_______________MOTHER RAGE: THEORY AND PRACTICE BY ANNE LAMOTT (10/29/98)
	I just wanted to thank Anne Lamott for her column on mother rage. I cried and laughed (mostly laughed) as I read about myself as a mother. Thank you, thank you, thank you. -- Jennifer Sinclair Wichita, Kan. I loved Annie Lamott's article. As a mother of two children, both under 3, it rang so true. It was great to read about feelings and emotions that I have felt so many times but could never express so eloquently. -- Chesca Colloredo-Mansfeld It's a pity no one wrote this article 20 years ago, so that Anne Lamott might have been able to refer to it before becoming pregnant. She might be a happier, less resentful person. I suspect at this point the best thing would be a nanny. -- Darren Barefoot When Anne Lamott talks of this, she speaks for all mothers as far as I'm concerned. I'm a single mother with four kids, and sometimes I think I am a crazy woman. Three of my kids are teenagers. (If you think little kids drive you crazy, it's nothing compared to teenagers!) My youngest one is 6 years old. I like to think of myself as a "good" mother, but sometimes I wonder! First of all, when I come home from work and find the house totally trashed, and the teenagers out on the back patio smoking cigarettes, I go into a rage! I am suddenly this madwoman, yelling and ranting and raving and kicking all "extra" children out of my house. Nobody at work would believe it if they saw me like this! My younger son's therapist says that the key to parenting teenagers is to remain calm at all times. Ha! Like I can stay calm when my kids tell me I'm dumb and I don't know anything. Anyway, now I realize that I am not alone. And that is the important thing! Thanks for the great and insightful article. -- Mary Lane Vasquez You should put together a video of Anne Lamott shaking her finger at her audience and reading -- with appropriate facial expressions -- the first paragraph of her piece on "Mother Rage." Pity her children. -- Michael Decker Waco, Texas I just read Anne Lamott's article about kids and mothers. I laughed so hard I was crying. So there is another mother on this little ol' globe who says unspeakable things to her kids and thinks, quite clearly, all kinds of unthinkable things. -- Beth Gibson I laughed. I cried. I read it twice and printed it. I sent the link to every online mom I know. I have a 4-year-old. Anne Lamott writes about my life. Mothers Who Think is the smartest, brightest and funniest writing I have come across since becoming a parent almost five years ago. I worked my way through the usual parental publications and eventually lost interest. Mothers Who Think never seems to forget that mothers may have once had lives of their own. I love you. I love you. I love you. -- Pat Barford Anne Lamott is a narcissist. She needs to get out of her own head and try to see things from her child's perspective. She is causing tremendous damage to her son with her own selfish rage. Her son is well behaved in other people's houses because he is afraid the adults will react to him the same way his own mother does. Lamott is lying about not causing harm to her son. She has all of the traits of an abuser. Oh, and one more thing: Children are not supposed to be entertainment. They are your responsibility. -- Anne Silberman I canceled my subscription based on Anne Lamott's article, "Mother Rage." I cannot imagine any mother using such language referring to her gift from God. No matter how angry I have ever gotten, no matter how tired I have been, no matter how destructive or aggravating my children have ever been, I can't imagine referring to them or their actions in this manner. I will not read any more of your articles if you think this type is appropriate. -- Joan Glover Anne Lamott is a genius! Take heart, sweet lady, it does not get any better. I was feeling like a crazed woman tonight, after my 30-year-old daughter hung up on me long distance. I went to the Internet to drown my sorrow. This article caught my attention. Thank God there is someone out there who shares my feelings and has the guts to shout it out. Can you possibly know how I feel to have a kindred spirit? Tonight you deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. -- Dianne Belk Anne Lamott's column helped me realize that I'm not the only mother who feels completely inadequate to the task of dealing with her child at 7:30 a.m. Who faces delaying tactics, passive resistance and outright defiance over the smallest issues. Who feels like a spiky, prickly monster when her patience finally evaporates. And who still finds grace even in the most angry and tense situations. Even after a little war this morning, my son hugged and kissed me when I said goodbye to him at the door to his classroom. -- Nancy Ott Pittsburgh
_______________SENATOR STRONGARM BY WILLIAM KISTNER AND MURRAY WAAS (10/29/98)
	We all accept that Salon has a liberal bent. In fact I'm sure that many of its readers relish its left-wing perspective. We know that all news and media outlets have political stances and agendas. We also know that all journalists have political stances and agendas, too. But William Kistner and Murray Waas have gone too far. Investigative reporting is arguably the most important service provided by the journalistic community. Uncovering graft, corruption and scandal -- all grossly exaggerated in today's political arena -- is necessary to both inform the public and keep politicians on their toes. With this in mind, I ask, "What's the point?" Are we to be appalled that an elected representative of our nation should use his political power to do some international arm twisting to see that a major campaign contributor was taken care of? Or are we to be appalled that Sen. Alfonse D'Amato would have the gall to threaten to cut off U.S. aid for such a sacred cow as AIDS research? Are we to infer that Senator D'Amato would have actually been able to shut off said funding when no less an authority than the State Department was opposed to the idea? Is this vile Republican from New York, who I'm sure only happens to be in a hotly contested race with Democrat Chuck Schumer, so powerful that his influence circumvents the State Department in its foreign policy-making abilities? Give us a break. No where in their article do Kistner and Waas show what harm actually came from D'Amato's tactics. They seemed to have uncovered much less about how D'Amato opposes certain political agendas and much more about their own perceptions, biases and worship at the altar of political dogma. Before Kistner and Waas ran off and got their rhetorical knickers in a twist, they might have actually troubled themselves with coming up with a story of note or import. Political strongarming is standard operating procedure on both sides of the aisle. One need only look at Democratic grandstanding in the 1995 U.S. government shutdown to see leftward-leaning muscle. D'Amato is no saint. In fact, he is guilty of some of the most unabashed partisanship in recent memory, but this so-called bit of investigative reporting is an unsubstantial turn at liberal dogmatism that utterly fails at presenting a single bit of damning evidence against the accused. We need opposing viewpoints to keep reasoned debate alive. But when a deliberately inflammatory seek-and-destroy agenda is wrapped in the guise of good reporting, we all lose -- left, right and in between. -- Charles T. Beckert Cleveland
_______________WHOLLY WAR BY JOAN WALSH (10/28/98)
	The attacks against abortion providers and homosexuals are no different than the wars on pornography and adult businesses. These comprise the published agenda of the religious right. This is not my personal opinion -- one only has to visit the Web sites of these hatemongers and read for oneself. This atmosphere of hate and bigotry comes from the likes of Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, James Dobson, Donald Wildmon and a list of other radicals. They will not stop the killings, the bombings and terror against legal businesses and medical procedures until they reach their goal: to establish a theocratic government in the United States. -- Alan Miles The anti-abortion movement is hardly finished, politically or otherwise. Gun control advocates ask: "Where have all the children gone?" Well, it's not through shootings but because of 1,500,000 abortions per year! In 20 years, this adds up to a lot of children, doesn't it? This is truly horrific, especially in the case of late-term abortions, which are worse than the most cruel executions man can devise. How can anyone defend this? Women can choose to abstain or have sex. They can choose to use birth control but they can't choose to kill their unborn child -- it's murder! -- Russ Stabley Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
_______________STRANGE BEDFELLOWS BY CHRISTOPHER OTT (11/02/98)
	How in hell are we supposed to believe that anti-gay Wisconsin voters are going to opt for a lesbian Democrat rather than an allegedly pro-gay Republican? This assertion is presented in the text as well as (indirectly) in the home page deck for the article -- but it is highly counterintuitive and totally unsupported in the text. In fact, I think this is a trend in Salon: misleading decks that overstate a sexy or surprising aspect of an otherwise somewhat pedestrian article. -- Larry Edelstein San Francisco
_______________THE WAR FOR YOUR E-MAIL BOX BY ANDREW LEONARD (10/30/98)
	Another danger of spam wasn't covered in your article. Spam uses up huge amounts of network resources and there are increasing rumblings that the answer to this is to charge users by the bandwidth they use -- effectively turning the Net into a metered utility such as electricity or long-distance telephone service. This would be a disaster for the free flow of information that cheap, unlimited Internet service has brought to the world, as well as stifling new Net-delivered services. -- Lew Stead Germantown, Md. SALON | Nov. 4, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| BEER, BABES AND BEATINGS BY JOSHUA GREEN

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