Strausbaugh Rules; The Voice's Goldstein's a Jerk-Off; Madonna Fans Keep Pummeling Richardson; Vassar Boys Love That MUGGER

Bravo to Alexander Cockburn ("Wild Justice," 9/20)! I have been outraged for months by the obvious destruction of Wen Ho Lee. What a smear job. The people at Los Alamos needed a scapegoat and there he was. It's absolutely frightening to think that someone can be treated so unjustly and inhumanely without proof positive. What happened to unbiased reporting? That and the Hippocratic oath are memories of times past.

Jan Jacobs, Manhattan

So What Are You Saying, Fred?

I long ago learned that you can tell what a magazine or paper is like by the kind of letters sent in by readers. The rest (on my part) is silence.

Fred Lapides, Orange, CT

Press Expands Circulation, Penetrates Ukraine

John Strausbaugh: Just wanted to tell you how pleasant it was to be sitting at Kiev on my first day off in three weeks, reading your profile of Tuli Kupferberg ("Publishing," 9/20). The mere mention of the song "Nothing" made me smile. Good to know I'm not the only cranky old fart who still remembers (and still listens to) the Fugs. First heard them when I was a teenager in sterile suburban Maryland. Blew my little mind with songs like "Boobs A Lot" and "Slum Goddess." (It would be hard to pen that ditty today.)

You realize, of course, that all the dot-com geniuses out there depend on you to show them who the true Cultural Heroes are.

I just hope Tuli is around to see what will surely be the next culture swing?the NASDAQ slides, the economy goes back to normal and a youthful generation suddenly realizes they are just a bunch of working stiffs feeding a capitalist machine. It will be fun to see them put down their cellphones and try to make a fashion out of the boho anarchism to which Tuli has held true since before their parents were born. Mark my words?soon you will see blankets stretched out again on St. Marks Pl. as they try to sell their Prada and their Palm Pilots in an effort to make the rent on their $3000-a-month studios on Rivington St. I'd light a stick of incense in anticipation if I could only remember where I put it. Anyway, you made my day.

Michael Randall, New York

Footrubs, Asian Massages...

Give John Strausbaugh a raise! Two raises, and don't skimp! Big fat juicy raises, dripping with 401(k) plans and stock options and indulgently sinful fringe benefits. Full cosmetic dentistry coverage and oddball new-agey physical therapy if he wants it. He's earned it. That man deserves all the free high colonics he can stand.

Honestly, I'm wicked glad you've got Strausbaugh. So long as he's not griping about The New York Times and the general lameness of mainstream publications, he's great. Everyone else is so busy covering the books that everyone else covers. We'd all be lost without Strausbaugh.

John McCloskey, Brooklyn

Lynne Cheney Will Not Vote for Gore

Re: The Adam Clymer item in Taki ("Top Drawer," 9/20):

If all it takes to be called an asshole is to be overweight and funny-looking, with bad hair, then so am I and most of the people I know. Not all of us are lucky like Taki, pretty all the time and very very smart as well. If all the ugly people vote for Hoot Al and the pretty ones opt for Dubya, then welcome to four more years of Democratic rule.

Jim Watts, Dallas

Fear of Empty Spaces

While I agree with Crispin Sartwell's refutation ("Opinion," 9/13) of the very possibility of Al Gore, it must be because we are both suffering from a bad case of a(l)goraphobia.

B. Rudich, Bronx

Goldstein: Centrist Tool

The canard that New York Press is a reactionary right-wing newspaper and the Village Voice is a "progressive leftist" publication ought to be put to rest after Richard Goldstein's "cover story/editorial" in the Sept. 19 issue of the Voice. It is true that Russ Smith's idol worship of George W. Bush is even more delusional than Goldstein's skewed perception of Al Gore, but at least Smith allows his astute editors and journalists (Cockburn, Szamuely, Slivka, etc.) free rein to expose Bush and Gore for the imperialists, militarists and corporate toadies that they are, while Voice executive editor and Czar Goldstein buries articles critical of Gore (e.g. Ridgeway, Hentoff) inconspicuously in the thicket of his newspaper. I confidently predict that the excellent new deconstruction of Gore (Al Gore: A User's Manual ) by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair will not even be reviewed in the Voice before the election, despite Cockburn's impeccable leftist credentials.

Goldstein utilizes an analogy in his attempt to discredit those of us who are determined to vote for Nader regardless of our effect on the Bush-Gore contest. Unfortunately, he needs to base his analogy on an egregious historical revisionism and falsification; otherwise it points to a contrary conclusion. Goldstein criticizes the antiwar demonstrators who protested the farcical Democratic convention in 1968 for "riot[ing] in the streets," allegedly acting on the belief that they would overthrow the government. Come again? The protesters were for the most part peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights. It was the police who rioted! Did Goldstein forget that even the federal government commission later termed it a "police riot"? Furthermore, Goldstein tellingly critiques the antiwar movement for "destroy[ing]" Hubert Humphrey, "a very compromised liberal," in 1968, thus ensuring the victory of (the greater evil) Richard Nixon. A very compromised liberal!?there is a euphemism for you. No wonder Goldstein supports Gore.

The left rejected Humphrey not because he was "compromised" but because he was a proponent of precisely what we were opposing: the imperialist war against the country of Vietnam. Humphrey's campaign was based upon the pledge to fight until victory, the same policy that Lyndon Johnson pursued (in violation of his own 1964 campaign promise). If Bobby Kennedy had not been assassinated, the majority of the antiwar movement undoubtedly would have supported him as an opponent of the war in Vietnam, even though Kennedy was a very compromised liberal. The left made the only principled choice at the time. They supported neither Humphrey nor Nixon.

Unlike Bobby Kennedy, Gore is not a compromised liberal. He is an imperialist and a military hawk who is just as likely to start yet another war, in Iraq, Colombia or Yugoslavia, or some other "rogue nation," as Bush is. He supports the same policies of economic neo-colonialism as Bush does, including the embargo in Iraq that UNICEF says has killed 500,000 children since its inception. Goldstein's invocation of Dorothy Day to justify his "lesser evil" politics is dishonest and insulting, to readers and to her memory. As a committed pacifist Day opposed U.S. involvement in WWII. If she were alive she would never support the militarism of Al Gore. She would probably campaign for Nader, a fellow anti-militarist.

The modus operandi for Goldstein, and sadly for many other former antiwar activists (including personal friends of mine), is not, as claimed, "Vote for the lesser evil." It is really, "My party right or wrong. Vote Democratic." That explains their animus toward Nader?tribal loyalty, the same attitude we denounced in our parents several decades ago when we marched in the streets against the (bipartisan) war in Vietnam.

Seth Farber, Manhattan

Soup Bones

Kudos to Lionel Tiger for a spot-on column ("Human Follies," 9/20).

The idea of Channel One providing free televisions for schools doesn't sound bad on its face?it depends on whether the tv sets can be hooked to a VCR or not. I cannot imagine that being able to watch tv in class has any pedagogical value, so that leaves videotape.

Just take the tv's and then don't watch Channel One. If that's not an option, then I totally agree with you.

As for exclusive vending rights for soft drink companies, it's a shrewd move worthy of (and probably inspired by) Microsoft. (No doubt few of the people at your institution who are affected by this agreement had any say in the matter, but that's nothing new.) The ubiquitous refrigerator boxes are not the fault of this arrangement, though. Someone's boxes would be there in any case. And if people have so little self-discipline that they can't help buying this stuff, then that's too bad.

I thought you were perhaps a little hard on Zap Me, the outfit that gives computers to schools in return for ads. Their privacy policy is more conservative than you described. They provide their sponsors with aggregated statistical information, but they don't record names.

It sounds to me, if I understand it correctly, like a practical way to get computer terminals with e-mail support and Internet access for the school library without paying a fortune, and to that extent I like it. If that's how it's used, students' computer access will be limited, and they have seen ads before, after all. And besides, the computers run Windows NT, so each machine is going to crash five times a day anyway.

It's a good investment for Microsoft, if not for the other corporate sponsors. When these kids eventually choose an operating system, many of them will go with Windows because that's what they already know.

Conceivably it may even inspire some kids to learn to type, which is the only ordinary computer skill I can think of that isn't utterly trivial. Apart from that, there is no compelling reason for putting computers in schools, and certainly not on every desk, despite what ignorant educators, race pimps and panderers like Al Gore and Hillary Clinton say. People who argue that students without computer access will be "left behind" don't know what they're talking about. Show me a well-read kid who can write and add who has been left behind for lack of experience with computers. It's nonsense.

For the average student computers are useful (but not essential) for writing papers, and that's all. Books are far more useful. Worry about reading, writing and arithmetic, and spend the money on libraries.

Joe Rodrigue, New Haven

Jim Hannigan Explains It All for Us

Doug Henwood: You at once claim ("Opinion," 9/6) that Alan Greenspan is overpraised, citing events beyond the control of any one human being or organization, and then proceed to overpraise him by claiming he "let" the unemployment rate drop. I can assure you that the chairman of the Fed does not create jobs.

Also, I would be careful in making smug dismissals of libertarian arguments. Many catastrophes and/or problems attributed to capitalistic failures are in fact governmental failures: the Depression (Fed mishandling of monetary policy), the S&Ls (bungled government intervention in banking), healthcare costs and lack of insurance (meddling in the market with tax breaks and social programs)?I could name more.

The government created the Internet? Not a surprise, since they sanctioned and reinforced a monopoly in telecom, finally broken in 1984. And of course, it took the market to make it really useful to anyone other than the Pentagon. The idea of "lender of last resort" and the vague term "big spending programs"?I guess you mean works projects?are 20th-century constructs. The country grew just fine in the 100-plus years before that. As I'm sure you're aware, the period of the 1930s through the 1960s saw the flourishing of the idea that central planning worked?hence the R&D funded with tax dollars in those years. R&D is now dominated by the private sector, because we know it's more efficient. So you can name some examples of state spending that supposedly has helped commerce, but it doesn't mean it wouldn't have happened anyway, and probably more efficiently, in a system of small government.

I think it's great, though, that you're even aware of Hayek. Ideas do win out in the end, huh?

Jim Hannigan, Manhattan

Doug Henwood replies: Thanks for being such an easy target, Jim. I never said Greenspan created any jobs; I said he stood back and let the expansion drive the unemployment rate lower rather than tightening. As for your claims that government created the Depression and bank failures, how do you explain the 19th century, when government was tiny, yet panics were frequent and almost half of the time was spent in recession or worse? Healthcare is probably your weakest case of all; in countries with national health insurance systems, spending is a lot lower and health indicators a lot better than in the U.S. You should really check out Kenneth Flamm's book on the history of the computer to learn how industry had no interest in spending its R&D money and Wall Street had no interest in financing those strange new machines. While you're at it, familiarize yourself with the role of the National Institutes of Health in subsidizing the basic research in genetics. The public sector eats the start-up costs, and private industry moves in when there are profits to be made. I suppose you could call that efficient, but that'd be a quirky use of the word. As for Hayek?well, the hardcore partisans really prefer von Mises. Everyone knows Hayek was a closet social democrat!

Oh, Screw Writers

It's wonderful to see the kind of strong focus on and support of the independent film industry that appears in New York Press, but not so wonderful, as in Matt Zoller Seitz's review of On the Run ("Film," 9/20), to find absolutely no recognition that the film in which he saw so many winning qualities was actually written by someone?in this case, Joseph Minion (After Hours, Vampire's Kiss). Might it not be true that the writer had a little something to do with the movie's "vibe" being "wonderfully fresh"? Hats off, of course, to fine acting and directing?but let's not forget that fine writing is also likely to have contributed to this "object lesson into just how far...a modest concept" can be carried.

Susan Scheid, Manhattan

Inception of Labor

George Szamuely ("Taki's Top Drawer," 9/13) wishes someone would ask Alan Greenspan "why wage increases always led to inflation, but not soaring profits or booming stock prices." The grammar is confused (why soaring profits don't lead to inflation, or why wage increases don't lead to soaring profits?), and I am no Alan Greenspan, but I'd like to attempt an answer.

Increasing profits is obviously not always associated with rising prices. Lower costs and higher productivity in the manufacture of a good can increase profit as a percentage of its price without raising its price. Mr. Greenspan would probably say he is concerned about booming stock prices leading to inflation. His "irrational exuberance" comment is infamous, and he has publicly expressed concern for what he terms "the wealth effect" on many occasions.

It is misleading for Szamuely to cite aggregate statistics for the U.S. labor force in an attempt to refute the existence of labor shortages in specific industries, such as the computer industry. Wages are rising rapidly in the technical fields for which claims of a labor shortage have been made. Using twisted rhetoric to suggest that foreign-born workers who receive higher incomes and more opportunity by working in the U.S. are being exploited and stating that we are somehow "stealing" them from Russia and India shows a frightening lack of concern for their liberty. Perhaps Szamuely would advise Russia and India to construct concrete walls with barbed wire to keep their workers in country.

Even if Greenspan is overly concerned about wage increases, he is a poor choice for a scapegoat on the issue of foreign workers. While he may personally have strong feelings about it, professionally the issue is just one of many secondary factors influencing his decisionmaking. He certainly is not the "last word" on the matter. Thankfully, neither is the terribly misinformed Szamuely.

David Nadle, Manhattan

Wormwood

Re: William Bryk's 9/13 "Old Smoke": Readers who visit Green-Wood Cemetery to view the grave of Mike Walsh (section 2, plot 7517, off Vision Path near Orchard Ave.) will be disappointed, because his grave is unmarked. Perhaps some Irish-American society may be interested in raising funds to provide a marker for this interesting, colorful pre-Civil War New York City politician.

Alfred Kohler, Brooklyn

Tanya, Haven't You Apologized Yet, You Swine?

Tanya Richardson: We, fans and Maddyfest attendees, are really disappointed with your lame and negative article ("Music," 8/30). You basically tried to trash the event with your comments. The event was successful in every way. Great performers, a nicely decorated room, awesome music and lighting, etc. You just so happened not to mention all the great things that happened and the performers who participated throughout the day.

Why did you forget to mention "Floor of Heads," who performed wonderfully for an hour, "Innovation," with their awesome dance and lastly Raphael, who is the world's best Madonna impersonator, with her breathtaking 15-minute performance? The fans would love to see you write a follow-up story about the positive items you forgot to mention.

Nikitas Mendoros, Queens

Okay, So He's a Rich Extortionist Bluenose

Christopher Caldwell's call for contributions to his "Assignment Desk" ("Hill of Beans," 9/13) would make one hell of a lot more sense if Mr. Caldwell had an active e-mail link somewhere on your website (on the same page as his call for free research would be nice).

You might also ask him to think twice before blasting Mike Ciresi (the defeated U.S. Senate Minnesota Democratic primary candidate) as "superrich." Ciresi's "wealth" came as the result of the first successful lawsuit against the tobacco companies. If Mr. Caldwell (who I doubt very much objects to wealth when it is held by Republicans) wants to label Ciresi, he should apply the full label, and not just some misleading smear. Ciresi is the man who brought down Big Tobacco. The fact that he is now rich is a sidebar.

As to Caldwell's discussion of the "tradition" of Commission-sponsored debates, he should recall that Tim Russert showed his true colors when he pulled a video out of the blue to humiliate Hillary Clinton with in her first debate with Rick Lazio. I've been watching political debates for more than 40 years, and I can't recall any other moderator injecting himself so forcefully into the flow of a debate. It appears there is no middle ground when it comes to debates. Either you accept candy-assed traditional rules and easy-to-duck questions, or you put up with the Imperial Media lording it over the candidates, one of whom will be libeled incessantly upon taking office.

Mark Gisleson, St. Paul, MN

Months Ago, But That's Cool

MUGGER: Baseball Diplomacy?what a brilliant idea (7/19)! Offer the Cubans a Major League team or two if they get rid of Fidel and his miserable brand of socialism. Seriously?it could work. We would all be better off. We could have good cigars and plenty of sugar and they could have some trade capital and the kind of baseball that they love and you describe so well. Good column.

Henry Schriever, Beach Haven, NJ

"Hi, I'm Dave, and I'm Trying Not to Get Laid for the Next Four Years"

MUGGER: Firstly, let me tell you that New York Press has been a staple of my daily life in the city, and now that I am in college, I find myself lost without your stunning photos and the excitement of the second half of the paper. Good thing there is an online version, but where are the escort services?

Now, I am kidding about the escorts. But I have a thought for you. I'm currently at Vassar, certainly not a stronghold of libertarian-ish spin-detecting political thought. I happen to be of that ilk (at least I am now; just let's wait until the political theory classes are through with me) and I happen to be supporting Bush over Gore this fall. I would be supporting my dear Harry Browne, but the Libertarians are ridiculous, and I realize that investing my vote in a fund against Gore is the most rational thing I can do. Now, as you may or may not be aware, it seems that my peers (fellow newly voting 18-year-olds) are not quite so clairvoyant as I am (or you are). Defending Bush is not the simplest task when 95 percent of students here (as well as at my old high school, Stuyvesant), as well as a great deal of my friends from the various private schools, are ardent Gore/Clinton-ites. And oddly enough, the number-one, most ardent argument used against me is that Bush will fill the Supreme Court with pro-lifers and push for the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

How is it that this, among all other issues, is the first my age group pounces upon? What does this say about my generation? They don't even realize that Gore and his wife/lovetoy (perish that imagery) Tipper are (or were?how many weeks ago did he spin his views on abortion?) definite pro-lifers. It scares me?and I figured you might like to hear it from one of us?that the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade are certainly hot issues (in the minds of young voters), and none of them seem to be aware that it actually is not an issue. Make of it what you will.

Personally, I feel that my generation died off a few years after the revolution. These people who surround me and seem to be of my age clearly have not been taught how to follow "current events" by our smashing education system.

I, too, hate the Yankees. There is hope yet. Keep up the great work. You brighten my liberal propaganda-filled day.

Dave Hecht, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY

It's Near Waxahachie, Apparently

MUGGER: Once again you have hit the proverbial nail on the head (9/13). I very much admire your rhetoric and flair in writing. As a conservative Republican and Texan, I cannot understand why others just can't seem to see things my way (could it be they are thinking the same of me?). Really?I cannot understand that percentage who are not diehard Democrats, but who are evidently choosing to vote for Gore?and who do not see the obvious double-speak/lies/turnedintoacentristdemocrat (not really) real Gore! Thanks for writing what I feel. Down here, we don't get the tv ads, since we aren't up for grabs, and if I didn't stay tuned into folks like you (and I do try to read what the opposition is saying, so at least I'll know), well, shucks, I'd just be like a horse with blinders on.

Christie Wallis, Midlothian, TX

Epistle of Paul

MUGGER: I enjoyed reading your 9/13 column. It seems that the insistence by the mainstream press that they are not advocating any candidate is obviously false and misleading. Keep up the good work!

Dwight Paul, Urbana, OH

Love That "Naughty Bits," Eh, Tracy?

MUGGER: Reading your column, and your entire paper (including "The Mail") is the highlight of my week. The tongue-in-cheek commentary you provide is positively the best in or out of the mainstream media. The banter of the mail, complete with the myopic comments of your critics, keeps me in stitches until the next volume arrives. Life is too short not to enjoy, and reading your paper is fun. Did Al Gore invent New York Press? I think he said he did right after he invented the Internet, and just before he picked up the arthritis medicine for his mother-in-law...

Tracy Meadows, Brenham, TX

Capone as Porcine Bluestocking

MUGGER: Hillary Clinton's minions are using the hyperbolic language that has served feminism so well for so long and has destroyed the credibility of feminism for so many of us. In referring to Rick Lazio's boisterous, rather caffeinated debate performance with violent images ("stalking," "threatening" and "space-invading") they are bastardizing those terms and diluting them, as they did when they decided that a desirous glance was the equivalent of rape.

The Clinton people want it both ways. They want everyone to think Hillary is a strong, independent woman who "will fight" for New York, but they want whoever deals with her to wear kid gloves and offer her tea and cookies, or they will cry, "You're mean!" They want to be able to jeeringly refer to her opponent as "Little Ricky," but they would likely bristle if he called her anything but Mrs. Clinton or "The First Lady." I think if Carville gets to call him "Little Ricky," then the Lazio camp should be able to call her "Ol' Thunder Thighs," because I am for fairness.

I think Lazio can handle all of this petty nonsense, but what he'd better get a handle on is that asshole in the GOP who keeps writing the "Hillary is an angry woman" letters. It's making me an angry woman. That tone is not only "not going to fly" with white women, it's going to actively push them away. It seems that political tin ears exist on both ends of the spectrum.

Lazio can beat Mrs. Clinton on issues, but he'd better get to it. If he tries to play down and dirty with her, he will lose, because she is the bigger thug with the bigger guns. In that respect he is Baby Face Nelson, and she is Al Capone.

Elizabeth Scalia, Lake Grove, NY

Upper West Side Smart-Ass in Chains

To selected "Mail" correspondents and New York Press writers: Since you have the good taste to write for and read a paper as full of diverse views as New York Press, I'm sure that you are more open-hearted than you pretend to be when you joke about Lori Berenson's suffering. Perhaps events in Peru over the last week or two have changed your view of the Berenson case a bit.

Go to the videotape that shows plain evidence of Alberto Fujimori's intelligence chief paying off an opposition politician to help throw the recent "election." This was followed by Fujimori (without much choice, if he didn't want there to be a full-scale revolution) in effect stepping down from power.

So, do you folks still believe that a military court?one completely lacking those pesky things like rules of evidence and the right to competent legal counsel?in a country with a government like Peru's was capable of giving Lori Berenson a fair trial? Do you believe this, even though the top Peruvian military court admitted that a new trial for Berenson is necessary?

Do you still believe that a statement signed by Berenson after being kept awake for days in brutal conditions amounted to a real confession to terrorism? One correspondent said in the 9/13 "Mail" that he "read in more than one place" that Berenson was romantically involved with terrorist leaders. Would you care to tell the rest of us where, exactly, you read that and what the evidential backing for those claims was? "I have read in more than one place" isn't exactly a strong argument.

And do you really believe that Berenson is being given some sort of special treatment after being allowed to rot in a freezing Andean prison for years? Do you really believe that Fujimori and the opportunist Clinton administration have done anything but to finally respond to international activist pressure (the kind that, unfortunately, doesn't exist for the average Peruvian wasting away in Fujimori's prisons)?

Taki ("Top Drawer," 9/6) says that poor Peruvians and "poor Peruvian cop[s]" (he makes it sound as though the Peruvian police are half-starved and wearing rags like real poor Peruvians are, which is a little hard to believe) have been victimized by vicious Marxist rebels. He is correct, and those rebels are as worthy of condemnation as Fujimori. But Taki doesn't mention the terrorism against human rights that's been practiced by the Peruvian military and police under Fujimori, as so well-evidenced by the Berenson case. Neither does he mention the terrorism of a U.S. establishment that has supported the Fujimori regime and its military all the way.

The problem with the view of Taki and company is their partisanship. They insist in a political and social view of everything?rightist dictators are okay, left-wing dictators are terrible?instead of a truly Christian one, which would criticize all dictatorships and all Godless governments (i.e., all of them). The flip side of the Taki coin is that bunch of fawning socialist sycophants who trampled all over each other to hear "Fidel" speak here recently. They never admit that "Fidel" has committed the same crimes as the Pinochet regime they rightfully despised so much. And it's not at all easy to talk to them about the plight of true Christians in Godless Cuba, or anywhere else.

The right view to take of the Berenson and every other case is the Christian one. The Lord Jesus orders us through the Gospels to be concerned about those who are in prison. He doesn't tell us to gloat over people's suffering and call it justifiable because we disagree with their political viewpoints. And if Taki and company claim to be Christians themselves, then I suggest they reread Matthew 25:35-36?regarding the imprisoned?and Matthew 7:1-5, about being judgmental.

Jack Seney, Queens

Welcome the Fey Thirtysomething

Advertising in school bothers me, but I haven't been able to figure out why. And in all the articles I've read about it, including Lionel Tiger's "Statutory Commercial Rape" ("Human Follies," 9/20), I haven't heard anything that really gets to the heart of the problem. The argument always runs like this: advertisers and corporate America are invading the sanctity of childhood and swindling kids into thinking in Big Brand vocabulary. That's scary. It's Orwellian. And adults should do something to stop it.

But that reading of the situation is entirely based on the proposition that kids are stupid and can't work out what the flashing lights and loud noises on Channel One (or any other channel for that matter) are about. Otherwise, why would they need our protection? I'm not the first person to say this, but for God's sake, what ever happened to caveat emptor? If it's true that advertisers have become more adept at manipulating children (not to mention adults), then why shouldn't our children become more adept at fighting them off?

Now careful. I'm not saying that kids are de facto better able to deal with ads, simply by virtue of being inundated with them. I'm saying they need to learn how to do that. They need to learn how to read, culturally. So rather than erect fences to keep the adman out, let's welcome him in. And then institute classes where kids learn to deconstruct him, and Britney Spears, and Survivor, and all of the really bizarre things they come into contact with every day. And please don't tell me kids can't handle that level of thinking. They don't have to read Derrida or McLuhan or anyone in particular. They just have to sit across from the tv, and ask it questions.

A. Shapiro, Boston