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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