It makes me numb to think that America Online, with annual revenues (not profit) of just $4.8 billion, was valued at more than $200 billion by Wall Street (Desperately Seeking a Deal,“special report, Jan. 24). I believe traders have dangerously overvalued internet-related stock, and the day the common investor wakes up to reality, there will be a real calamity on Wall Street. The Internet, after all, is just another convenient way to do business, like the telephone or fax before it.
Parvez Ul Haq Siddiqi
Karachi, Pakistan
Your publication’s title indicates that it is a source of the weekly news, and for most of the 50 years that I have been a subscriber, it has been. However, lately it has become a source of “Special Reports,” while reducing the quantity and quality of its news reporting. Your Jan. 24 issue is a perfect example. Of the 51 pages for news, 28 were devoted to the AOL-Time Warner deal. How many of your readers are interested in such a detailed report? Yes, the merger is news, maybe for two pages. Those who need the details can go to business publications. Your magazine is named Newsweek. Let’s get the full weekly news.
Tim Lueninghoener
Ettlingen, Germany
Thank God for Steve Case and America Online. They came through with a merger that will change the world in which we live. Entertainment is what America is all about. Forget all the mundane problems that will surely in the end kill us all. Things like global warming, terrorism, nuclear proliferation and overpopulation. I, like most Americans, can’t be bothered with all that. I want my entertainment, and I want it faster. Steve Case and others in ridiculously powerful positions within companies necessary for the proliferation of entertainment are being hailed as heroes by the media. But when we need real heroes to protect our liberty, who will be there? Will it be guys like Bill Gates and Steve Case? I doubt if either could fight his way out of a wet paper bag. But hey, at least when things get really bad the new megagiants of entertainment will have us so interactively involved in being entertained, I doubt we will care anyway.
Geoff Knafou
Buford, Georgia
Yes, the AOL-Time Warner merger and other new media-old media deals will eventually enable richer access to mass media via fat “broadband” pipes, and it surely will help large corporations sell more stuff to the masses-more content and more electronic devices. But this technology is more than a corporate conduit for reaching passive “consumers.” The digital revolution represents an opportunity for individual “creators” and “collaborators” to use new technology to forge rewarding new careers and lifestyles.
Andy Covell
Syracuse University School of Management
Syracuse, New York
Your profile of Steve Case shows great knowledge of new media. But in writing about old media, you say, “Citizen Kane grasped the potential of the tabloid newspaper.” As every old-media dinosaur knows, Kane’s New York Enquirer was in fact a big, bold, lusty, brawling, full-size broadsheet.
John Walter
Atlanta, Georgia
In your Jan. 24 Periscope section, under the headline “What to Do With the Alien Named Elian?” I expected to see a story about a creature from outer space, not a little boy. With the popularity of such television shows as “Star Trek” and such motion pictures as “Star Wars,” “Men in Black,” “Alien” and “Independence Day,” the word “alien” has come to be associated with beings from outer space rather than human beings from countries other than the United States. Our group opposes using the word to describe human beings because it is dehumanizing and derogatory. More appropriate&151; and more accurate??? are the phrases “illegal immigrant” or “undocumented immigrant.”
Jose Moran, Executive Director
California Chicano News Media Association
Los Angeles, California
Little Elian has been caught in a bind after surviving death on the high seas (“The War Over Elian,” U.S. affairs, Jan. 17). The way to resolve his dilemma properly is for the United States to observe the law to the letter, not to involve politics. Justice Felix Frankfurter once wrote, “The history of liberty is largely the history of the observance of procedural safeguards.” A nation may have an enlightened system of government, but if the rights of individuals are abused, then the system falls short of its goals. That is why the U.S. system has what it calls due process of law: the right of every individual against arbitrary action by national and state governments. The U.S. immigration commissioner, Doris M. Meissner, has ruled that returning Elian to his father is the right decision legally and morally. It is surprising that political vultures are now trying to send this case to kangaroo courts, where the principles of law and justice may be disregarded or perverted. This attempt to smear a Teflon coating on the INS legal decision should be condemned.
Allan P. Bomani
Mwanza, Tanzania
Your article “A Fertile Scheme” (Society & the Arts, Nov. 8), regarding the offer of eggs from supermodels to produce a beautiful child, reminds me of the story about George Bernard Shaw and the famous actress who suggested that they should have a child together. “Just imagine,” she said, “a child with your brain and my looks.” Shaw replied, “Yes, but what if it has my looks and your brain?”
John Parkes
Buccinasco, Italy
I was disgusted with your article on supermodels selling their eggs for in vitro fertilization. I’m only 16 years old, so maybe my thoughts aren’t as intellectually current as those of these parents who are actually considering buying the eggs, but you adults make me sick. I really don’t know who disgusts me more: the person who invented this exploitative Web site or the “parents to be.”
Hilary Marshall
Caluire, France
Although I always look forward to anything written by Anna Quindlen, after reading her Dec. 27, 1999-Jan. 3, 2000, column, I have to conclude that she is not living on the same planet that I am, or that she has very limited exposure to the millennials, as she refers to people born between 1977 and 1994 (“Now It’s Time for Generation Next,” opinion). As an elementary-school teacher in a public school for the past 28 years, I have seen a gradual decline in the academic abilities and societal attitudes of the children I encounter. Today’s children are more selfish, mean-spirited, disrespectful and lazy than children of previous generations. Quindlen’s column reminded me of one of those Christmas letters telling everyone how wonderful the sender’s children are. I suggest she look around and spend some real time in the real world of today’s children??? but first she should take off the rose-colored glasses.
Linda Belstra
Belvidere, New Jersey
I’d like to thank Anna Quindlen for her refreshingly optimistic article on the millennial generation. Since the days of Socrates, it has been a commonplace to blame immoral youth for almost all conceivable ills of society. But by constantly predicting gloom, doom and despondency, aren’t we adults in danger of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? With your permission, being a teacher, I will give Quindlen’s text to my millennial English class graduating in June as a farewell present.
Werner Radtke
Paderborn, Germany
I have taught 29 years in public schools, the last 27 in the same school district as Columbine High School. To teach is to be an optimist, to have faith and patience. Our children are a product of ourselves and the enculturation we have given them, and they are all we have no matter what our convictions. Yes, there are lots of kids out there full of hope and promise. There are also many kids out there who are, at the same time, often disenfranchised, scared and lonely. All of this in the midst of a society concentrating on self-fulfillment and the acquisition of material goods. Quindlen sounds as though she might have that typical American self-congratulatory ring. We need to be careful that our boosterism does not overwhelm our sense that American society is not exactly the highest emanation of human aspirations. Kids sense this prostitution of who we romantically wish we were as a society, and what we actually are. Some buy into the American Dream, while others tumble into an abyss.
Mark Dunn
Zacatecas, Mexico
We may lack experience. We may listen to loud, obnoxious music, have rings in our noses and far-from-traditional haircuts and consider the Salvation Army the finest place to shop. We have never lived through wartime and suffered the hardships that accompany that experience. However, “Generation Next” is optimistic about the future. I applaud Anna Quindlen for authoring the first upbeat view I’ve seen about the millennials. We are clearly not our parents, but we are their children, and they are the ones who have taught us, and taught us well. What we lack now we will learn, and build on what we do know: that education is of the utmost importance, that we must preserve the environment for generations to come, that we must work hard to succeed and that there are no limits as to what we can do. So thank you, Anna Quindlen. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Carrie M. Majer
Glastonbury, Connecticut
As twentysomethings, my generation grew up with great hopes for the space program (“The Search for Life,“Society & the Arts, Dec. 6). The Challenger disaster and the end of the cold war affected the public’s, and our, priorities and appetite for space exploration. But now we find ourselves at a historic inflection point, where our economy is stronger than it has ever been and we face no great enemy. We can either retreat into ourselves in self-congratulation, and live a slow but steady decline, or we can use our good fortune to strive for something truly great for all of humanity. That is why I believe we should accept the challenge of sending a manned mission to Mars.
Jesse C. Hsu
Boston, Massachusetts
Maybe folks up Mars’s way do not want us bringing our Earth mess there. Mars probes keep mysteriously disappearing, and NASA keeps inventing new excuses for each mishap. Better luck next time.
Ron Lowe
Nevada City, California
Kenneth L. Woodward’s piece on prophecy was an outstanding work of scholarship (“The Way the World Ends,” Society & the Arts, Nov. 15). The views that Christianity and other major world religions perpetuate regarding the end of time are humankind’s attempts to come to terms with the unknown. Thus it is that every generation at any point in history tries to find relevance in some form of doomsday prophecy. My only disappointment is that Woodward did not mention any African religious views. I want to believe that it was simply an oversight; I know that the African perspective would have made the discussion unassailable.
Ukachukwu Udemba
Lagos, Nigeria
Your article “The Way the World Ends” is one of the most penetrating and clear expositions I have seen on the current passion about the end of the world. However, I would like to point to another, very different reading of the Book of Revelation regarding “the woman clothed with the sun.” In this interpretation, the image refers not to the end of the world but to the birth of a new humanity. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the clash between Europe and the so-called New World was disastrous. The native peoples seemed doomed to total annihilation. Roman Catholics say that in 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared at Te-pe-yac, Mexico. (That is the site of the ancient sanctuary of the earth-mother goddess Tonantzin, who was venerated by pre-conquest Indians.) She was standing on the moon, surrounded by the sun and crowned with stars. Bearing a child in her womb, she announced a new space for all the inhabitants of a land where everyone would be welcome. This is the beginning of the new humanity of the Americas, to which Pope John Paul II has referred, and which millions believe was envisioned and announced by John of Patmos in Revelation. Thus the millennium is not a time of fear and tribulation, but one of hopeful expectations that a new humanity, made up of all the peoples of the world, is taking shape in the Americas.
Father Virgil Elizondo
San Antonio, Texas
