CORRESPONDENCE

...Students at Stanford are not there because there are 10 million books in the library, but because the degree tends to impress human-resource directors at Microsoft and Goldman Sachs...

...This is just as bad as the leftists who see nothing but evil in military endeavor...

...And I lived there for four years...

...The Frenchman was consciously ironic...

...He is not a defender of our civil rights—only a barbarian who deserves our contempt...

...Even the title of his article is a manifestation of hysteria...

...To add insult, you opt to side with the nation that loosed Marx, Wagner, and Wundt on the world...

...Dale E. Weeks Louisville, KY Matt Labash's piece regarding just how disgusting Larry Flynt really is may inadvertently result in comforting those embracing an absurd interpretation of the First Amendment...

...Students of history and politics should know that science too provides fundamental backing for this view...

...17): The comment about what would happen to a conservative Republican press secretary if he had said what Mike McCurry said begs a question...

...Reid is unconsciously so when he observes that the law limiting the franchise in Northern Ireland to owners of real property applied to Catholics and Protestants alike...

...Against this backdrop, it's laughable when all these hand-wringers try to be taken seriously on the subject of hazing...

...What is seemingly less consequential than the beating of a butterfly's wings...

...Army air-assault course five years ago...

...So it was a mere accident that for hundreds of years Catholics had been forbidden by law to own land in Ireland, and that most of them in the North still do not...

...We readily concede that Flynt is reprehensible and vile...

...Aside from Chimera, there are no quality used bookstores in Palo Alto, and the regular bookstores are just larger versions of chain stores...

...With all of Washington's abundant cultural amenities, it's no wonder Caldwell chooses to live here...

...Traditionally, Republicans and conservatives have had to rely on intense paid-media efforts to get their ideas and messages through at election time...

...17) contains the seed of a powerful new insight that needs to be recognized, especially by conservatives...

...If the Democrats want to muzzle the man in Peoria, then let the Republicans pull the plug on the studios, soundstages, and press rooms...

...But the local elections last year showed that Catholic support is going increasingly to Sinn Fein...

...Are Republicans and conservatives so confident in the objectivity and goodwill of Washington-based columnists, network anchors, newspaper bureau chiefs, magazine "reporters," and media critics that they are willing to substantially surrender the right to communicate outside of the channels people like this control...

...What too many commentators and politicians fail to realize is that if political parties and private individuals and groups are restricted in their political speech, then the necessary and inescapable corollary is that the power of the media, already intolerable, will grow immeasurably...

...Charles Loukus Glen Burnie, MD The Fractal Effects David Frum's excellent review of Henry Turner Ashby's Hitler's Thirty Days to Power (Feb...

...Frum writes that Ashby's book "powerfully affirms the truth of individual moral responsibility in history...

...Would a conservative president have given consideration to appointing a woman to the office of secretary of state in the first place...

...What troubles me most about Caldwell's embrace of Palo Alto is that the town so clearly fails to meet his own criteria for what makes college towns so wonderful: "bookstores, theaters, museums, bars, and a social life revolving around sherry, tea, and literary bloviation...

...Many Americans now think similarly: What is less politically consequential than their voting...

...He has contributed to our culture by setting new standards of depravity...

...With full knowledge of Larry Flynt's abominable life, Stone chose to portray him as a towering arbiter of the First Amendment...

...It is far more encompassing, powerful, and revolutionary than the liberal view or any supposedly revolutionary theory that has risen since the Enlightenment...

...It wasn't exactly enjoyable, but I'm sure there are a lot of guys out there like me for whom the momentary pain was absolutely nothing compared with the really tough times we endured during Army service...

...In other words, if you don't like it, get out...

...David Thomson Houston, TX In Pinning, Truth Tucker Carlson got it exactly right in "Emasculating the Marines (Feb...

...Although I am partial to a few college towns, the best "college town" is right here in Washington, D.C...

...Peter Bearse Gloucester, MA Ciao, First Amendment David Tell and the editors are shocked that the country's pundits haven't vigorously reacted to the "putrid" proposal of congressional Democratic leaders that the First Amendment be abridged to allow Congress the power to regulate political speech ("Is Free Speech Outdated?," Feb...

...Nathaniel T. Trelease Cheyenne, WY Another Take on Sexism Regarding "White House Sexism" (Scrapbook, Feb...

...Images of female genital mutilation and dismemberment, as well as the glorification of child pornography, have been Flynt's trade...

...I've visited a dozen or so college towns, in addition to the major cities that have colleges, and I can honestly say that aside from Irving, Texas, and Claremont, California, I've never encountered a drearier, less lively, and less intellectually stimulating community than Palo Alto...

...Ultimately, one of the main reasons that conservatives should see the seriousness of rituals like "blood pinning" is that such rituals need to be kept secret...

...When the working day is done, students want to engage in trivial pursuits, a fact Caldwell observed...

...A Larry Flynt should not be allowed to hide behind the First Amendment...

...The basis for a "new" conservative ethic focused upon individual responsibility exists...

...10): "Yes, Palo Alto is one of the better college towns I have ever been in...

...I am a Scientologist, and I can tell you that we have had it with false press...

...Here is an idea that would remedy that deplorable lack of interest and be of great value to the Republic as well: If Democrats are determined to gut the core meaning of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, then Republicans should propose an amendment abrogating or amending the Press Clause of the First Amendment...

...Jeff Nelligan Bethesda, MD With conservatives like Tucker Carlson running around, who needs liberals...

...I can think of no instance that more clearly illustrates the unqualified ideological bankruptcy of Stone and his ilk than Stone's attempt to sanitize a bottom-feeder such as Larry Flynt...

...I had always seen him as an abysmal character, but I had no idea that the abyss was so deep...

...Of a united Ireland, he says in conclusion: "Nobody wants it...

...Lorenz found that (to paraphrase) the beating of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could possibly induce a tornado in Texas...

...I will not contribute a dime to you or anybody else who attacks, no matter how covertly, my religion...

...But it may be argued that his repulsiveness is a true test of our First Amendment...

...As for theaters, museums, and bars, Palo Alto is unremarkable on the first count, nonexistent (except for Stanford's museum) on the second, and downright insulting on the third...

...He also struck a responsive chord in folks who serve in the other services...

...We can only fear what would happen when what little balance paid-media achieve is prohibited...

...Mandlebrot's fractals answer the question more generally with art (as in fractal-art wall calendars) as well as with the science (mathematics and evidence) of dynamic systems...

...I got my blood wings after completing a U.S...

...Second, he has a Clancy-esque view of the military in which honor, duty, and fidelity seem to come as naturally as breathing...

...Ashby's history helps to answer this question...

...Carlson is correct: Some of military life is about suffering and distress and pain and endurance—that's what it takes to win wars...

...In this much heralded age of "bipartisanship," let this be the first breach, the first partisan issue...

...You are badly misled if you think Scientology is anything but a highly conservative organization...

...True, it has some problems on the urban decay front, and the bloviation is almost exclusively of the political rather than of the literary variety, but such weaknesses pale in comparison with the astonishing strengths...

...Anyone who has contemplated why things go wrong should be able to figure out, as Justice Brandeis did, that "sunshine is the best disinfectant...

...Michael R. Newman Washington, DC...

...Juan J. Ryan New Providence, NJ Crypto-Right-Wingers Ihave just read your snide swipe at Scientology (Scrapbook, Feb...

...If Daschle-Gephardt were ever to be ratified, Republicans and conservatives would have little power to pierce the countervailing worldview and assumptions of a hostile media...

...How evenhanded...

...Mike Smith Palm Coast, FL Palo Alto Ain't All That Icouldn't help but gasp at the one extraordinary sentence in Chris Cald-well's otherwise unobjectionable article "Bright College Days" (Feb...

...The essential underpinning is provided by IBM scientist Benoit Mandlebrot's Fractal Geometry of Nature...

...He thinks that rules don't matter if something "good" is being accomplished...

...The Left has long been comprised of women's groups...

...10), Stuart Reid parodies Anatole France, who observed that the law in its majesty equally forbids the rich man and the poor man to steal a loaf of bread...

...The shrillest voices raised about this practice have come from a media and political elite that were largely successful in avoiding any military service whatsoever...

...Reid gives advice to Catholics: "The border is open...

...Flynt, however, has made millions of dollars exploiting women in ways that decent people find unimaginable...

...The fractal view of nature (including man) generalizes Lorenz's "butterfly effect...

...On the whole, the intellectual atmosphere on campus suffers outside of class...

...David J. Mann Concord, CA Not-so-Smiling Irish Eyes In "Gerry Rigged" (Feb...

...It is curious that Oliver Stone, the darling of the Hollywood Left, would choose to make a man such as Larry Flynt the object of admiration...