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_______________GIVE ME THAT PRIME TIME RELIGION BY MARK SCHONE (01/26/99)
	Why is it that all these over-entitled, right-wing evangelical Christian athletes brag about sowing their wild oats in their younger days, but they're too sanctimonious and self-righteous to tolerate any non-Christians or non-athletes sowing a few wild oats of their own? I had to deal with Bible-thumping jocks like this in high school and college, and they were typically the biggest bunch of womanizers, bigots, drunks, homophobes, bullies and bigots that I ever had the displeasure to encounter in my life. What scares me most about the Republican Party is that the GOP thinks that guys like these (such as J.C. Watts and Steve Largent) should be running the United States as our moral and physical superiors. I'll be damned if I'll let my country be taken over by these rah-rah mental and moral midgets who believe that a pep talk from an authoritarian football coach has more ethical relevance than "love thy neighbor." -- Jon C. Pennington
_______________SECOND THOUGHTS: "I'VE GOT HOMEWORK, MA" BY SALLIE TISDALE (01/28/99)
	I'm a library director in north suburban Chicago. I found Sallie Tisdale's attitude toward public libraries and librarians to be condescending. She raises important, difficult issues, but offers no suggestions or solutions or even rational approaches, except to reminisce about the library she used as a child. If libraries today stayed as they were during my childhood, they would disappear early in the 21st century. I'll wait and see if she addresses any of the hard issues in her Part Two. Until then, we can assure her and her readers that many public libraries, including Lake Forest, spend more funds than ever on print and use electronic information, including the Internet, when it is faster, easier and a better source than print. That, too, is what librarians are trained to do. -- Kaye Grabbe Library Director, Lake Forest Library Lake Forest, Ill. I work in a public library in South Carolina. In regards to the California lawsuit, most of my co-workers and I wondered where the mother was while her son was downloading pornography. Every day, we see parents do the strangest things here -- from dangling a child over a three-story balcony to arguing with staff when they are asked to supervise their own children while on the Internet. We can't win! If we let the child on the Internet and he/she finds "garbage," the parents complain. If we don't allow the child on the Internet because of no adult supervision, parents complain. We do not get paid enough to baby-sit on top of everything else we do. In regards to the money spent on technology, we're just answering the demand the public made on us. Our state received a federal grant to install the Internet with the stipulation that we offer public access. Right now there are several conflicting federal regulations about filtration systems. However, we have in no way cut our book budget! In fact, this is something we are very concerned about. Several libraries in the Southeast have bankrupted themselves providing Internet access and free access from home. Our director has been very careful to make sure we don't do that. Regarding the practice of public libraries referring patrons to medical libraries and school libraries: Public libraries are for the lay people. We do not specialize in any field. We will provide the general public with general information. If you have a medical question, we are a good place to start. The public library is not the place to research your doctoral dissertation. Librarians are trained to use all the resources of the community. More people who brag about being taxpayers should investigate those options also. -- Stephanie Clark SALON | Feb. 2, 1999

R E C E N T L Y+| NO APOLOGIES BY DEBRA DICKERSON

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