_______________CREEPS ON CAMPUS BY DAWN MacKEEN (10/09/98)
	I want to express the immense satisfaction I am feeling right now for having finally seen the first balanced coverage of the David Cash question of 1998. Numerous columnists, talk show hosts (Charles Grodin, if you can believe it), news shows and even politicians have bandied this story about recently as an example of what's really wrong with this country right now: low moral standards. Well, the Clinton witch hunt aside, there are few issues in this country that make me as sick as this. The question, again: Should Americans be required by law to assist a fellow human being in the act of being criminally victimized? We like to think that we are a country that represents the most treasured rights of human beings: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Maybe so, but only inasmuch as it applies to the morally sound. When are people going to understand that one of the prices of freedom is having to live around people like David Cash? You can rant and rave all you want about what a loser this kid is and maybe you can make a reasonable case in support of a law to punish others like him. Be my guest, but don't expect Lady Liberty to show up at your trial if, heaven forbid, you are ever unjustly accused. And don't pretend that it could never happen to you. -- Greg Chavez Bowie, Md. This article, touching on the David Cash issue, is the most evenhanded and unbiased I have read so far. (The title is unfortunate, however.) How quick people are to judge. The outrage over the senseless murder of a 7-year-old child is understandable. And it's easy to dismiss Cash as an arrogant punk who stood by smirking while it happened. But no matter what's been said, we'll never know exactly what happened that night in the casino. Isn't it possible that Cash is an immature boy who couldn't handle the situation and essentially "tuned it out" emotionally? Perhaps his adolescent boasting (if it's true that the notoriety has helped him "score with women," you have to wonder about the women) was a childish attempt at saving face, exhibiting the typical "guy" behavior so often expected of young American men -- perhaps that very same "guy" behavior that compelled Cash critic Najee Ali to join the Crips in the first place. (Ali claims that, whereas he has repented for his own crimes, Cash shows no remorse. You'd think Ali would understand the swaggering that boys do to pretend they're men.) What really has people so upset about David Cash is the secret knowledge that most people do nothing when a crime happens around them. We're all armchair heroes who'd like to think we'd step up and save the day. But reality tells us otherwise. Persecution doesn't cure antisocial behavior, it exacerbates it. As much as people want to punish Cash to appease their righteous indignation, trying to force him out of Berkeley will neither bring Sherrice Iverson back nor honor her memory. To the contrary, college may help Cash grow up. Leave him alone. -- Kevin Dawson It is pathetic that the administrative body of UC-Berkeley is going to allow this disgusting being to continue to attend classes at their institution while the family of Sherrice Iverson grieves for the rest of their lives. In one way or another, he will pay for what he has done, but my only wish is that the decision makers at the university had the guts to do something about the situation. His public comments, including his insistence upon the fact that he has lost a friend, have only helped to reinforce his total disregard for human life. It will all catch up with him sooner or later. -- Kelly Little
_______________KITSCH OF DEATH BY LAURA MILLER (10/09/98)
	Laura Miller is a fabulous writer. Her use of language, like "just looking at the colors will probably rot your teeth," made her review the most interesting and entertaining piece of journalism in Salon since the departure of Cintra Wilson. I had just about given up on Salon since the huge press onslaught in the wake of Bill Clinton ass-kissing, when this article showed me the small spark in your magazine that I thought was forever lost. -- Nicole Carinci Laura Miller should consider researching a subject before she tries to bash it. Her review of "What Dreams May Come" was terrible. I'm sure she has her opinion about the coloring and different scenes in the movie, and that is fine, but maybe she should've paid a little more attention to the story line. This was a Bible-based movie; I'm sure that Miller realized that because of the whole "heaven and hell" thing. If she knew something about the Bible, she might have realized how much wonderful thinking and enlightening insight was put into this story. This movie had a tremendous effect on me and my girlfriend, and I was pretty upset to read Miller's article. -- Aaron Walton Jacksonville, Fla. Laura Miller's review of "What Dreams May Come" is the funniest movie review I have ever read. I haven't seen the picture, yet, and already I agree with her review. Miller's reference to the stewardess as "treacly" and "twee B&Bs" was pure Dorothy Parker. I think Parker also would have approved of Miller's description of Robin Williams as someone who "twinkles." I have long suspected Robin Williams of having an acting range which relied heavily on "twinkling," but I thought it was anti-American of me. -- Bill Jacobson Juneau, Wisc. Laura Miller's review of "What Dreams May Come" was predictable in its elitism and scorn for all things "mediocre." Personally, I have little use for New Age sentimentality, but I have the ability to show respect for a film that many people find beautiful and moving. Unfortunately, the gist of Miller's review is that "only an idiot would like this movie." Perhaps misanthropic movie reviews serve some dark corner of her ego, but I wish Salon would stop allowing the use of its Web space in order for its critics to get their hoi polloi-bashing thrill. -- Timothy Heavin
_______________A THOUSAND (DYSFUNCTIONAL) CLOWNS BY DAVID CORN (10/09/98)
	David Corn is not reading the same polls the GOP reads. Their soon-to-released $7 million ad campaign doesn't mention the pseudo-scandal at all. Why? Because their own internal polls show that even their own people are sick unto death of it. Also, these same polls show that, as the Wall Street Journal announced on its front page Oct. 7, the GOP believes it has gotten all the mileage it can out of the hearings with its voters. But Corn doesn't want to hear about that. He wants to blather on, in his Marxist I-hate-democracy-anyway voice, that the Democrats all "despise" Clinton, without giving us any proof of this. This is par for the course for Corn. An American Politics Journal column of his this summer said, against all evidence and against what little common sense even Corn possesses, that Clinton would sell us out "again" by "insisting" that Social Security funds be invested in the market. (And this even as the market was showing the first signs of cracking.) Of course, he didn't mention that this plan was not a Clinton plan, but a GOP plan that Clinton was merely studying, in the interest of fairness, to see if there was any merit at all to it, the way he would most any plan. Clinton was by no means going to rubber-stamp it, and ended up rejecting it. But Corn is so emotionally invested in trashing Clinton that logic gets in the way. Why does Corn hate Clinton so? Why does he go out of his way to twist the facts? Because Clinton is not left enough for Corn's tastes -- and Corn's tastes are Marxist/Leninist of the traditional sort. Remember, true Marxist dialectic holds that democracy is only a way station on the path to communism. If allowed to take root, democracy actually strengthens the very capitalistic system that the Marxists want to see wither away. Any leader who isn't actively promoting Marxism is, in the views of true Marxists, just as bad, if not worse, than an actual fascist dictator: Clinton equals Marcos equals Franco equals Hitler. Don't believe me? Hop onto most any Marxist/Socialist Workers mailing list. When these people aren't trashing one another for not being Marxist enough, they're beating on Democrats for "siphoning off" the voters they think should be voting Marxist -- that is, when they're not trashing elections as frauds anyway. -- Tamara Baker St. Paul, Minn. SALON | Oct. 13, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| TO SPANK OR NOT TO SPANK BY ALBERT MOBILIO

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