_______________THE DESIGNATED MARTYR BY CHARLES TAYLOR (10/16/98)
	I just finished reading Charles Taylor's scathing review of "Beloved" -- not just a movie review, as it turns out, but a stinging critique of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, its author and an Oscar-winning director. I haven't yet seen the film, and to be honest, Taylor almost convinced me not to go. But it's quite a challenge to take seriously any of the allegations he makes about the film. Taylor comes off as a whiner whose main disappointment in life appears to be that Jonathan Demme just doesn't make funny movies anymore. Apparently, Demme's been on Taylor's hit list since the director failed to film stories about a serial killer and an AIDS patient as the comic romps the critic would have them be. Taylor's other arguments against the film appear to stem from his personal boredom with the subject of slavery. Can he really be so out of touch as to ask this question, "What does showing a helpless animal brutalized have to do with slavery?" Surely I'm not the only one who's ever thought slaves were treated as brutally as [abused] animals. It would be fair, I think, to accuse the scene of overindulgence, but to be baffled by its symbolism? Taylor might benefit from spending time in a literature review course instead of the theater. Charles Taylor's a pretty good writer, capable of brandishing the requisite multisyllabic words with authority, but this is one of the most transparent film reviews I've ever seen. It reads like a petulant diatribe from a pouting, sullen critic, one with an obvious ax to grind. Certainly, Taylor doesn't sound like an authority on film. Rather, he sounds like someone who gets paid to intellectually explain how he wishes Toni Morrison and Jonathan Demme wrote books and directed films differently -- his way. -- Debra Fay Holtons All of the criticisms Charles Taylor makes of this movie could equally well be made of "Schindler's List," or any other movie about the persecution of a large group. Taylor criticizes Toni Morrison for equating numbers with suffering (60 million). But she is only following the trend of what tends to stick in the human psyche. Think about why the number 6 million has such a powerful hold on our imagination. If 6 million is bad, 60 million is equally bad if not worse. Face it, Americans always have a knee-jerk rejection attitude toward anything that reminds them of their culpability in this blot on human history. It is fine to show evil Nazis doing bad things, but movies and other material about slavery are never as popular. It is just that people don't want to be reminded of their own shortcomings. Witness the lack of success of "Amistad." -- Saad Mufti My congratulations to Charles Taylor for writing candidly about that bane of the non-polarized college English teacher, "Beloved" by Toni Morrison. I won't be seeing the film version so I'll not address Mr. Demme's shortcomings. "Beloved" is a poor novel over which politically correct professors have shat themselves for years trying to exhibit their smug and smarmy cultural sensitivity. I taught a college freshman "writing" course one year that required Morrison's book be used -- not suggested, mind you, but required its reading and discussion in class. I refused and thankfully academic freedom won out in the short term. Though since I was not tenure track my defiance required no great sacrifice on my part. It should dishearten anyone who reads with discernment that students are being soured on great literature by having to endure soul-depleting crap like "Beloved." Moviegoers don't have to write a paper or pass a test in order to put a movie behind them. -- Robert Wade Bess Hey, I'm all for independent-minded film criticism, but will someone please requisition the gargantuan chip from off Charles Taylor's shoulder? It's awfully hard to accept the critical authority of a man whose tone is so consistently mean-spirited and vindictive. It was irresponsible for Taylor to review a film that he clearly set out to hate, and equally irresponsible for Salon to print such a review. I generally like the film criticism on Salon; it'd be nice to see a review of "Beloved" that wasn't buried under a narrow-minded distrust and disregard for Toni Morrison and her work. -- Christopher Green Why, in God's name, would Salon's review of "Beloved" be by a writer already predisposed to dislike it? -- Jason Arrington New York I agree with part of your critique on the film version of "Beloved," but Christ be careful! Trite hipster-cool backlash pans are fun to read, but also ugly, dated and painfully self-conscious. -- Brochtrup Keeling San Francisco "What does showing a helpless animal brutalized have to do with slavery?" If this connection isn't apparent to you, you're the wrong person to be reviewing "Beloved." -- Helene Wecker One wonders if Charles Taylor ever read Toni Morrison's "Beloved." I haven't even seen the movie yet, so any critique of it's cinematic failures are beyond my reproach. However, Taylor's miserable failure to understand any aspect of Morrison's novel and the ideas therein is disturbing and frankly pathetic. One wonders what someone who is so unable to grasp the ideas in a novel which presents itself with the force of "Beloved" is doing writing for a magazine like Salon. I've talked to high school students with better understandings of suffering and guilt than Taylor presents in this review. I wish Taylor would spend more time talking about the cinematic failures and structure than whimpering his misunderstandings with nauseating arrogance. -- Nathan Oates
_______________THE JOY OF PERL BY ANDREW LEONARD(10/13/98)
	I have used Perl since 1994. I was a beginner systems administrator and needed a tool to create automatic procedures for a lot of stuff. I liked the language a lot in the beginning, but as time went by, I fell totally in love. I still use other languages sometimes, but I keep going back to Perl. The fact that the language doesn't force me to do what I need to get done in a certain way is the most powerful feature in Perl. I understand that people think that programming languages should be pure and very strict, but I can't agree with them. I don't like to program in a jail house. I need to be free. I'm not an artist when it comes to plastic arts or musical talents. But with Perl, I have a way of expressing myself. I welcome the pure designer languages, like Python. They say it's cleaner than Perl. Well, if it is, then I think it will have some success. But don't think for a minute it will replace Perl. I don't think that replacing Perl was even a design goal of it. Because if it was, it failed. Where is the chaos in Python? Where is the freedom of choosing your own way of doing things? -- Pedro Melo
_______________TURTLE TIME BY ANNE LAMOTT(10/15/98)
	Annie Lamott is back and all is right with the world. Hooray! Thanks, Salon. -- Jen Prior You can't imagine the joy it brought me to see the words "Anne Lamott's back" on this morning's banner. Thanks, Anne; thanks, Salon. Life is good. -- Donna Spencer I am so, so glad that Anne Lamott is back, even with her bad nerves and all. She makes my nerves better. -- Maria Brent
_______________FIGHTING THE WRONG WAR BY ERIK MARCUS (10/14/98)
	After reading "Wrong War" and Sandra Boss' comments regarding "preventive nutrition cures cancer," I'd like to say that although good nutrition may stymie cancer, it certainly can't cure it. Even with good nutrition, people still get cancer. Look at Linda McCartney: If anyone was a poster girl for healthy vegetarian living, it was she. And yet she succumbed to cancer herself, and I'll bet she hadn't had a glass of milk and a hunk of hormone-saturated steak in decades. Sometimes genetics supersedes a well-meaning healthy lifestyle, and that was the case with Mrs. McCartney. So when clones such as Sandra Boss get on their podium and drone on about good nutrition and behave as if they are superior to the rest of us just because they're proud to have eaten their green salad with expensive red bell peppers today, they may still get cancer themselves. Of course, they won't blame it on the organic vegies they've been spending a fortune on; they'll blame it on smog and insecticides, and perhaps faulty genes. -- Ann Barajas San Diego SALON | Oct. 20, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| SERVICE WITH AN ARTIFICIAL SMILE BY ROBERT ROSSNEY

If you would like to submit a letter to the editor for publication, please e-mail us at salon@salonmagazine.com. Letters sent by fax or "snail mail" are less likely to be accepted. Do not send attachments. Please include your full name and a phone number where you can be reached during business hours, so we can confirm your identity. This information will not be used for any reason other than verification and will not appear on the site. Letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness. Brief letters are more likely to be published. Place the name of the article you are responding to in the subject heading of your e-mail. If you do not wish your letter to be published, please say so in the subject line. For more information on Salon's letters policy, click here.