Letters to the editor

Littleton every day
BY JAKE TAPPER
(04/27/99)

I cried when I read Jake Tapper's article about Washington's ignorance of the life and death of sweet Marcus Owens.

Our elected officials place far too much importance on campaign checks from the NRA and far too little importance on saving our school children. Tapper is right: It's not television or out-of-touch parents or naughty song lyrics that kill children, it's guns, plain and simple. Until we rid ourselves of violent weapons, we will continue to lose children like Marcus and the children in Littleton. How many more have to die before our elected officials realize the Second Amendment has nothing to do with what's happening in our schools?

-- Karin Walser
Washington

One important distinction between the Littleton episode and the tragic death of Marcus Owens that Tapper misses is that in Littleton, the shootings took place in school. There are not a dozen kid shootings a day in school across the United States; the episodes he cites for May 1998 were all threats, not deaths, and that is a meaningful distinction. It is the context of the recent killings that sustains a large part of America's horror.

We expect that a government-run school will provide some level of protection: not from everything, perhaps, but from mass slaughter, at least. There is nothing unreasonable about that expectation and its explosive overthrow has caught everyone off guard.

In the wake of Littleton, it is hard not to support Tapper's call for reducing access to guns, though I think it unrealistic to expect that a country that cannot keep guns and drugs out of the hands of imprisoned felons can keep weapons away from kids. But we all must recognize that there is no "one variable" solution to the problems of an self-centered, violent and increasingly empty culture and the adolescents and adults it helps create. And the government is not the only player in solving those problems.

-- Michael Derman
Lewisburg, Pa.

I don't understand why guns are treated differently then cars. Every weapon should be registered. The registration should require the owner to carry insurance and pass a written test regarding the proper care, maintenance and safety requirements necessary. When ownership is transferred, the law should require that a transfer of ownership form be registered and proof of insurance be provided. If you leave the key to your car in the ignition with the door unlocked and anyone drives the car and injures someone, you are responsible. If you leave a gun, without a lock, accessible to anyone, you should be responsible for any harm that may occur.

-- Susan Matz
New York

Microsoft's flawed Linux vs. NT shootout
BY ANDREW LEONARD
(04/27/99)

I am a Novell shareholder, and Mindcraft pulled this same stunt with Novell Netware a few months back, including attempting to hide the sponsor of the study. They claimed that NT Server outperformed Novell, but after some digging on the part of some very technical Novell stockholders several things emerged.

1) Microsoft paid for the study lock stock and barrel.
2) Mindcraft attempted to conceal this.
3) Mindcraft attempted to portray the study as an objective one.
4) Mindcraft deliberately set the Novell parameters to the most inefficient settings possible for their test.
5) Mindcraft deliberately set the NT Server parameters to the most optimized settings for their test.
6) Mindcraft deliberately constructed tests to achieve the a priori result that they had in mind in the first place -- namely, that NT Server outperforms Novell.
7) When fair and impartial tests were actually constructed, Novell handily outperformed NT Server.

After being repeatedly flamed and castigated about this, Mindcraft finally apologized. Now after the hoopla of the fiasco has died down, they are at it again.

Mindcraft has acted as nothing more than a paid mouthpiece for Microsoft. Their credibility in this should be accurately portrayed for what it is -- zero or even negative (i.e., users should consider the opposite of whatever Mindcraft claims).

-- Noah F. Stern

Mad humanist
BY FRANK HOUSTON
(04/27/99)

Critics be damned. If science fiction is the urinal of the literati, then Kurt Vonnegut is the Marcel Duchamp of science fiction.

-- Stephen Waters
Pflugerville, Texas

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