Correspondence
The Battle for School Choice Iagree with Chester E. Finn, Jr. that Republicans have done an awful job of explaining their education policies to the voters ("How Republicans Lost the Education...
...Wrong on both counts...
...In the text I tried to take a step back from my own beliefs and investigate more broadly the appeal of the Devil since the time of Neanderthal man...
...That certainly sounds like agnosticism to me, and so does the tone and spirit of the book as a whole...
...When Shakespeare asked for "a muse of fire," he was inciting the audience's imagination...
...Americans have a soft spot in their hearts for "public education," but the term "public education" needs to be correctly defined...
...Allen Zoroya Alhambra, CA Songs from the Roads David Gelernter's essay on Dorothy Lamour was very engaging ("Dorothy Lamour: An Elegy," Nov...
...To conclude, Bing's characters in all of the Road pictures were always phonies and con-men, anything but nice guys...
...I would hope that in the next presidential election, the Republican nominee will take off the gloves and attack the Democratic nominee with the appropriate vigor...
...Maria Nolan meadowbrook, pa Religion As Trump Concluding his review of Roger Shattuck's Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography, Saul Rosenberg blandly indulges in what is becoming an all too easy trump among conservative intellectuals ("Two Cultures Still," Nov...
...However . . . as a governmental institution, the Navy is legally prohibited from any activity which has the primary effect of promoting or endorsing religion...
...Cinema superior to theater because the special effects are better...
...Abraham Foxman New York, NY Arts and Music: Bravo...
...This does not mean the government must provide the service...
...Nov...
...Unfortunately, charges that are unanswered become true in the eyes of the voters...
...But since Mr...
...Every protest on our part was dismissed by Republican moderates and the liberal media as an attempt by the "extremist" religious Right to seize control of the party...
...Peter Stanford London, England Norman Podhoretz responds: My characterization of Mr...
...For a long time conservatives have been paying lip service to the idea that we must play an active role in the culture if our political ideas are to have any resonance...
...Russ Jones Marietta, GA We Like Promise Keepers Your suggestion that the Anti-Defamation League asked the Navy to refrain from sponsoring a rally by a Christian men's organization because it deemed the rally anti-Semitic (Scrapbook, Nov...
...And so while the liberal sighs that conservatives just don't care, the conservative replies by saying that liberals just don't believe...
...To achieve this, persuasive rhetoric is required, but also truly developed taste...
...Stanford is an "an old-fashioned Catholic," then I can only say, yes, he has indeed "succeeded only too well" in stepping back from his own beliefs...
...Elliot West Post Mills, VT Celluloid Shakespeare Regarding John Podhoretz's "O For a Muse of Fire...
...W. Lorraine Watkins, M.D...
...Claudette Colbert, for example, who also recently departed leaving a few of us older guys faintly teary and wistful, was arguably the reigning queen of romantic sophisticated comedy far beyond lovely Ms...
...Our letter to the Navy stated the following: "ADL does not challenge Promise Keepers' right to proselytize or otherwise promote its religious agenda...
...The Dole/Kemp campaign could never settle on a consistent theme because the candidate himself did not have a real reason for wanting to be president...
...But Gelernter indirectly slights some very high-powered female screen presences of the period...
...ADL's concern with the rally involved solely these constitutional restrictions, which are basic to the protection of religious freedom...
...Johnny Burke was, if not a poet, exceedingly witty when called for and romantic when necessary...
...School choice will provide the best education to all students by allowing each and every parent to determine what is best for his child...
...While Republicans should not engage in demagogic rhetoric, they must not shrink from defining their opponents...
...Our society supports the education of our children because a democracy depends on a well-educated citizenry...
...If we do so, we will be having the same conversation four years from now in the days leading up to the inauguration of Al Gore...
...Lamour's reach...
...Our party should have reminded the voters of gays in the military, the nationalization of health care, and the administration's many ethical and possibly legal deficiencies early and often in the campaign...
...I take issue with the reference to Bing Crosby's singing "corn-ball ballads" and getting by on "nice-guyism...
...Stanford as an agnostic was based on the following statement in his preface: "For ninety-nine percent of the time I am coldly rational about the whole question [of whether the Devil exists...
...We cannot blame the mainstream media for this shortcoming...
...Anyone who still believes Dole was the people's choice as the party leader is incurably naive...
...Members of the conservative movement and the Republican party, however, must take a more serious look at the causes of this setback...
...Again, we cannot blame the media for this...
...Establishing true choice in education through a market-based system will result in an improved product and an end to the lunatic schemes foisted upon schools...
...25) is false...
...In the preface to the book, I made clear that I was raised and remain a Roman Catholic...
...The ADL never imputed anti-Semitism to any of the parties involved in the rally...
...21) Norman Podhoretz deems me—and appears also to damn me as— an agnostic...
...Nuance impossible on stage...
...that Republicans have done an awful job of explaining their education policies to the voters ("How Republicans Lost the Education Issue," Nov...
...Fortunately, your writers seem to have both...
...Dawsonville, GA Grass-roots moral conservatives have known that the GOP lost— or threw away—its soul way back when Correspondence President Bush repudiated Ronald Reagan's legacy...
...Even so, Paul Cantor's outstanding piece about the Broadway play Taking Sides ("Springtime for Furtwangler," Nov...
...As pro-choice conservatives pled for recognition, they disguised their determination to prevail over the party's pro-life position, a proven winner...
...Podhoretz's lack of an imaginzation is hardly grounds for a movie review...
...Bill Clinton was a liberal for the first two years of his administration, but he was allowed to sound like a Republican...
...In that other one percent, my Catholic upbringing makes itself felt...
...Professor Shattuck, he says, offers no real solution to the problem of dangerous knowledge because "It is clear that no vision of the human project can hope to restrain human ambition and curiosity unless it has a religious perspective...
...A political agenda limited to value-neutral mindless economic freedom is unacceptable to virtually all citizens...
...As a professional musician, I have been consistently impressed with both the depth and the range of the articles devoted to culture and the arts in your magazine...
...Jon Sherman Washington, DC Agnostic Agonistes In his review of my biography of the Devil ("The Devil's Biography," Oct...
...The reelection of Bill Clinton was indeed awesome confirmation of this...
...The word is picked out in bold type in the middle of his review...
...18): The stage is a poor medium for Shakespeare...
...Promise Keepers may well promote values beneficial to Navy cadets and men generally, but like any religious organization the group must further its message by its own efforts, not by government patronage...
...Clearly, this should include popular culture, but always with the recognition that there is also much deeper, spiritually enriching art, such as the conducting of Wilhelm Furtwangler...
...No less an authority than the musicologist and composer Alec Wilder considered Jimmy Van Heusen "a great writer...
...But no matter...
...Instead, we allowed the Democrats to define the GOP as mean-spirited extremists out to cut Medicare and starve the schoolchildren of America...
...To judge from Podhoretz's description of me, I succeeded only too well...
...Jim Rongstad Woodbury, MN Paving the Path for Gore The idea that Bill Clinton's reelection was inevitable may make Fred Barnes feel better about the remarkably poor campaign of Bob Dole and Jack Kemp ("The Inevitable Clinton Victory," Nov...
...If it was Haley Barbour's plan to break the political back of the religious Right and send us home to our church communities, he succeeded when he inflicted Bob Dole upon us...
...Hyperion Knight Brooklyn, NY Value-Free Frustration As a conservative, I join John Podhoretz in his disappointment at the failure of the GOP to raise a candidate for president who was responsive to the spiritual and intellectual needs of our nation ("Value-Free GOP," Nov...
...It is not for me to dispute the tone or the verdict of his review, but, old-fashioned Catholic that I am, I feel I must correct this simple but deeply unsettling factual error...
...25) took me by surprise, both in its insight and the commitment to the arts it indicates on the part of The Weekly Standard...
...Then Rosenberg lifts not a finger to spell out how cognitive censorship from a religious perspective could possibly work in our extended republic...
...That the two guys got together is demon-strably a cause for celebration by those of us who are uncorrupted by rock'n'roll and moved by songs that take away the breath, stir the senses, tickle the funny bone, thrill the heart, and, in many instances, haunt one forever...
...Burke and Van Heusen were responsible for most of the Roadsongs...
Vol. 2 • December 1996 • No. 13
