I watch very few movies, but sometimes the reviews in Salon are sufficiently intriguing that I will shock my friends by clamoring to see a film. So I find it absolutely maddening that release dates and locations are not available along with reviews. I live in San Francisco and spend about a week a month in Chicago. I want to see "Romance," but moviefone.com tells me this isn't possible in either city. The reviewer mentions that he saw it twice in New York, but where and when can I see it? This would be tremendously helpful.

-- Anil Gurnaney

Thicker than blood
BY SIMON RODBERG
(09/20/99)

Simon Rodberg points out that the modern practice of weakening family ties when leaving for college can have negative consequences. This practice also churns the intellectual soil of the nation, allowing youths to experiment with ideas that may be offensive to previous generations. Yes, it might contribute to doubt and anxiety in college, but this is much desired if it produces self-knowledge and new ideas.

Many cultures have found the need for coming-of-age rituals; leaving for college has become the modern version. The expectation of breaking away and the disassociation with family actually reduces the pain on all sides. Children do not feel as guilty for leaving their parents and parents don't feel as abandoned. Perhaps some students don't need this break, but for the health of society the option needs to be offered. If only those students with restrictive or difficult situations at home took this route, it would be a judgment and a hardship; if it is a part of the culture it is merely a sad occurrence.

You don't break away for yourself or your parents but rather for all those students who do need to do so -- and for all those people who will be graced with your iconoclastic ideas.

-- Peter Gerdes

What starts in college continues beyond graduation day. If you will not leave your family now, then I pray that you have not chosen business as your field of study. To move ahead in most business careers, one must be willing to work and relocate without regard to the needs of the immediate family (spouse and children) -- mothers, fathers, siblings don't exist. You are expected to adopt the "corporate family." Their needs are first and you are penalized for even the slightest perception that the company may not be your first priority.

I cannot deny the benefits we enjoy -- level of income, international travel, etc. The question, as you pointed out, is a philosophical one. Economics is what kept ancient and pre-modern families together and it is what enables the mass self-actualizing adventures of today. Courage and principles are required to swim against the stream. It sounds as though you may have both. You have an opportunity to be true to yourself, whereas I am hoping I am not too late.

-- C.M. White

"A Book of Reasons"
REVIEWED BY DUSTIN BEILKE
(09/17/99)

Based on the description that Dustin Beilke gives of "A Book of Reasons," it is apparent that "memoir" and "anti-memoir" are both inadequate labels. Why not call it an essay?

-- Pat Bryant
Kansas City, Kan.

Free Allan Nairn!
BY BRUCE SHAPIRO
(09/18/99)

From what I gather, Allan Nairn's crime is coming back into the country he was banned from. And I don't see that deporting him is an appropriate sentence: He was deported -- that is, given a chance -- once already, and that didn't work. He came back.

I don't know according to what moral standard you consider him innocent. Because his prosecutors are not angels? If that is the moral standard then all U.S. prisoners should be released. You have a government here in the United States that kills its citizens and then covers it up, funds Turkish and South American death squads, is complicit to ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians from Kosovo, starves to death and bombs millions of Iraqi children. What gives?

Allan Nairn is not above the law. Americans are not above the law. It's time you get this in your heads.

I hope Nairn gets a light sentence, and finally reconsiders his own behavior to the benefit of everyone. I would gladly sign a petition to the Indonesian government for leniency for Nairn. That is the proper channel. I would hate to see the U.S. government intervene and have him released. It will do nothing to promote democracy in Indonesia.

-- Nikola Stankovic
Sunnyvale, Calif.

Surprise: Bush could be the "education president"
BY JOAN WALSH
(09/17/99)

Education president? It would be more of a surprise if Bush were the "education governor."

All standardized testing has done for Texas schools is to insure that children are educated in how to pass the standardized test. It's not education, it's training in "multiple guess." Charter schools (another idea Bush champions) are more a disgrace than a success here. The one way in which schools might actually have been improved -- equalization of funding , which separates school funding from local property taxes, or forces the state to spread that money around so poor districts can afford buildings that don't leak and textbooks that aren't 25 years old -- seems to have died with Bush AWOL from the fight.

Bush may impress someone with his personal bearing; but his actions speak louder than his charm. If Bush is the best hope we have of an "education president," we have no hope at all.

-- Robert M. Jeffers

How can you reconcile that with the fact that a huge number of Bush's charter schools in Texas are failures, and that Texas has recently been named 48th-best state in the United States to be a child?

If what you want to teach kids is how to take tests, the Texas schools are doing a great job...if you want to teach them how to think, on the other hand, you better take them somewhere else.

-- Mike Switzer
Houston

The Teflon governor meets the national media
BY JERRY POLITEX
(09/17/99)

Jerry Politex concludes that what the country really needs is 14 months of news writers playing "Gotcha" every time George W. commits the "national embarrassment" of saying "Timorians" when he should say "Timorese." I personally can think of no more banal or witless an exercise.

-- Robert Anderson
Denver

From a progressive's point of view, the George W. Bush boomlet may be a hopeful sign, since it illustrates the desperation of the GOP establishment. Over the last 5 years, the radical-right extremists of the congressional GOP have made themselves deeply unpopular with the general public. My guess is that a majority of the electorate supported Clinton during the impeachment jihad mainly out of revulsion toward his attackers.

Before Bush announced, it appeared well within the realm of possibility that someone like Steve Forbes, who has become a standard-bearer of the extreme right, could make a serious run at the nomination. It is crystal clear that any nominee visibly beholden to the hard right would be unelectable in a presidential race, and might sink the GOP's razor-thin Congressional majority as well. Therefore, the Republican Party, in desperate need of an alternative to the other contenders, is feverishly promoting the Texas governor.

Bush's phony "compassionate conservatism" is supposed to reassure the general electorate, while Bush's pronouncements on many issues signal to the party's right-wing "base" that Dubya is really with them. The fact that this empty suit is the best they could come up with must mean that the GOP talent pool is shallow indeed. Jerry Politex's article shows up Bush for what he is: a thin-skinned lightweight who is going to self-destruct once the big show gets under way.

-- Jacob Conrad

How can anyone with level judgment compare a gaffe concerning the proper name to call persons from East Timor with Quayle's gaffes? Jerry Politex is going to have to come up with something voters actually care about if he is going to successfully derail the Bush campaign. President Reagan wasn't considered the brightest of our presidents, but the people loved him and he restored our national pride. Gov. Bush may be no Reagan, but he has a better chance than anyone to govern effectively and restore some semblance of decency and honor to the presidency.

-- Edward C. Sweeney
Berwyn, Pa.

When will the GOP court blacks?
BY EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON
(09/17/99)

When will the GOP court blacks? When it gets back to its roots and realizes what it was founded for. Republicans seem to forget that theirs is the party formed to abolish slavery. They also seem to forget that promoting the equality and ability of a race that has been implicitly told "you aren't good enough to make it on your own" by affirmative action laws should be a strong draw for blacks who are sick of being "not good enough."

The Republicans have a candidate with which to win the black vote. His name is Alan Keyes. There is not a more articulate candidate in the party and if the Republicans were smart, they would be promoting this black leader as their candidate. Instead, they are playing "safe" with a white candidate who rakes in the corporation money.

The GOP can win the black vote, but only when they find their anti-slavery roots and lose the fear of promoting a black candidate.

-- Ian Rutherford