Letters

The Boston Red Sox did a magnificent job of winning baseball's World Series championship [Nov. 8]. Even though I'm a New York Yankees fan, I admit that sluggers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were superb in leading their team to victory. The Curse of the Bambino has finally been broken!

AISHA JAMIL Centreville, Va.

There aren't many old-timers, by cracky, who saw the Red Sox lose their first World Series, way back in 1946. I was 16 and hitchhiked from Iowa City, Iowa, to St. Louis, Mo., for Game 1. I slept in the railroad station and bought a $3 standing-room ticket for behind home plate. The Sox tied the game in the ninth, and Rudy York won it in the 10th with a blast to the last row of the bleachers--and I was the only one in the park yelling. I'm happy for today's Boston kids, but most of them have never known the character-building advantages of defeat. I've developed enough character to last the rest of my life, with some left over to give to any New York fans out there. A Massachusetts girl said it best: "Success is counted sweetest/ By those who ne'er succeed." Emily Dickinson would have been a Red Sox fan.

JOHN B. HOLWAY Springfield, Va.

I'm glad the Red Sox won the World Series, if for no other reason than we no longer have to hear about the Curse of the Bambino. The reason the Red Sox hadn't won a World Series since 1918 was simple: the team was never good enough to win. Now that the Red Sox have won, they can go back to playing their usual role as second best to the Yankees. But it will be without any excuses.

ROY WESTON Victoria, B.C.

My great-grandfather Harry Frazee, who owned the Red Sox from 1916 to '23, did not sell Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees to finance a Broadway play, as the legendary Curse of the Bambino would have it. He kept his baseball, theatrical and real estate businesses entirely separate. The so-called curse of the past 86 years has been nothing but a pathetic excuse for more than eight decades of mediocre baseball, which is thankfully now put to rest.

JIM FRAZEE Oslo

I read with amusement (and a little disdain) your cover article on the poor Red Sox fans, who for 86 years have been waiting patiently for a World Series championship. In 45 professional seasons (37 in football and eight in NBA basketball), New Orleans hasn't even had one of its home teams appear in a title game or series. So while I can certainly relate to the Boston sports fans' pain, let's have a little sports sympathy for a town that has really earned it.

GUY DUPLANTIER New Orleans

Explosives at Large

Re the 377 tons of munitions missing from Iraq's al-Qaqaa military complex since March 2003 [Nov. 8]: If you were planning a war and you knew where the enemy's munitions dumps were, wouldn't you send a missile or two right off the bat to destroy the enemy's fighting capabilities? The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) alerted U.S. officials about the dangerous weapons at al-Qaqaa in January 2003. The proper question isn't, When did the arms disappear? The question is, Why weren't they marked for destruction before our troops started moving up the road toward them? I always thought disrupting the enemy's supply chain--especially its dangerous weaponry--was a basic strategy of offensive warfare.

TIM CONEY Medford, Ore.

Bin Laden's Tape

The videotaped message from Osama bin Laden, showing him alert and very alive, capped a week of bad news for President George W. Bush [Nov. 8]. What is this terrorist, this atrocious, fanatical criminal, still doing at large in the world? A week after the terrible destruction of 9/11, Bush stated in his typical cowboy fashion that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive." Three years later, billions of dollars have been spent, more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed, the nation is divided, and we are nowhere close to knowing even where that man is. The President has failed us, and we are not safe.

DAN GAMBETTA Portland, Ore.

Red, White and Blue Shoes

I was very affected by "Sole Survivor" [Nov. 8], your story about Jim Davis, chief executive of New Balance, and his determination to continue manufacturing 25% of his company's shoes in the U.S. It is tragic that Davis' pro-American attitude is so unusual among sneaker companies. Although I am not part of the youth culture that the company needs to court, I will, after reading your article, purchase only New Balance sneakers. Thank you, Jim Davis, for being an old-fashioned guy with a forward-minded idea--hardworking Americans producing high-quality products for Americans and the world.

CARMEN MARDEN Campbell, N.Y.

Let's hope that Davis sticks to his guns and keeps manufacturing shoes in the U.S. Someone has to take a stand and start to turn around America's trade imbalance so that we maintain our ability to make and not just consume things. At some point, there will be no wages and no way to buy all the stuff that is made overseas for pennies an hour.

RUTH RILEY Columbus, Ohio

Wake Up and Make Up?

"The Morning After" [Nov. 1] asked if , when the presidential campaign is over, it will "be possible to pick up the pieces, bridge the gaps and reunite the United States." Now that George Bush has been elected to another four-year term, the stakes could not be higher for the people of the world, the majority of whom seem to be dead set against him. Bush's victory was a defeat for the world. It's too bad we don't have global suffrage for U.S. presidential elections.

TETSU SUZUKI Kariya, Japan

Our great country was founded on the principle that people of vastly different beliefs and opinions can live together as one nation. Time and again the people of the U.S. have pulled together and shown the world that we are one nation, that we stand together. Our country healed its wounds after the Civil War. The divisiveness in America, which you called an "Uncivil War," was created by the news media. Now that the elections are over, the government and people of this country can get back to the business at hand. We will go on, as we have in the past, thanks to the foresight of our Founding Fathers. They were familiar with the public's inclination to passionate political differences, and they dealt with that in the document we so treasure: the Constitution.

CAROL A. DUDA Grove City, Pa.

We are a strong country with strong views. In the presidential election, those views came to the forefront and caused political debate among all facets of our society. Now that the election is over, however, we can settle back and support our country, which has become the strongest nation in the world in part because of our ability to have a contest like this and recover from it quickly afterward. We are not a fractured society; we are a dynamic society. We expect intense discussion over who will lead us. But I have no doubt that our bonds of patriotism are strong enough that Republicans and Democrats can still work together, go to church together and play together.

RANDY HORN St. Michael, Minn.

Postelection Blues

In "How to Break the Political Fever" [Nov. 1], Garrison Keillor offered recommendations on how to handle the postelection blues if your candidate loses, like taking a hike and rediscovering "the plain pleasures of the physical world." I enjoy Keillor's writing and would find myself politically on his side in the blue buffer that protects America's fervent red heart. Unfortunately, though, his advice is limited by geography. Thousands of dead Iraqi civilians certainly can't heed it. Whole schools of children in Iraq are too frightened of being kidnapped to venture outdoors. There's no hiking there. God alone knows what effect another four years of compassionate conservatism will bring the world.

TIM BENNETTO Valencia, Spain

I admired Keillor's optimism about the postelection reconciliation of partisans, but Nov. 2 only marked the beginning of a new battle. I am just 30 years old, but this was the first election in my life in which I felt there was no victory for anyone. I am afraid the rhetoric will get more venomous, and the nation will become more divided. Yet, in a strange way, that fills me with hope.

ROB SELTZNER Los Angeles

Floating to Flores

Your story on the discovery of the remains of tiny cave-dwelling humans on the Indonesian island of Flores [Nov. 8] reported that its elephants may have swum the distance that separated Flores from the nearest land when the sea level was at its lowest. Could they also perhaps have had a role in getting Homo floresiensis onto the island? As there is already evidence of elephant migration, who is to say that some early hominids didn't hitch a ride or two on the backs of those buoyant beasts?

ALFRED WINSOR BROWN V San Diego

Living the Enhanced Life

Re your psecial report "Visions of Tomorrow" [Oct. 11]: No single nation is self-sufficient in today's global society; we need one another's food, inventions, banking, tourism, music and fashion. International exchange students help us participate more fully in a world that is becoming increasingly linked by communication, transportation and trade. We must cooperate as we search for values that enhance life. Then we can leave the 21st century knowing that we have broken the pattern of divisiveness.

JORDAN ERNEST-NYEMBE Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Thank you for your story on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. The agency is one of the reasons for the high level of U.S. farm productivity. Many policymakers in different countries don't recognize that money spent on agricultural research is one of the best investments for the future. Those countries think it is something for rich people, while it is exactly the opposite.

MIGUEL MOTA, PRESIDENT PORTUGUESE SOCIETY OF GENETICS Oeiras, Portugal

Negative Capability

Re columnist Joe Klein's "An Overdose of Invective" [Oct. 25]: Although President Bush lowered himself to name calling during the U.S. presidential campaign, it's worth noting the considerable amount of invective hurled at him and his fellow Americans by people in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. In postwar Europe, Americans were warmly received because of their altruism and decency. Today Americans are almost universally shunned as imperialists. In three years Bush has destroyed 50 years of hard-earned political, market and moral capital.

PHILIP LEONE Maidenhead, England

Confusion at the Top

"What Saddam Was Really Thinking" [Oct. 18], on the disclosures made in Charles Duelfer's CIA report on Iraq's alleged weapons arsenal, posed a head scratcher. You reported that Iraqi military morale sank when Saddam informed his senior officers that they would have to fight the coalition without biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. But the story also said that "military officers lied about their preparedness," which led Saddam to miscalculate Iraq's ability to deter an invasion. Was Saddam the duper or the duped?

ERMES CULOS Ashcroft, B.C.

I am thankful to President Bush because he had the courage to make the decision to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a problem not only for Iraq but for other countries as well. The American and British invasion has broken the rule of this dictator. Although the situation in Iraq is very difficult and dangerous, the coalition has no choice but to remain until there is no further threat from the insurgents.

LUIGI GIANOLA Como, Italy