Treading on student rights
Well-publicized incidents of violence have parents worried, but do we really want schools that look like prisons and kids who feel like criminals?

Editorials
Immigration double standard
The White House hasn't shown much interest in repairing the harshest provisions of the immigration law President Clinton signed in 1996, which has resulted in the detention or deportation of record numbers of immigrants for minor offenses or paperwork problems. But the Clinton administration took a great interest in an effort to accelerate the citizenship process for Hispanic immigrants whose leaders promised "a great chance to create a whole lot of pro-Clinton voters."

Schools as fortresses
We shouldn't resort to heavy-handed law enforcement tactics against schoolchildren when more level-headed approaches can effectively promote safety.

Letters
Entertainment is part of the puzzle
Re: Attacks on entertainment industry are baseless, by Robyn E. Blumner, Sept. 17.

Philip Gailey
Republicans might be grateful for a Gore victory
The day after the November election, things could look bleak for the Republicans. Most of the political advantages they accumulated during Ronald Reagan's presidency and Newt Gingrich's revolution could be lost. They haven't occupied the White House in eight years, but they have controlled the Congress since 1995 and held on to a thin conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. In this year's voting, their grip on the legislative and judicial branches could be in jeopardy. Much could depend on whether George W. Bush can pull out of his political stall and win the White House.

Martin Dyckman
For humanity in our prisons
TALLAHASSEE -- During a visit to Florida State Prison many years ago, the sergeant escorting me greeted one of the lifers, a fairly famous one, by his first name. He saw that I had noticed and remarked that he wasn't supposed to do that. But, he said, he wouldn't feel right if he didn't. He couldn't be the man's jailer year after year without trying to show him some simple humanity.

Gore is wise to address middle-class economic anxieties
Al Gore surprised many people early this month when he unveiled his economic program offering a vision of better times for the American middle class. His opponents immediately scoffed, some suggesting that times have never been better -- with the unemployment rate at 4.1 percent, home ownership approaching 70 percent of U.S. households, and consumer price increases of only about 3 percent annually. The pundits say voters are too content for the issue to get much political traction.

Books
Children's books
MAKE A BOOK: Six Different Books to Make, Write and Illustrate,by Vivien Frank and Deborah Jaffe (Dutton, $14.99)

Keeping a weather eye
Hurricane Gordon didn't deliver any sucker punches last week, but it sure made those of us who once again prepared for the worst feel like suckers. But the worst might be yet to come, says the author of a new book on hurricanes. He claims Mother Nature is back on the warpath.

Blowing in the wind
TYING DOWN THE WIND: Adventures in the Worst Weather on Earth, by Eric Pinder (Putnam, $34.99)

The view from an altitude of 2 inches
The dust jacket of this novel says that author Tom Robbins is opposed to story summations. The futility of trying to sum up the plot of a Robbins novel was suggested on the dust jacket of one of his earlier books.

Washington wise
As a newspaper reporter with 15 years of my own experience covering Washington, D.C., including the White House, I am always leery of the authenticity of stories about journalists covering the nation's capital. Last television season, I was hugely surprised at the quality of the television series, The West Wing, and this summer, I was swept away by Brian McGrory's improbable and thoroughly engaging debut thriller, The Incumbent.

The hilarious adventures of an iconoclast
THE TOTAL VIEW OF TAFTLY, by Scott Morris (Hill Street Press, $18.95)