Spears seems to me a tragic figure waiting to happen, like a child star who has to rebuild an identity after the inevitable crash of an artificial one -- a Dana Plato, a Drew Barrymore. I hope Spears manages not to evolve into this stereotype. But more importantly, I worry about the girls out there who furiously covet her popularity. I worry about their loneliness and what it will make them do.

-- Elizabeth Randolph

Stalking Gates
BY JANELLE BROWN
(08/25/99)

Janelle Brown suggests that Ken Auletta's feature in the New Yorker, much like Rivlin's book, "posits itself as an examination of Gates' attempt to 'upgrade' his public persona and company image." But judging from the topic matter and tone of both these pieces, as reported by Brown, they could be better described as being part of Gates and Microsoft's revisionist PR attempts.

Fixating on the colorful personalities who'd like to have Bill's head while giving short shrift to the real issues -- including those leading to the DOJ charges -- plays perfectly in the eyes of Redmond. Portrayal of Gates as some kind of peculiar "geek" just furthers the attack on real history, and handily shifts the focus. Hey, Redmond's happy (even if it says otherwise).

-- Dick Busch
New York

Is the Web "contracting"?
BY SCOTT ROSENBERG
(08/26/99)

Scott Rosenberg questions the implications of the recent Los Angles Times research. But for me, the whole picture became clear right around this sentence: "That report found that 'the most popular Web sites command by far the biggest share of Internet traffic.'"

So what is so revolutionary, so earth-shatteringly new, about something so recursively redundant? If the most popular Web sites didn't get the biggest share of Internet traffic, then what would we be defining popular to mean?

Rosenberg is right on the money: This research is no big deal.

-- Erskin L. Cherry

The Clinton marriage
BY JAKE TAPPER
(08/26/99)

My goodness, you'd think that Bill Clinton invented adultery, the way we've heard the mightily self-righteous and hypocritical members of the anti-Clinton contingent harangue him over it. But you know what? The smear boys have succeeded: They have made an otherwise sane guy like Jake Tapper think that people like Gennifer Flowers and Kathleen Willey are telling the whole unadulterated truth.

Bill Clinton, under oath, 'fessed up to one sexual encounter (that did NOT result in consummation) with Gennifer Flowers many moons ago. A Penthouse magazine article from way back when quoted her friends as saying that it was indeed an attempt at a quick fling on her part that failed, hence her desire for revenge: Not only is she a lifelong Republican, she's also a woman used to being able to wrap men around her little finger, and when this one refused to wrap, she got angry.

Alas for her, her story falls apart upon examination. For instance: She says the affair started in 1979 in a certain Little Rock hotel. Trouble is, the hotel wasn't built until 1982. Oops. Flowers has told lie after lie after lie -- far more than Bill Clinton could even dream of telling -- yet you hold her credibility in greater esteem than Bill Clinton's.

The GOP figures that they can keep up the crap barrage under the principle that "where there's smoke, there's gotta be a fire." But in the case of all the phony "scandals" -- from TravelGate to FileGate to Whitewater itself -- the smoke's all coming out of some very-well-financed smoke machines.

-- Tamara Baker
St. Paul, Minn.

Christopher Andersen does not mention one solid source, yet we are suppose to believe anything mentioned in this book. Yes, Clinton-haters believe such rubbish, but they believe anything negative about them. Tapper mentions Bob Woodward and how his book backs up Andersen's. But as mentioned in the latest Brill's Content, Woodward's sources and direct quotes are as vague and questionable as Andersen's.

Also, you seem to give validity to the book because the Clintons do not disclaim it. Past experience shows denials lead to more attention, more questions and more book sales for Andersen.

The definition of nonfiction is compromised when we include these books in that category.

-- Linda Sparks

John McCain plays Dumbo
BY JAKE TAPPER
(08/26/99)

Jake Tapper forgot one elephant/gun statistic. The number of elephants that have prevented someone's wife from being raped and having her throat slit: 0.

By the way, don't forget on the same day the Jewish center shooting happened, another freak in Israel drove his car over and killed 15 people who were of a different religion. Having his car registered didn't prevent it.

Also, don't forget that all the guns Buford used at the Jewish center were already illegal in California. That didn't prevent it either.

-- Lance Larsen

Espionage without evidence
BY JEFF STEIN
(08/27/99)

What I think Jeff Stein's article is implying is that 1) if Chinese intelligence did get any valuable information out of Wen Ho Lee, they probably used methods so indirect and subtle that the poor man wasn't even aware of what he was giving them, and 2) whatever they got from him was probably so incremental as to be the intelligence equivalent of one piece of a 500-piece puzzle. And for this he's lost his job and might still be prosecuted and imprisoned. Spying without espionage. Collaborating without intent. How clever. It's almost like spying by witchcraft! I guess it's time for a witch hunt.

-- Vic Jang

Rag vs. rag
BY JENN SHREVE
(08/27/99)

Thank you for Jenn Shreve's Skeptic vs. Fate comparison, which reminded me of the old Spy vs. Spy bit in Mad magazine, and for characterizing us as the obvious quality "rag" of the two. I will gladly take readers who prefer the insights of the brilliant and iconoclastic social psychologist Carol Tavris over those who would rather read what Jing, the psychic parrot, has to say (or is that think?) on anything, including cats. To be fair to us, Shreve chose one of our more conservative and academic issues to analyze, but the point is well made. We scientists and skeptics should take a lesson from the tabloid rags like Fate -- that if we want to appeal to broader and larger audiences, we need a little sex appeal.

-- Dr. Michael Shermer
Publisher, Skeptic magazine

I think what's needed is a glossy, populist skeptical magazine: a magazine with high production values and lots of eye-catching graphics, and written in a language accessible to the average person. Call me an optimist, but I find most folk are looking for information in a manner they understand. They do want to learn, they just don't want to work at it. That's a tough order to fill, but it's one that no one has attempted. However, as you suggested in your article, people also want to believe in Bigfoot, UFOs and governmental conspiracies. These make the world less mundane. Perhaps that desire is too great -- hence the popularity of Fate, Fortean Times and dozens of trash tabloids. Perhaps Skeptic magazine has it right, and expensive graphics would only make a skeptical magazine economically unfeasible. I don't know if a populist skeptical magazine would sell, nice graphics and all, but it would be nice for someone to at least try. And having Gillian Anderson on the cover couldn't hurt!

-- Allan Goodall
Toronto

Edward Said to respond to claims he's not a true Palestinian
BY CRAIG OFFMAN
(08/26/99)

But of course Edward Said is not a "true Palestinian." Said is far too sophisticated and refined for that. His loyalties are to aesthetics and linguistics; In that sense, he is more French than anything else. His sensibilities are those of the dandy; at once too complex (intellectually) and simple (emotionally naive) to be a "true Palestinian." As an intellectual, he is attracted to the idea of Palestine; as an artist, it captures his imagination. That is all.

-- Yahia Samir Lababidi

It hardly matters who actually owned the house in Jerusalem or where Said went to school. Said's personal history is only significant as an example of the tale of his people. Other people certainly did go through similar hardships, except they can't write like him.

Still, I think it's interesting to ponder why is it that the most eloquent voice of the Palestinians is a man who is so unrepresentative of his people. As an Episcopalian, he is part of a tiny minority in a nation where religious affiliation is extremely important. Having lived most of his life in Egypt and the West, he has hardly experienced firsthand such seminal events in his people's history as the Six-Day War and the Intifada.

-- Micha X. Peled