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Dinner with crystal and silver after learning your husband has been seeing a prostitute for a year! What a photo opportunity. Most wives (including mine of 30 years) would be casting stones in the direction of the wayward mate, or maybe the crystal and silver. Most of us can't write a speech on family values; we just live them. DAVID BONANDER Crete, Illinois
THE CLINTON MESSAGES
The cloying Clinton hand-holding photograph [NATION, Sept. 9] leads me to believe that Bill and Hillary Clinton are the greatest acting couple since the Lunts. Such hypocrisy is enough to make flowers wilt. We've had four years of charisma. Let's try character this time. HOWARD M. BLANKMAN Port Washington, New York
"It Takes a Village" is an ancient African proverb that speaks to the necessity of communal rules in archaic cultures, with the tribal chief as leader. But Americans don't live in primal villages. When Hillary Clinton says, "It takes a village," she really means, "It takes the state"--to put a V chip into your television, to determine how to keep you safe, to protect your health. Hillary is a statist, one who believes the best government is more government. And many Americans cheer her, as if she doesn't mean what she says. Today no successful and free government even considers Hillary Clinton's dated socialism. That's because no village, not even the Clintons', can mandate values. "It's the family, stupid." KEN DOWE Dallas
VIEWPOINT ON VALUES
Please give Robert Wright more space. His masterly essay "The False Politics of Values" [NATION, Sept. 9] carefully considers all the options except a spiritual revival nourished by a social movement. When people strongly believe that decent human beings do not walk out on their children, do help those truly in need and do not abuse drugs--most of them, most of the time, do what is right. See, for instance, most Mormons, Black Muslims and Orthodox Jews. Secular social movements may also feed a spiritual revival.
The progressives did much to clean up America; democratic movements are a major moral force overseas. And communitarians, who combine religious and secular folks, may carry the day. Legislating morality does not work--unless moral commitments are in place. Let's have faith in faith. AMITAI ETZIONI Washington
AMERICANS IN IRAQ
Let Saddam Hussein know we mean it [WORLD, Sept. 9]! Winston Churchill called World War II "the unnecessary war." Hitler saw that we would not stop him when German troops marched into the Rhineland in 1936. The desire for peace can lead to disaster. YVONNE KENT Middleburg Heights, Ohio
FRECKLES TO THE FORE--FINALLY
Thank you for telling me in "Fall Preview" that freckles are in [ARTS & MEDIA, Sept. 9]. Why couldn't this have come years ago, when I was a teenager? Red hair and freckles were a double burden, but a dear friend gave me a little statuette that says, A FACE WITHOUT FRECKLES IS LIKE A SKY WITHOUT STARS. Hurrah for freckles! ESTHER RHODE Green Valley, Arizona
BIBLE TALK