Ricky Martin -- superstud or closet case?
BY CAMILLE PAGLIA
(05/26/99)
and
We love you Ricky, oh yes we do
BY CINTRA WILSON
(05/25/99)

Camille Paglia's open speculation of Ricky Martin's sexual orientation brings to mind only one adjective: pathetic. As a gay man, I confess to "could it be?" wishfulness, but am bothered by her speculation on the topic. With homosexuality more prevalent in culture, are gays now compelled to forgo commercial success for the sake of a seamless personal and professional life?

Paglia chose to address the issue by responding to a write-in question citing "soft facial features and sensual body language" as evidence Martin might be gay. Soft facial features and sensual body language?! Oh my, he must be gay! Self-serving as always in her selection of bait, Paglia bent over backwards to draw comparisons to Elton John, Rock Hudson and George Michael. To Paglia, the fact Martin thaws even Cintra Wilson's frozen panties is illegitimate.

-- Jeff Card
Alexandria, Va.

Paglia's partner, Alison, said that real men wouldn't have respect for a man whose hips move like Ricky Martin's. She should go to Trinidad and Tobago during Carnival and see men and women dance exactly as he does; their hips moving like figure eights, up and down, you name it.

-- Glynis Wears Siegel
New York

I am offended by the comparison of Ricky Martin to a "Medallin-drug-cartel-Latino." That is a totally inappropriate comparison that verges on racist. All sexy Italian men aren't compared to members of the Mafia, are they? Unfortunately, too many successful Latino and African-Americans are.

-- John Peller
Chicago

Essay questions
BY CHRISTOPHER OTT
(05/25/99)

Computerized grading software works because it takes on a very narrow type of writing -- writing as the systematic presentation of agreed-upon knowledge in a field or course as measured by a kind of essay exam. The software doesn't grade writing so much as it grades the orderly array of recalled content.

People assessed by these tools will program themselves to write according to the dictates of the software. But in classes, students learn really fast how to write the way the teacher likes, anyway. The real difference will be in the potential richness of response offered to students: The grading software might report back what needs to be changed to get a better score; good writing teachers try to report back what students need to do to be better writers.

Teaching writing well takes a fair amount of time because it means not just flagging what is wrong, but also explaining why something is wrong; teaching well also requires pointing out and explaining what is good or what else could work in a piece with a little more revising. Grading software is really for teachers who like the idea of having students write, but who don't have the time to offer the kinds of rich and complex responses that can help a student understand what they are doing -- cognitively, ethically, and emotionally -- when they write.

But most word processors already include wizards and templates for formatting business letters. There's software for taking the mind-numbing drudgery out of laying out works cited reference entries for research papers. It'd be a small leap to software where you only have to plug in a few key phrases and ideas from your lecture notes and then see it formatted to match the expectations of the Intelligent Essay Assessor.

Intelligent Essay Writer(TM) will be a logical (and profitable) marketing leap once the use of grading software spreads.

-- Nick Carbone
Director
Colorado State University Writing Center

Dialogue of the deaf
BY DAVID HOROWITZ
(05/24/99)

The real irony is that David Horowitz fails to see the underlying cause of leftist hegemony of America's literary institutions. The Los Angeles Times runs the editorial content it does to appeal to a certain market niche: book review readers, who (surprise!) tend to be left-leaning. And why does the Times determine its editorial content on the basis of market research rather than abstract ideas like truth or beauty? Because we are all living with the legacy of Ayn Rand's "selfishness is a virtue" political philosophy, which has served as a life-giving precursor to modern conservatism. What matters in the context of this ethos is not art or ideas, but the almighty dollar and, of course, me me me. Whose fault is that?

-- J. Patrick Coolican

David Horowitz's "Dialogue of the Deaf" asks the musical question, "What happens when a leftist editor takes over the book review section of the Los Angeles Times?"

Many of us have often asked the same question about a certain right-wing ideologue ruling the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal to such an extent that its essays, endorsements and condemnations often include information that is contradicted by the newspaper's own reporters and editors.

Actually, my question would be to both the left-wing book editor (assuming one exists) and the right-wing editorial page editor: Whatever happened to intellectual honesty?

-- Francis Volpe
Carlisle, Pa.

DAVID HOROWITZ RESPONDS ...

Unfortunately for the L.A. Times, the left-wing slant of its book review is a decision contrary to its market interests. The issue I quoted from is a very thin 12 pages with almost no advertising. The idea that conservatives don't read and buy books is a typically arrogant left-wing prejudice.

In defense of science fiction
BY JOHN CLUTE
(05/25/99)

It is irritating that calling a spade a spade -- or in this case, calling a science fiction novel a science fiction novel -- is considered demeaning to the work.

I recall a particularly irritating issue of the New York Times Book Review that, on the front page, had a review of both "Maus II" and the collected works of Phillip K. Dick. I was initially pleased to find that the Times had seen fit to review Spiegelman's hardcover comic book and Dick's science fiction work. Then I saw the phrase in the Dick review "this is so good, it can't be called science fiction" and the phrase in the Maus II review "this is so good, it can't be called a comic book."

But the problem lies with the science-fiction community, which consistently rejects its own bestsellers. Michael Crichton, who has written about alien viruses, half-mechanical men and (most famously) resurrected dinosaurs, is constantly lambasted in the science fiction community for not writing "real" science fiction. "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" novels are also called "not real science fiction," although I doubt anyone could come up with a reasonable definition of science fiction that Doc Smith's Lensmen series would pass and "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" would fail.

If you constantly reject the bestsellers from the genre, you have to expect that you'll be rejected back.

-- John Ordover

Is it my imagination but do science fiction marketers have a not so subtle contempt for their customers? It shows in the book jackets. It shows on the back cover mini-reviews. The subtext seems to say, "The people who buy this garbage are a bunch of developmentally arrested adolescents; they'll buy anything if we put a ray gun on the cover accompanied by a woman with breasts the size of bowling balls." It's not like the publishers have gone out of their way to make the genre respectable. Is it any wonder science fiction doesn't get any respect?

-- Chris Geary-Durrill