a lot of orthorexics (to one degree or another) in California. In Hemingway's case, it seems like a healthy version of the same compulsions that have driven others in her family in destructive directions. On a certain level, compulsion is compulsion, no matter its object. NELLE ENGORON, Oakland, Calif., posted on nytimes.com

I AM WOMAN, WATCH ME HACK

I began playing around with HTML in high school in the early 2000s. I met other girls online, many of them drawn to the artistry that came along with building websites: making images, designing layouts, tackling problems. But there was a social component as well. We had webrings (if anyone can even remember those), and one girl was nice enough to give me space on her domain. I began toying around with JavaScript, too. Flash forward to my freshman year, when I declared computer science as a major. I was one of maybe three girls. I felt completely out of place. But I stuck with it, and I'm glad. I graduated in 2008, when the recession hit, but still had jobs thrown at me. This is one of the best fields for a woman. DAWN HAMMOND, Austin, Tex., posted on nytimes.com

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