In your mesmerizing
analysis of the career of Janet Malcolm,
you unfortunately
perpetuate a significant factual error
published in "The Journalist and the
Murderer."
Indeed, her "masterpiece," as you call
it, is riddled with errors of fact.
In the 1989 epilogue to "Fatal Vision"
-- still in print and readily
available -- I enumerate a number of
them, but here I shall focus only on the
one that you have chosen to promulgate.

Malcolm did not attend the 1987 trial
of the civil lawsuit in which the
murderer, MacDonald, charged me with
various offenses (though not with having
published anything he deemed untrue).
Her absence placed her at a severe
disadvantage in terms of accurate
reporting, but perhaps, as a "genius,"
she
considered such mundane tasks unworthy
of her. Nonetheless, it led to
grievous errors in her writings which
you continue to disseminate (albeit in
all probability unknowingly) to this
day.

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Right on! How refreshing it is to see a black person (other than myself) point out the hypocrisy of black leaders. This latest racially motivated assault by a black person on white persons should have been a prime opportunity for these leaders to demonstrate their commitment to equal treatment and equal consideration. If this were a white-on-black incident, there would be no end to the very public and grandstanding demands for justice. By remaining silent on this revolting incident, black leaders unwittingly empower our enemies, and prove their own inadequacy in moving the struggle for equal rights forward into the next century.

-- Andrew Ricks

I agree with Hutchinson that black leaders greatly risk losing the moral high ground when they fail to condemn black-on-white hate crimes. In fighting for equal treatment under the law for all individuals, minority groups must show the moral understanding to express outrage when majority groups are attacked simply because of their ethnic or racial background.

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Ah, poor Emily! She, like so many other visitors to the British Isles, was tricked into thinking that the word "restaurant" in Britain means "a place where someone knows/cares about cooking." Sadly, people here in the U.K. have still not grasped the idea of decent food at decent prices. There are a few exceptions but generally one is hard-pressed to find anything approaching the quality of food in North America and continental Europe.

You can eat very fine food in London, but it is all a) outrageously expensive and b) presented as a favor to the dining public. Celebrity chefs demand celebrity prices for the honor of dining in their establishments and being seen in the latest place. People here still don't understand that service is not a bad thing, and that providing good service can be a godsend.

-- Savana Burke

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To speculate upon and lament a possible "digital divide between blacks and whites" is in a sense absurd. To put a laptop in every black home seems an inferior option than that of cultivating the intellectual capital that is necessary for technological progress. In any given year, only a handful of blacks earn doctorates in the intellectual disciplines such as mathematics, physics and evolutionary biology. This is the real scandal. It is ultimately insights found in these disciplines and others that form the foundation of technology. Lament this, unless of course one thinks that blacks can only be end-users of the ideas the fuel progress -- give me a break with this digital divide nonsense.

-- Greg Price

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I am the 20-something Gen Xer that Rasenberger's genvying.

I'm the white girl driving to work in an SUV to an Internet start-up -- working in marketing, no less -- stopping on the way for a (non-fat) latte while talking on the cell phone (did I mention it's light blue?) I shop at Banana Republic (online), take way too much Diet Fuel, occasionally watch the WB, eat sushi, moved to California after graduating from a big state school in the Midwest, still refer to the males I date as "guys," have credit card debt despite being overpaid and just recently stopped drinking vodka tonics after watching a movie in which someone points out to the Chloe Sevigny character that vodka tonics are the just-out-of-college-and-moved-to-the-big-city girl drink.

A 37-year-old man who lives 3,000 miles from me and who I've never met before is describing me perfectly. I am such a clichi I could puke.

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Margaret Wertheim's measured review of "A Natural History of Rape" was on target, but it could have been a lot stronger in its questioning of Thornhill's supposed science. Needless to say, as the author of "Against Our Will," I read Thornhill's mishmash very closely and caught him in many errors. My review appears on my Web site, susanbrownmiller.com

-- Susan Brownmiller

If you really want to win the holy war against the evolutionary psychologists a much better refrain would be "True, but irrelevant," as opposed to screaming "Holy apostasy!" After all, even arch-Darwinian Steven Pinker agrees that cultural explanations of human behavior eclipse Darwinian explanations. But rape (not to mention murder, theft and a thousand other human behaviors) exists throughout all human cultures and throughout all of human history. If Wertheim doesn't think there is an evolutionary explanation for the biological basis of rape, where does she think it came from? Original sin? Maybe rape was created when Eve ate the apple. If anyone is a New Fundamentalist -- upset by scientists treading on their holy turf -- it would Wertheim.

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In "Born to rape?" by Margaret Wertheim, there was a minor statistical error in the figures about rape rates in the United States. While the 1992 study cited does not, in fact, suggest that the overall percentage of rape in America is as high as 20 percent, another study, not cited by the authors of "A Natural History of Rape," and a number of researchers interviewed for the article indicate that the rate of rape in the United States may be that high. The article has been corrected.

Brutal verdict
BY BRUCE SHAPIRO
(02/26/00)

Those cops weren't murderers, but I sure as hell don't want them on my street in New York City. They panicked, and cops shouldn't panic.

-- Dorothy Stade

I think that we are giving the cops too much slack even in your excellent article. I think that it went down like this:

Cop: "Put your hands up! Do you have any ID?

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I suppose I'm just another middle class white male who doesn't get it. Ruhle has a college degree and some graduate training. Her article proves her ability to write well and communicate ideas forcefully. But she has never held a job. She claims to be disabled, but doesn't say in what way. She is able to traipse all over New York City to look for a better and cheaper apartment.The ADA provides recourse for job hiring discrimination against the disabled. But she still doesn't have a job. Why not?

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Thanks to Pam Rosenthal for her insightful review of John Colapinto's "As Nature Made Him." The outcome of this case indeed has no clinical value in the specious nature/nurture turf war over sex identity.

As one of John Money's former intersexed "non-human" experimentees I speak from personal experience to assert that the outcomes of highly anomalistic cases of children who are deemed available for experimentation, for whatever reason, actually provide no useful data. Unless of course there are still some holdouts who require more evidence of the strength of the human spirit.

-- Kiira Triea

Coalition for Intersex Support Activism & Education

I read with more than casual interest "Forced Crossing," by Pam Rosenthal. I was born in 1952, a hermaphrodite with ambiguous genitalia. I know several people who were born intersexed and assigned a sex they later changed. I think it is obvious that gender is innate and influenced somewhat by socialization.

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Ann Marlowe is right on. It's incredible how much one can internalize other people's expectations. When women begin to think of themselves as weak, financially or otherwise, they contribute to their own degradation. And who, besides an actual pro wants to think of herself as selling her favors? I used to reach for the dinner check all the time, but over the years I was reprimanded by both men and women for my behavior. At the time, I defended myself by saying that he worked hard for the money, and so did I, so why not? Apparently, both sexes find that statement sufficiently frightening that I started wondering if I was wrong. Well, I'm not wrong. Look, I don't want to tell the young men I date not to send me flowers. But I send them flowers too.

-- T. Sanchez

The problem is not that women want to make less money
but that "women's work" is always valued less. Why should an engineer make more money than a teacher? Are engineers more necessary to the world? Or why should the person who mows your lawn make more than one who takes care of your children? Why should we have to choose between a satisfying job and a high-paying one?

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I must have dozed off between working out and reading my Abercrombie & Fitch catalog! When did it become good journalism to separate, label, and attack a segment of American society? Is the next article going to expose the evils of those "sneaky gays," "whiny career women" or "sorority snobs?"

However, since you've expressed an interest in printing this kind of thing, I'm attaching an article I wrote titled "Beta male blamethrowers: B-grade journalists who never quite got over the fact that they didn't get into a fraternity and always got picked last in sports."

-- N. Root

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What a grand thing the French have done in voting for Laetitia Casta to symbolize Marianne. I'm almost 60 and have always been reluctant to be seen paging through the Victoria's Secret catalog. Now I can do so freely without the risk of someone thinking I'm a cross-dresser.

-- Loren Harmon

Don't believe everything you hear. France's Marianne is about as important and representative as your Miss America.

Having cleared that up, at least the French panel of judges chose a natural beauty, not the big-hair, fake-breast, plastic-face variety that wins in the United States.

-- Gentry Lane
(another Paris-based Salon contributor)

The obvious title -- "Liberti, Igaliti, Dicolleti!" -- must have escaped you.

-- Nick Wade

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Stanley Crouch does anything but. The man is stand-up. I bought "The All-American Skin Game" after reading about it in Salon, and the man makes so much sense that you wonder how he's lasted this long. He calls for bravery, and we haven't had many brave politicians in a long time. Kudos.

-- Fred Houts

Thank you Salon.com for inviting this articulate and thoughtful man to participate. His article on the future fate of the Republican Party is the type of fair and balanced view that many of us, disgusted with the political process, have been praying for.

-- Kymberlyn Toliver-Reed

Stanley Crouch, like David Horowitz, asks us to look not to what the GOP is but what it could be. I personally would love to support a GOP that stands for less government. However, one votes not for what a party might be, but for what a party is right now, and the fact of the matter is that the GOP behaves in Washington not as the party of rational economics, but as the party of corporate welfare, religious intolerance and gay-bashing.

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Enough already with the p.c. indignation. So McCain
called guys who bashed his head in, broke his arms, starved him
and held him prisoner for several years "gooks." I'm surprised
he didn't call them "f---ing gooks."

So why doesn't John McCain "move on?" Why doesn't he put it
behind him and forgive his captors? Why doesn't he want to hug
and make nice with them? Hey, that's a good idea. I'll
remember to use that advice the next time a group asks for
reparations for past unjust treatment, or wants some special
dispensation because of historical wrongs. I'll remember that
when we screech about hate crimes against gays or women or
minorities ... "Hey guys, that was the past. Move on."

-- Diana Johnston

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I find it very interesting and sad that a show such as this has aired in an era where state after state is rushing to enact "Defense of Marriage" bills to "protect" the "sanctity" of this institution from same-sex couples.

It is indeed sad, and very telling, that two heterosexual people can meet for the first time in what amounts to a cattle call on a television show and legally marry with the blessing of the laws of every state. Yet same-sex couples who may have been co-habitating for years in loving and meaningful relationships are denied this right.

So much for the "sanctity" of marriage.

-- M. Alread

Why in all the commentary I've read about this show so far has no one asked the obvious question, which is: when will we see the sequel: "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-millionairess?"

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Christine Schoefer's article was quite interesting and informative, but missed one salient facet of flirting: It's cruelty. For any man or woman who is unattractive to the opposite sex -- and especially those for whom this has always been the case -- "flirting" might better be described as "taunting."

It is one thing for a person to flirt or be flirted with when they are confident in the knowledge of their own attractiveness. They can enjoy flirting in its more innocuous social context. But for people who are the opposite, whose self-knowledge is of a sadder sort, flirting becomes inherently degrading.

This is best summed up in a short passage I read in a book many years ago: "She stroked his hand in the friendly and familiar but uninviting way women had with unattractive men." It is cruel to "flirt" with people who are obviously outside of the society of courtship, and unnecessary.

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Charles Taylor overlooked a simpler explanation of Eriq LaSalle's request to have his character's relationship with a Caucasian woman terminated. If the character has a history of unsuccessful relationships with African-American women, and he is depicted as being content in a relationship with a Caucasian woman, viewers who follow the story closely enough to actually care about the character's motivation could reasonably surmise that the racial difference is a major factor in the success of his relationship.

If LaSalle seems hyper-sensitive on this point, consider the assertion made by Eldridge Cleaver in "Soul On Ice" that many black men consider Caucasian women superior to African-American women. I can't cite other sources, but I don't think Cleaver was the first to express that view. Cleaver went on to state that he considered it an insult to African-American women for an African-American man to be involved with a Caucasian woman, which sounds like the claim LaSalle is accused of making. Strident, perhaps, but not unfounded.

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Cecelie S. Berry's story about her search for the perfect nanny came across as little more than elitist whining about how hard it is to find good help these days.

I've got news for Berry: Most people, no matter where they're from, consider looking after someone else's kids to be a demanding, poorly paid, low-status job -- something you do if you can't find anything better. This may be why nearly all of the nannies who worked for the author turned out to have "scars": They were in the nanny business because their emotional wounds rendered them unfit for any other kind of work.

I'm very sorry that Berry is having so much trouble finding the working person's ultimate status symbol.

-- Mary Elsisi

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Bravo, Charles Taylor! Thank you for a well-thought-out essay on another of the books that seems to appear with the inevitability of liver spots whenever a conservative writer reaches a certain age.

Himmelfarb's book raises a serious question that has troubled me for some time. I have just published my first academic book. Before it was accepted, three qualified scholars read the manuscript, pointing out errors of logic, suggesting the need for more verification and indicating parts that simply needed to be rewritten because the thread of the argument got tangled. Does a person like Himmelfarb reach a certain point in his or her career when this sort of peer review ceases, like teaching observation of non-tenured faculty?

-- Thomas Barran

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Having worked as an academic advisor at a small, liberal arts college I've perused literally thousands of applicant files and I don't recall a single instance when SAT scores "with a bullet" (un-timed scores are designated by an asterisk) worked to a student's advantage. Generally the scores still correlated rather well to the student's high school performance: high achievers who pursued rigorous courses of study got high scores and vice versa. And occasionally nonstandard scores constituted a distinct disadvantage because they drew closer attention to educational assessments performed by paid testers. Oftentimes we would determine that such students were not learning disabled despite the un-timed tests and thus deserved no special consideration above and beyond other applicants.

The fact is that an extra hour or two with a #2 pencil in hand won't mean a hill of beans to a student who's not likely to guess the correct answer anyway.

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