Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________ RICH PICKINGS, SOUR GRAPES BY LINDA TISCHLER (06/19/98)

It's a good thing this article didn't go under Mothers Who Think, because smug Linda Tischler isn't thinking too clearly. After joining the management consulting firm, her daughter can expect 70-plus-hour work weeks. Even excluding the four weeks vacation time, that comes out to $13 per hour. After Ivy League college and hard work, is $13 an hour really such an earth-shattering amount? The poor girl will not be jetting off to Vail for the weekend with her miles, she'll be in the office, or at home doing laundry, or calling friends not seen during the week. Is this a revelation?
Will Tischler's generation ever get over itself? Young graduates who work long hours with constant travel may well burn out on the "corporate politicking and stress" -- is the giving up of personal life not a hard-luck story in itself? How can it be that the 40-year-old boomer who can't watch his son's ballgame can endlessly rail against corporate cruelty, but the 22-year-old working the same hours for half has a "friction-free ascent into middle-class" and will soon be ordering the homeless to get a job?
It is true that Tischler's daughter and her friends will eventually learn hard economic lessons. Why put them down with smugness now?
-- R. Caccia
I read the article by Linda Tischler on her daughter's excellent job offers, and found myself saying, "Yes!" repeatedly. I work in the library of a university business school, helping grad and undergrad students do their research. Our students are graduating at 21 with little work experience or, if their parents are rich enough, no work experience. They're promptly landing jobs in the $40K-50K range.
They're pleasant, personable and reasonably willing to work, but they often don't know much. My university is large, private and very expensive, but not all that difficult. Students can and do "coast" through.
Why is their good fortune a problem? Ms. Tischler is worried about the psychological effects of getting too much too soon, and worried about how this generation of kids will react if the market takes a dive and they wind up unemployed. I'm more worried about the people these young managers are going to be managing.
A lot of these graduates will never hold a working-class job, will never have to actually live on minimum wage or anything close to it. It will be hard for them not to take their perks and privileges for granted. It will be hard for them to see things from the perspective of their lower-wage employees. They don't know how the other half lives, but they'll have power over that other half's livelihood. They'll have to decide whether to offer that 50-cent per hour raise, whether to subsidize day care and how much worker safety is enough. Speaking as a member of the second group, I say, "Yikes!" If you choose to publish this, please do not include my name, institution name or e-mail address.
-- Anonymous
Just a small comment about Linda Tischler's envy over her daughter's $44K salary (and her daughter's boyfriend's $50K salary).
Have you ever tried finding an apartment in Silicon Valley for less than $1,000 per month? Ever tried buying a house up there? I wouldn't take a $50K yearly salary if I had to live there. Are you sure you know just how far $44K or even $50K can go in that environment?
I make twice what my dad made when he was my age. But he could buy a house with it, at 10 years younger than I am right now. I'm still living in an apartment, and likely will be for some time to come. He could buy a car. I still use his old one, with 137,000 miles on it. Homeownership is a distant joke.
No need to feel envious there. Your daughter's boyfriend is probably ticked at accepting $50K because he's living in a ratty studio apartment instead of a ratty one-bedroom apartment. And four weeks of vacation doesn't mean much if you're looked at askance for taking time off at all. Ask your daughter in a year if she took all of that time off.
-- Janis Cortese
_______________ L.A.'S BATTLE OF THE BOOKS BY DWIGHT GARNER (06/18/98)

It was with deep disappointment and increasing anger that I read Dwight Garner's "hit" piece on Steve Wasserman, the book editor of the Los Angeles Times. As a longtime reader of the Los Angeles Times and its book review section, I think that Wasserman has done a fantastic job of elevating the publishing, journalistic and literary standards of that section during the last year and a half. Rather than Garner's piece being an objective review and critique of where the Review is now, compared to what it was when Wasserman assumed its editorship, it is a personal attack on the perceived character traits of Wasserman. Combined with Garner's nasty tone, such an article demeans the journalistic profession by using gossip-column standards to flippantly treat a serious subject. It is not in keeping with the level of journalism I have come to expect from Salon Magazine.
Pejorative adjectives and negative phrases abound throughout this piece such as: "Wasserman's 'mandarin' approach"; "weekly sack of oatmeal"; "knack for alienating people"; "arrogant blowhard"; "imperious image"; "scrawny relative"; "ponderous theme"; "egomaniac"; "vindictive bastard"; "remote and elitist." Who said these things? In not one case of use of these words and phrases is there attribution. For all I know, Garner invented them.
As I write this letter it is appropriate to note the recent news that Patricia Smith, a heretofore respected journalist, was asked a few days ago to resign from the Boston Globe for fabricating stories. She is quoted as saying, "From time to time in my metro column, to create the desired impact or slam home a salient point, I attributed quotes to people who didn't exist." This incident follows by only a few weeks the dismissal of a writer by the New Republic for similar story fabrications.
I find it more than merely interesting that all of the almost two dozen negative quotations in Garner's piece (except the ones by Kit Rachlis and Jon Katz) are without attribution. That, together with a couple of easily corrected factual errors (the fact that the Festival of Books was April 24-26, 1998, not "last month," and the fact that the awards ceremony opened the Festival on Friday night rather than closing the Festival) leads me to seriously question the credibility of the entire piece.
I think your readers deserve better.
-- Ann Dragoon
Berkeley, Calif.
Dwight Garner responds: All off-the-record quotes were authentic.

Steve Wasserman, the subject of Dwight Garner's recent piece, is publishing the best written, best edited, most intelligent book review in the history of California, where I was a resident for 27 years. Why should anyone who cares about books have a problem with that?
-- Todd Gitlin
New York

N E X T+P A G E+| More letters on "Nursing death" by Dawn MacKeen

_______________ RICH PICKINGS, SOUR GRAPES BY LINDA TISCHLER (06/19/98)
	It's a good thing this article didn't go under Mothers Who Think, because smug Linda Tischler isn't thinking too clearly. After joining the management consulting firm, her daughter can expect 70-plus-hour work weeks. Even excluding the four weeks vacation time, that comes out to $13 per hour. After Ivy League college and hard work, is $13 an hour really such an earth-shattering amount? The poor girl will not be jetting off to Vail for the weekend with her miles, she'll be in the office, or at home doing laundry, or calling friends not seen during the week. Is this a revelation? Will Tischler's generation ever get over itself? Young graduates who work long hours with constant travel may well burn out on the "corporate politicking and stress" -- is the giving up of personal life not a hard-luck story in itself? How can it be that the 40-year-old boomer who can't watch his son's ballgame can endlessly rail against corporate cruelty, but the 22-year-old working the same hours for half has a "friction-free ascent into middle-class" and will soon be ordering the homeless to get a job? It is true that Tischler's daughter and her friends will eventually learn hard economic lessons. Why put them down with smugness now? -- R. Caccia I read the article by Linda Tischler on her daughter's excellent job offers, and found myself saying, "Yes!" repeatedly. I work in the library of a university business school, helping grad and undergrad students do their research. Our students are graduating at 21 with little work experience or, if their parents are rich enough, no work experience. They're promptly landing jobs in the $40K-50K range. They're pleasant, personable and reasonably willing to work, but they often don't know much. My university is large, private and very expensive, but not all that difficult. Students can and do "coast" through. Why is their good fortune a problem? Ms. Tischler is worried about the psychological effects of getting too much too soon, and worried about how this generation of kids will react if the market takes a dive and they wind up unemployed. I'm more worried about the people these young managers are going to be managing. A lot of these graduates will never hold a working-class job, will never have to actually live on minimum wage or anything close to it. It will be hard for them not to take their perks and privileges for granted. It will be hard for them to see things from the perspective of their lower-wage employees. They don't know how the other half lives, but they'll have power over that other half's livelihood. They'll have to decide whether to offer that 50-cent per hour raise, whether to subsidize day care and how much worker safety is enough. Speaking as a member of the second group, I say, "Yikes!" If you choose to publish this, please do not include my name, institution name or e-mail address. -- Anonymous Just a small comment about Linda Tischler's envy over her daughter's $44K salary (and her daughter's boyfriend's $50K salary). Have you ever tried finding an apartment in Silicon Valley for less than $1,000 per month? Ever tried buying a house up there? I wouldn't take a $50K yearly salary if I had to live there. Are you sure you know just how far $44K or even $50K can go in that environment? I make twice what my dad made when he was my age. But he could buy a house with it, at 10 years younger than I am right now. I'm still living in an apartment, and likely will be for some time to come. He could buy a car. I still use his old one, with 137,000 miles on it. Homeownership is a distant joke. No need to feel envious there. Your daughter's boyfriend is probably ticked at accepting $50K because he's living in a ratty studio apartment instead of a ratty one-bedroom apartment. And four weeks of vacation doesn't mean much if you're looked at askance for taking time off at all. Ask your daughter in a year if she took all of that time off. -- Janis Cortese
_______________ L.A.'S BATTLE OF THE BOOKS BY DWIGHT GARNER (06/18/98)
	It was with deep disappointment and increasing anger that I read Dwight Garner's "hit" piece on Steve Wasserman, the book editor of the Los Angeles Times. As a longtime reader of the Los Angeles Times and its book review section, I think that Wasserman has done a fantastic job of elevating the publishing, journalistic and literary standards of that section during the last year and a half. Rather than Garner's piece being an objective review and critique of where the Review is now, compared to what it was when Wasserman assumed its editorship, it is a personal attack on the perceived character traits of Wasserman. Combined with Garner's nasty tone, such an article demeans the journalistic profession by using gossip-column standards to flippantly treat a serious subject. It is not in keeping with the level of journalism I have come to expect from Salon Magazine. Pejorative adjectives and negative phrases abound throughout this piece such as: "Wasserman's 'mandarin' approach"; "weekly sack of oatmeal"; "knack for alienating people"; "arrogant blowhard"; "imperious image"; "scrawny relative"; "ponderous theme"; "egomaniac"; "vindictive bastard"; "remote and elitist." Who said these things? In not one case of use of these words and phrases is there attribution. For all I know, Garner invented them. As I write this letter it is appropriate to note the recent news that Patricia Smith, a heretofore respected journalist, was asked a few days ago to resign from the Boston Globe for fabricating stories. She is quoted as saying, "From time to time in my metro column, to create the desired impact or slam home a salient point, I attributed quotes to people who didn't exist." This incident follows by only a few weeks the dismissal of a writer by the New Republic for similar story fabrications. I find it more than merely interesting that all of the almost two dozen negative quotations in Garner's piece (except the ones by Kit Rachlis and Jon Katz) are without attribution. That, together with a couple of easily corrected factual errors (the fact that the Festival of Books was April 24-26, 1998, not "last month," and the fact that the awards ceremony opened the Festival on Friday night rather than closing the Festival) leads me to seriously question the credibility of the entire piece. I think your readers deserve better. -- Ann Dragoon Berkeley, Calif. Dwight Garner responds: All off-the-record quotes were authentic. Steve Wasserman, the subject of Dwight Garner's recent piece, is publishing the best written, best edited, most intelligent book review in the history of California, where I was a resident for 27 years. Why should anyone who cares about books have a problem with that? -- Todd Gitlin New York N E X T+P A G E+\| More letters on "Nursing death" by Dawn MacKeen