Williams, a, middle-aged man, extols the virtues of war -- a war whose essence is cowardly, for it doesn't risk its own people in Yugoslavia, but unleashes bombs and missiles onto military and -- "mistakenly" -- civilian targets. Recall, this monstrous NATO air campaign that has killed Yugoslav men, women and children was undertaken in the cause of stopping ethnic cleansing and punishing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. I would bet that Milosevic's backside bears no NATO lash marks. But NATO has done incalculable damage to human life and infrastructure, and NATO bombing has not protected the ethnic Albanians.

Because NATO bombs have destroyed so much innocent human life and property and people have seen the images of that horror, U.S. public opinion now calls for a bombing halt, and Williams represents a minority opinion. He extolled the virtues of Europe's "left" governments finally doing something, They have done precious little for their own poor and working classes, but their imperial display against a defenseless people has certainly shown their true character.

Williams cast slurs on those who made cogent anti-bombing arguments: Tom Hayden, Jesse Jackson, Ariana Huffington and myself, slurring the name of the chair I proudly hold at California State Polytechnic University Pomona. Williams, like NATO, failed to demonstrate how war would stop rather than accelerate ethnic cleansing; Williams, like NATO, showed no plan to return expelled or fleeing (some from NATO bombing) Kosovars to their homes. Williams, like NATO, apparently believes that bombing should strengthen the democratic opposition to Milosevic (though according to most press reports, that wing of Milosevic's opposition has been forced into loyalty stances by the bombing). Williams, like NATO, ignores the growing stop-the-bombing sentiment in the West.

Milosevic merits punishment -- but by law and through a strengthened United Nations, not by illegal and immoral bombing. Had the recent indictment of Milosevic and a freezing of his assets come three months ago, the world community might have been able to slow down the cleansing; more U.N. observers, a larger U.N. role, the addition of other intermediaries might have placed obstacles between the Serb goons and the Kosovar Albanians. Now the question emerges from the growing mound of Yugoslav rubble and corpses: What is gained by destroying the rest of Yugoslavia? Whatever moral imperative NATO had when it began bombing, it has been lost in the skies over Belgrade. The NATO course seems to lead toward the total destruction of Yugoslavia.

For all their military prowess in bombing defenseless people, neither NATO nor its mouthpieces like Ian Williams have had much diplomatic success. They have yet to secure Russian backing, or indeed, sway the significant minorities or majorities in their own NATO countries who oppose the bombing. Unless NATO wants to obliterate Yugoslavia, the logical road would lead to negotiation. Milosevic remains the recognized leader, even though lots of Yugoslavs and others prefer that he would disappear. So, will NATO finally negotiate -- with Milosevic?

Yes, war is having yet another chance. Ian Williams must feel virtuous as the smart bombs miss yet another military target and he sees the images of corpses of an 8-year-old boy and his 5-year-old sister -- but for the tough aging hawks, that's only collateral damage.

-- Saul Landau
Hugh O. LaBounty Chair of Interdisciplinary Applied Knowledge
California State Polytechnic University
Pomona, Calif.

Ian Williams gives the historically challenged idiots of the American left a swift kick in the pants. These fools are being manipulated by Belgrade and seem not to care; they are letting their disdain for the centrist Clinton swamp their critical judgment. And I can't believe how readily Hayden and company have fallen for the united Fox/G.O.P./Belgrade spin on things. Williams shows the creaky underpinnings of what passes for the thought processes of the American anti-war leftists/rightists.

-- Teresa Huberty
Minneapolis

Dr. Laura targets the new Sodom: Libraries
BY PATRIZIA DILUCCHIO
(05/27/99)

I'm a public librarian, and can tell you with candor that Dr. Laura can't see the facts.

1) The children of America are not flocking to public libraries in order to access porn. The preferred Web destination of the vast majority of teenage Internet users is the World Wrestling Federation site. Think about it: What do men, young and old, do with porn? Do they want to do it in the middle of a public library?

2) Filters don't work. Studies have been done; numerous anecdotes exist to testify that the various Net nannies routinely block the innocent (recipes for chicken breasts and ads for adult continuing education) while letting through egregious sex grime (try looking up "Black Beauty"). Are librarians supposed to sit over the computers with a stick ready to slap little hackers?

Let's face it, America's public libraries are no friend to Dr. Laura. We stock lots of copies of her books and tapes so people can use them for free. We also buy books from her competitors and detractors and make them available for free. Just think if she managed to single-handedly destroy what Melvil Dewey and Andrew Carnegie took 150 years to build. No more free public libraries! Think of the sales!

-- Anne Sharp
Livonia, Mich.

Thank you for publishing the article on Dr. Laura's persecution of the ALA and librarians. Dr. Laura's crusade has led to the cancellation of funding by Toys R Us to build children's reading rooms.

Dr. Laura's allegations are not merely a ratings ploy, but the beginnings of a concerted effort to turn the secular United States into a religious fundamentalist nation -- either Jewish or Christian fundamentalism would serve her agenda. Influencing corporate America to withdraw financial support from the ALA to serve its youth population may be just the first step in meeting her goal.

-- Linda Rudell-Betts

NATO in denial
BY TOM HAYDEN
(05/27/99)

Looks like Hayden is falling prey to the "Good Old Days Syndrome." Getting up into your 50s and wanting to relive a little of your glory days, eh Tom? Teach-ins? Good God!

As one aging baby boomer to another, it ain't the same. Milosevic is a shifty, nasty bastard who needs to be stopped. If he isn't done in now, he's going to go into Macedonia, Albania and most likely Greece if he thinks he can get away with it. He has shown he has no respect for borders in the past and will do so again. This is not Vietnam. Get over yourself, Tom.

-- Al Schlaf
Des Moines, Iowa

Finally, a lone sane voice sets the record straight. Tom Hayden presents a balanced report on who has done what to whom in Kosovo, and why it's both wicked and absurd for NATO to continue its airstrikes. Partition is the only reasonable solution.

Allegations of genocide aimed at the Serbian army and the unceasing punishment of Serbian civilians in the media, as well as by NATO bombs, have disguised the cruel acts of the KLA and who their true allies are. This is a civil war, not a one-sided attack. But when the media wants to sell U.S. involvement, it helps to promote the sad tale as David (Kosovar Albanians) battling the much bigger Goliath (Serbs). Better to reduce a complicated story to black and white, since all those shades of grey will only confuse the voters.

When the KLA strikes against Serbia, they're called freedom fighters. When Serbs fight back, they're branded as ethnic cleansers. The people who heroically fought against the Nazis in WWII are now equated with their former oppressors. It's time to brush up on your Orwell, folks. He called such propaganda doublespeak.

And while Madeleine Albright has been busy displaying her brand-new cojones to the other warmongers, she appears to have overlooked this irony: A Serbian family in Belgrade gave her shelter during the Holocaust. One wonders whether they were among the recent victims of the bombing of Belgrade. One wonders how she, a survivor who ought to know better, can equate this war with the Holocaust. And one wonders if that family regrets having saved that particular little girl. She appears to have forgotten her good manners.

-- Pat Katzmann

Hayden's assertion that the "The KLA ... ultimately seeks to include Kosovo as part of a greater [Islamic] fundamentalist Albania allied with the oppressive regime in Turkey" is curious. The "oppressive regime in Turkey" he talks about is virulently secular. It recently ejected a female member of the Turkish parliament for wearing a head-scarf, considered an Islamicist symbol in Turkey. Hardly the sort of folks that might be candidates for membership in some sort of fundamentalist Islamic alliance in the Balkans. Hayden is either trying to take advantage of the general public's relative ignorance on all matters Balkan, or is revealing his own. Either way, Hayden has neutralized his own credibility as a rational and well-informed participant in the debate over the NATO bombings.

-- Murat Konar

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even teens on the WB do it ...
BY JENN SHREVE
(05/28/99)

The Salt Lake City Weekly piece on vegan high school kids in Salt Lake City that you linked to was missing an important bit of context. The passing, almost facetious mention of "a so-called Straight Edge gang" basically downplays the increasing violence and militancy of the Straight Edge movement in SLC. I have heard countless stories from SLC kids who have had beers knocked out of their hands at shows or have even been attacked by groups of Straight Edgers who are so opposed to drinking, drugs and smoking that they are willing to do pretty much anything to inflict their beliefs on others. And, in recent years, vegetarianism and veganism have been added to the spectrum of Straight Edge tenets. The tension between Straight Edgers and non-Straight Edgers in SLC is real and very problematic despite what the author of this article would have you believe. The school board was responding to this tension.

In light of this, the Jordan school board's decision makes more sense: It is the board's responsibility to preserve order in its schools, and sometimes that means making some unpopular decisions. Like it or not, the rules in high school are a little different than those in the real world. Obviously, not every vegan is a violent thug, just as not every kid with a Colorado Rockies hat is a gang member. A school district can't reasonably have a "well, the good kids can wear this but the bad ones can't" policy, however. To my mind, that's a lot more questionable than the current policy.

-- Kat Chow

TV to over-49s: You haven't dropped dead yet?
BY JAMES PONIEWOZIK
(05/27/99)

I have a solution for over-50s fed up with the networks' youth obsession: Get a satellite dish, get a VCR and a collection of tapes, get online and tell the networks to take a long walk off a short pier. As incapable as they seem to be of long-term thinking, Y2K will be an old and moldy story before the networks wake up to the fact that the scene has changed. They aren't the only game in town anymore, and everyone seems to know it but them. By the way, Salon, too, is far from being the only zine on the Web. How about declaring a moratorium on the name-calling and snide references to laxatives and wheat flakes?

-- Marcia Smith

As an over-49er, the most enjoyment I get from the networks these days is watching their entertainment divisions implode as they struggle over the same demographic within an overall shrinking audience. It's a clichi, but it has an element of truth: The television networks are following a trajectory similar to the radio networks of 50 years ago, and a similar outcome seems likely. Last time I looked, not many of us were still gathering around the Philco in the living room to listen to the Lone Ranger.

-- Charles Pankenier
Ridgefield, Conn.