  It is shown that the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator with damping, considered by
Nesterenko, is a special case of a more general oscillator that has not only a
first order, but also a third order friction term. If the corresponding damping
constants, \alpha\ and \beta, are both positive and below certain critical
values, then the system is stable. In particular, if \alpha = - \beta, then we
have the unstable Nesterenko's oscillator
