Hillary does Brazda
BY ROB MANK
(05/14/99)

Refugees don't need visits from celebrities and photo-op driven first ladies. For the cost of Clinton's self-serving tour, many of these refugees could have been housed and fed for life. Seeing another "compassionate" wealthy publicity hound, dressed and coifed to perfection, is not what these refugees need. This is our modern version of "Let them eat cake."

While her husband drops his bombs, killing Kosovars in some cases, Hillary exploits the refugees for her own agenda. This is not a game; it is a war. Salon should be embarrassed by its "kiss-up" coverage of this obvious campaign tour financed by the American taxpayers.

-- Jayne Carroll
Portland, Ore.

Give war a chance
BY IAN WILLIAMS
(05/14/99)

If there is anything easier in 1999 than to write in support of the NATO bombing of Serbia, than it's surely to smear the American left. Ian Williams manages to do both in one article. The day after NATO bombers blow away another 100 civilians -- this time Albanian refugees -- and with peace in Kosovo seeming as distant as ever, Williams argues that we need more popular support for military action. Of course, such logic is to be expected from a writer who can recognize that Mumia Abu-Jamal's trial "may have been a travesty" and dismiss the campaign for a new one as a "bizarre quixotic cause" all in one neat paragraph.

"Give war a chance" is the lament of another blood-soaked pragmatist passing himself off as an iconoclast.

-- Masha Alexander

I agree to some extent with Williams' commentary on President Clinton; however, no president operates in a vacuum, and, on those occasions when Mr. Clinton did stick his neck out, such as during the debate on health care, the American left was conspicuous by its absence. Ask so-called leftists in this country why it took so long (with only a few shining exceptions) for the American left to even begin protesting the $50 million Starr investigation, or to respond to the conservative talk-show bully boys and girls, and note the paucity of the response.

-- Ann C. Davidson
Philadelphia

I found the article by Williams very disturbing. The United Nations Charter states that countries should not attack another country unless in self-defense. It is not a perfect system, but it is what we have and should be respected. The bombing campaign is destabilizing the entire region and increase the suffering of all those involved.

The conditions that gave rise to the rise of fascism -- economic instability, the lack of democratic institutions and isolationism -- are the same conditions that allowed the rise to power of racists like Milosevic. Instead of bombing the country and starting World War III, we should be repairing the economy, supporting democratic institutions and bringing Yugoslavia to a more stable place where humanitarian policies can be implemented.

Bombing the hell out of Yugoslavia is not a heroic act, but one of a coward. Immediate measures to protect Kosovar Albanians from atrocities might include arms and military assistance to the KLA, but we typically reserve such aid for Guatemalan, Chilean and Indonesian dictators.

-- Andrew Berna-Hicks
Oakland, Calif.

Bill Gates' set-top boxing
BY SCOTT ROSENBERG
(05/14/99)

A compelling argument against the Microsoft set-top boxes is Microsoft's repeated privacy violations in their software. Time and time again, we have had our privacy violated by Microsoft, with only a tepid response of "whoops, that's a bug," or "we collected the data, but have not done anything with it."

Several pundits have reasoned that TV-Web convergence is being driven by advertisers' dreams of targeted marketing based on user viewing or surfing patterns. I am not at all comfortable that Microsoft has a clue as to what privacy means to me. With my new cable connection provided by only AT&T (monopoly), I may not have a choice as to what kind of privacy I can have.

-- Don Radick

Rosenberg's article is a "direct miss." Would most of us pay to have a "Web window wrapped around" cable service? No. On the other hand, most of us would like to pay a single provider for all of our "digital services," instead of the three to five most of us pay now: cable/satellite TV, local phone, long distance and Internet. And the key point in the investment -- what kind of software will be on the front end to tie it all together?

AT&T got it right. The company's recent purchases are brilliant, and give them the physical infrastructure that defines "convergence." Gates et al. just leveraged their investment in the migration from desktop to whatever appliance(s) we'll use in the home.

-- R. Alexander
Davis, Calif.

Name game
BY SUSAN MCCARTHY
(05/17/99)

In 1966, my parents named me Zoe, after the daughter of A.S. Neil, a then-trendy child psychologist who believed that children should do exactly as they wished at all times. In the 1970s, I knew of no one else named Zoe. No one had ever heard of the name, and everyone asked, "What is your real name?" On the phone, adults thought I was saying "Joey" or "Sophie." Then, suddenly, around 1995, it happened. Zoe became the new name of the moment. Go figure. Susan, I sympathize.

-- Zoe Francesca

"I smell the presense of Satan"
BY DAVE CULLEN
(05/15/99)

"Evangelical" Christian movements (the word actually means "messenger of good news," and has a long history as the name of a denomination in my own church's history) in this country appealed to poor whites in the South and West, where they were on the fringes of a society dominated by wealthy landholders. The "mainstream" Christian churches (Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopal) were populated by the wealthier whites; so poor whites found comfort in "evangelical" movements, where they were accepted for who they were. But they were also keenly aware they were still not acceptable, even as brothers and sisters in Christ, to the more well-heeled Christians.

So being "outcast" became a part of their identity; and this identity carried over when "evangelical" Christian churches began to appeal to wealthier, middle-class whites. So now "evangelicals" -- despite the fact they often have the largest churches in town, and sometimes the wealthiest pastors -- still feel they haven't earned the respect of their "older brothers," the mainstream, European-based denominations.

It's an odd position for a denomination (in the article the pastors lump themselves under the title "evangelicals," in distinction to the Protestant and Catholic umbrellas) that dominates the culture in the South and West; but until Cullen's article, I'd never considered how truly defining it is.

-- Rev. Robert M. Jeffers
Pastor, St. Peter United Church of Christ
Houston

Cullen refuses to ask the big question: "Was the evangelical Christian community a significant cause of the disaster?" Cullen points out the ostracizing elements of the evangelical churches; this question is the logical extension of that line of reasoning. Moreover, the mainstream media seem to have completely overlooked this issue, possibly because it would be political suicide to appear to be blaming Jesus for the tragedy.

-- Peter Gerdes