Letters to the Editor Good, but one-sided
Congratulations on the production of a truly wonderful resource; I visit regularly, and will continue to do so as long as you're publishing. That said, I would like to suggest -- with the greatest humility possible -- that at this early stage in the life of the publication, you might perhaps directly consider whether or not SALON is regularly to be as overtly and one-sidedly political as Issue #5 is. Again, I make this suggestion with all the humility I can muster; it's your publication, it's a fine publication, and I will continue to read it even if every issue opens with a cartoon of Newt Gingrich in a guillotine (you see what I mean by "overt") -- good reading is after all good reading, whether or not one shares the author's worldview. I simply query whether your vision of SALON deliberately resembles Mother Jones more than the New York Review of Books.
Tim McCarthy
Liberal Hypocrisy
Andrew Ross' arch smear of William Safire is an example of the worst kind of liberal hypocrisy. Safire backed up his use of "congenital liar" with explicit examples. If Ross doesn't like that, it is on him to address and refute Safire's examples with evidence. Instead he resorts to a near-McCarthyite change of subject cum personal attack.
A cheap ad hominem attack gussied up in smooth prose, without a single attempt to address the substance of Mr. Safire's examples of Mrs. Clinton's alleged lies, is not what we expect of SALON.
Did Mr. Ross' teachers tell him nothing about journalistic ethics when they were instructing him on the finer points of writing? And where were the editors when Ross submitted this cheap appeal to the mob? Perhaps Ross thinks his attempt to ape Safire's wisdom about language is cute, but in my view he's not fit to dangle one of Safire's participles.
David Sternlight
Los Angeles
A True Wizard
I cannot comment on Scott Rosenberg's review of the three recent Mitnick books: I am saving them for my next transcontinental flight. But I find his review suspect based on a single line: "Mitnick is no demon; Shimomura is no wizard."
I have no comment on Mitnick, but I can assure you that Tsutomu definitely rates the label "wizard." I have worked with him several times dating back to the Dutch hacking incidents in 1991, and some of his work has astonished me.
He has done interesting work on cellular phone security. He's worked on some physical attacks on smart cards.
He's developed a nice wiretap session playback tool, which he is using on his current road show. We used an early version in the Berferd incident. He was an early collector of root file handles.
In this incident, he recovered 14 megabytes of packet trace logs of the first known Internet TCP spoofing attack. The attacker had deleted these logs: Tsutomu recovered them from a Unix file system free block pool using autocorrelation techniques. Most people would have no idea that such an attack had ever occurred.
He has definitely earned the "wizard" label in my book.
Bill Cheswick
Bell Laboratories
"Exhale" is Art, Not Op-ed
The tactic of using a film to attack a social issue is ludicrous. Ms. Walsh's defense is that "Waiting to Exhale" is dispensing and popularizing untruth. One would no more evaluate an opera on its relevance to veracity than to expect a symphony to portray politically correct responses. A film is an art form, not an "op-ed" column.
Gloria Stern
Newt, Con and Pro
Thanks for < href="/13jan1996/features/frontline.html">Gary Kamiya's article on the Speaker of the House. Those of us who live outside the Beltway have been sorely troubled by the apparent descent of statesmanship and civility in our nation's capitol.
Add to that mix a moral chameleon who brandishes his psychological scars like so much Nike sportsgear and the result once again proves that no one political party can legitimately carry the banner of leadership.
If Newt Gingrich is to serve this nation, it is as a poster child for the debilitating effects of Washington's power-myopia-amorality. Let us rid ourselves of this brat.
Mark Cianca
Santa Cruz, CA
The thinly veiled attack on Gingrich by Gary Kamiya gives yet another opportunity to the rest of us to see the media monopoly for what it is.
"Most Americans do not like Newt Gingrich" should read "Most Americans do not like the picture the Media paints of Newt Gingrich." (Now, can most Americans tell the difference between the two pictures? Check back Nov.7, 1996 -- you know where my vote is.)
"A Time/CNN [monopoly indicator much?] poll taken in December 1995 found that only 24% [of what? cows? journalists? punk rockers? what? huhhhh?] had a favorable impression of the Speaker of the House compared with 61% for President Clinton [Odd -- the first media president in 15 years and the media still gives him only a 61% favorable rating] and just 9% would like to see him become president [9% of the media still remembers Reagan. Amazing, I could have sworn the media forgot]. A remarkable 49% [of the media] found him "scary." [ Undoubtedly, dismantling and reengineering the journalists fodder will be "scary" to those who will have little to write about, when the return to morality and decency the Republican Contract with America provides sufficient self esteem for the "trodden masses" to go back to productive work.]
You guys are doin' great work...keep it up. By November, 49% of us will find you "scary" and only 9% will vote "your" way...and Clinton will deep "6" himself.
Bruce Tadd
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