Correspondence
Strom Thurmond Keeps on Going In "Why Strom Thurmond Will, and Ought To, Win" (Nov. 4), Andrew Ferguson confuses a man "worthy of fascination" with one worthy of reelection. Ferguson concedes that...
...But that's okay, we're told, because his politics were only "moderately disgusting...
...Kent Lassman Alexandria, VA Dissing Dole in Art Kevin Chadwick's art, depicting Bob Dole's face in an hourglass, on the Nov...
...He writes: "The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, anarchists who in a robbery had murdered a factory paymaster and guard, Dos Passos called 'judicial murder,' and he twice got himself arrested in protest against it...
...When the public is given no compelling reason to vote for change, you can't blame them for being uninformed or maintaining the status quo...
...After reading Thurmond's resume, the unit commanding officer introduced him by saying, "I now give you General Sherman...
...Watching this year's campaigns made me more than a little ill...
...Mac Donald even quoted an employee's negative comment about our governor...
...Access to the Internet does not provide an advantage over other, more traditional, teaching tools or methods...
...I was appalled at The Weekly Standard's treatment of Dole, a decent man whom I truly admire...
...Julie Ann Kessler Claremont, CA Quit Panting After Youth Itotally agree with the last paragraph of "Panting After Youth" by Edwin Diamond, Catherine DonaldsonEvans, and Leah Ginsberg (Nov...
...I expected an article about songwriters who have lost their knack...
...Here in California, the techno-craze has Internet enthusiasts wailing that without Internet access in the classrooms, our children will be unprepared to compete in the 21st century...
...Shame on the Republican challenger who also did not provide the reasons, although he certainly knew of them and referred to them indirectly many times...
...Historians should write about Bill Clinton in tones of revulsion usually reserved for the likes of Nero...
...We did this for CCRI, and we will continue to help our employees hear both sides of significant issues...
...Estella Breitler Aurora, CO Misled and Miffed Regarding "Music Without the Words: The Torture of Writer's Block" (Nov...
...George C. Leef East Lansing, MI David Gelernter's piece is right on the money...
...Not only does that employee (now retired) have no recollection of saying it, the statement absolutely does not reflect the view of our company...
...I concur with Gelernter: Entertainment is not within the purview of our schools...
...4): How could the editors conspire with Joseph Epstein to condone such a misleading title...
...It refers to the token political coverage of campaign issues foisted upon "Generation Xers," and, at 28, I suppose I am one...
...In 1977 Gov...
...Three cheers for Gelernter's piece and all others that expose the vac-uousness of Clinton's statements and policies...
...They will be ignoring an issue that has real potential for loosening the stranglehold of teacher unions and the AFL-CIO on inner-city voters...
...4) is interesting in light of the smashing success of Republicans in the Ohio Assembly and, despite efforts of the AFL-CIO and the teacher unions, the reelection of Michael Fox to that body...
...Currently America is not educating its children for tomorrow...
...To engage in craven political pandering while the dumbing down of American youth conCorrespondence tinues is simply despicable...
...26) misrepresented my comments and my company's position on the California Civil Rights Initiative...
...Talk about trying to run before you can walk...
...But California was the lowest-scoring state on the 1994 NAEP reading comprehension test for fourth graders...
...The point the article doesn't make is that almost all the political coverage, news shows, campaign ads, even the candidates' debates, which were aimed at the "older" audiences, were at least as token as the ones directed at my generation...
...The close ties between campaign contributions and the Clinton administration's policies show just how far a dollar will go when standards no longer matter...
...We did make efforts to inform employees on many issues by bringing in speakers pro and con...
...Imprisoned in weekly meetings of an army reserve unit in 1958, Thurmond, then a general in the reserve, was presented to our unenthusiastic group as a special treat—a guest speaker...
...Wong's and other workers' remarks to me...
...Whether or not vouchers are the answer, Fox, by his ingenuity on the issue, has demonstrated his sticking power in Cleveland...
...Judge Thayer, assured of their guilt because they were anarchists, was as prejudiced as possible...
...But in the same paragraph we learn that "a couple of narrow escapes" from the Senate's president pro tem-pore have the women on another senator's staff afraid to ride alone in an elevator with him...
...As Winkler points out, Fox's efforts in the Cleveland public schools, though largely ignored by Republican strategists and bigwigs, have not been ignored by parents and voters who know their kids deserve something better than a pathetic 32 percent high school graduation rate...
...African Americans, no doubt, will be relieved to know that Thurmond's shameful 1948 presidential campaign may have been motivated by political calculations—his desire to run for Senate—and not genuine racism...
...Pacific Bell was neutral on the ballot measure...
...If Republicans do not take the failure of inner-city schools seriously, they will be missing more than a chance to do some real good for America's future...
...Edward M. Williams Lansdale, PA Pac Bell Is No CCRI Foe Heather Mac Donald's article "Why They Hate CCRI" (Oct...
...Surely there are many composers among your readership who are equally disappointed...
...When it comes to our leaders, having character apparently isn't as important as being one...
...If nothing else, Ferguson's apologia adds a new spin to the character issue...
...So while South Carolinians faced an important choice about who would represent them for the next six years, Ferguson is lost in a Tennessee Williams reverie, waxing nostalgic about the pre-civil-rights South, where men in white suits sitting in the lobbies of hotels cut deals "among the palmettos as ceiling fans wheeled lazily overhead...
...Perhaps the investigators looking at DNC fund-raising should examine the connection between this harebrained scheme and Silicon Valley's enthusiastic endorsement of the Clinton-Gore ticket...
...Republicans should pay attention...
...Bart Acocella Washington, DC Reading Andrew Ferguson's article I recalled the one time I met this extraordinary man...
...Ferguson tells us that Thurmond has never been accused of sexual harassment...
...4) was a marvelous demolition of Clinton's promise that all fifth graders would be able to log on to the Internet by the year 2000...
...Internet Promises David Gelernter's piece "Less Surfing, More Learning" (Nov...
...And, unlike many of his contemporaries, Thurmond was sober the whole time...
...Vincent W. Franco Arlington, VA Good News for Ohio Claudia Winkler's article "Outfoxing the Status Quo" (Nov...
...the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction...
...anna Wong Director, EEO, Affirmative Action and Diversity Pacific Bell San Ramon, CA Heather Mac Donald responds: My description of Pacific Bell's affirmative-action "education" campaign was taken virtually verbatim from Ms...
...4 cover was offensive...
...Is Tuttleton trying to preserve a falsehood...
...Katherine Post San Francisco, CA As for David Gelernter's commentary on the absurdity of universal Internet access for schools, the facts can hardly be disputed...
...As for the employee's memory lapse, it happens to the best of us...
...It is bad for a president to run interference for union or corporate special interests that merely want to plunder the taxpayer or consumer...
...To see such an obviously corrupt administration be reelected was thoroughly disgusting, but my disgust is more for the supposed "independent" general news media that ignore such corruption...
...If Wong thinks that the campaign, as described, falsely conveys a pro-affirmative-action bias, perhaps she should reexamine it...
...Mac Donald made it sound like our efforts to inform voters were designed to urge our employees to vote against the measure...
...That is not true...
...S. David Doyle Gaithersburg, MD...
...There is a vast amount of evidence proving that American education is sliding into quicksand—thanks mainly to Clinton's education-union allies— but this most cynical and opportunistic of presidents just gives us Pollyanna rhetoric and absurd promises like guaranteed Internet access...
...Ferguson concedes that Thurmond was a segregationist...
...Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation acknowledging the errors of the trial and clearing the names of the defendants...
...We broke up completely, but ol' Strom just got up there and gave his speech...
...4) pushed me over e edge...
...But it is depraved for a president to assist special interests that damage the minds and futures of millions of children...
...To this day I wonder if he heard the gaffe...
...The sources I have read suggest that "judicial murder" is indeed an accurate description of the death sentence...
...Norman Brust New York, NY Good Fellas After All James W. Tuttleton's "Dos Passos's America" (Nov...
Vol. 2 • November 1996 • No. 10
