C'mon, MUG & Drudge, Kiss & Make Up; Boobsalot/Jim Knipples; Grody Dave Serchuk; You're All Class, Taki; Tabb's Witty and Funny; More

To Matt Drudge: As a longtime Drudge regular, I'm very appreciative for your help in finding Russ Smith and the invaluable New York Press. I have a friendly suggestion regarding your deleting those links ("MUGGER," 6/12): get over it! Your behavior sounds very parochial, or CNN-ish to me. Besides, he's a fellow Long Islander.

Tom Fries, Belleville, IL

Whiz Kid

Piss on Matt Drudge, and I say that in a nonvenomous context.

Greg Hall, Dallas

Now Kiss & Make Up

MUGGER: It's too bad about Drudge taking links to New York Press off his site. He's how I found your paper in the first place. Considering all the other criticism he receives from just about every other media outlet, it's a shame he's taking it out on you. Besides, it's not his fault his last name happens to rhyme with sludge. Hope you guys patch things up.

Jim Morton, Portsmouth, OH

Drop Us a Line

We are all in this together, Matt. Let your displeasure be known with words and not links.

David Ferguson, Baltimore

Accidentally, of Course

RE Jennifer Dross' "Big Balls" ("First Person," 6/12). If men indeed sit with legs spread wide because they require "boundaries for their balls," as was suggested in Dross' honest and revealing piece, then women need a similar comfort zone for their boobies. As an amply endowed female, my D-cups have been routinely squished and so mercilessly slammed and rammed by the elbows and shoulders of men in such a rush to get to wherever it is they're going, you'd think my breasts represented the opposing team in a hockey game. At least hockey players get to wear hard cups! All I have to safeguard against painful inflictions is a judiciously placed forearm. Enough with the sympathy for the male gruesome twosome. How about some protective space for our titillating twins?

Roxanne Blanford, Brooklyn

Ewww

You guys, I'm a little surprised. David Serchuk's "Market Research" ("First Person," 6/12) isn't very good, and it doesn't really fit your paper's tone, does it? Any piece that combines descriptions of 7-Eleven food and dead babies is just ick.

Rasha Refaie, Brooklyn

SC Heart NZ

Michelangelo Signorile: I read your latest column on New Zealand and was totally blown away ("The Gist," 6/12). I had no idea that that little country had such a progressive government. Let us hope and pray that this little country's ideas start to shame big countries into doing the right thing. Thanks for the wonderful insight. As always, I love your column.

Warren Faulconer, Mt. Pleasant, SC

Like Father, Like Son

Yes, Mr. Taki, your father was a good man, just like you ("Top Drawer," 6/12). There are very few men in America today who can tell it like it is.

Robert Kress, Staten Island

Friggin' Coloreds

MUGGER: Loved your references to San Francisco and its absurd pulp paper product, the Chronicle (6/12). The city seems so smitten by Third World values that it aspires to emulate every Third World failure. The liberal lockstep is firmly entrenched and incapable of governing. Yet to read the Chronicle you'd suspect that the city were run by a dictator who will not allow solutions and so what difference would it make to contemplate a different way.

Robert Holmgren, Menlo Park, CA

Witty and Funny

It is quite refreshing to read George Tabb's recent editorials on the New York Press website's "Daily Billboard." He's witty, funny and obviously much smarter than he looks. Please bring him back to the paper so I can read him on the toilet where I'm much more comfortable. And while you're at it, maybe you can add a crossword puzzle or two to your publication? Sometimes these things take a while, and I like working it out with a pencil.

John Potter, Queens

Twat Did You Say?

MUGGER: Great column, as usual (6/12). I especially enjoyed your "Guinier's anachronistic cant," but believe you may have dropped a letter or two.

John Lindley, Long Beach, CA

Spin

Dave Itzkoff doesn't get it ("Lad No More," 6/5). He never did get it, and never will. Maxim is what it is, humor, dick jokes?it's entertainment. It doesn't pretend to be news, it doesn't pretend to be fashion. Do you watch a sitcom to try to learn something? No, you watch it to relax and enjoy yourself. Maxim you read so you can laugh while taking a dump. This writer missed the joke when he signed on with them. And in an industry where writers are a dime a dozen it's not smart to burn bridges; the first he burned was back at Details magazine when he fucked them over the same way. Good riddance to this little prick. Who would hire this ass now?

Brian Quester, Manhattan

You Should Talk

MUGGER: It's over; time to move on; the age of the callow, clever quip is dead.

I. Jim Knipples is a tedious bore. Escort what's left of him to the dog track. Ditch him! Wonderland up in Boston is just the spot. He's an embarrassing, self-absorbed hack.

II. Bush has devolved into a cleaned-up, better-groomed version of the Reverend Jim from Taxi. How can you not notice the telltale signs of burnout? He speaks as if his words have no meaning and never did have any meaning that he's aware of: a wooden stooge. And yet you would continue to sit at his feet.

III. Truly no one wants to hear any more about the Smith family?have you nothing else on your mind but the Red Sox?

IV. What's up with fucking "Henry," anyway?

V. You and Cheney have swallowed the same Kool-Aid?you are bionic. Wake up and smell the dogshit, Doogie!

Amos Hoople, Manhattan

Read in Reno

I read about your publication in Raimondo's column at Antiwar.com, of which I am an avid reader (as many conservatives who do not buy the "neocon" agenda are). Then, I read Taki's "We Don't Need More Gekkos" ("Top Drawer," 6/12). I love it.

Alex Chaihorsky, Reno, NV

Amended Complaint

Assaults on the First Amendment or, more properly put, First Amendment violations can only result from government action?not as a result of the actions of private institutions ("MUGGER," 6/12). It is incorrect to compare the two. No matter how distasteful, The New York Times is able to control the content of its publication.

G. Vourvoulias, New Orleans

Russ Smith replies: My point is that the elite media is advocating that the government violate the First Amendment.

Embarrassment of Riches

RE your "Summer Guide" introduction (5/22). The square block that is bounded by Broadway on its east side, 8th Ave. on its west side, W. 58th St. on the south and Columbus Circle on the north may be the smallest square block in the entire city. Yet this square block has five of your newspaper's dispensers. The west side on 8th Ave. has three boxes practically on top of one another, and the north side has two boxes at opposite ends. And some people wonder why they cannot find your paper.

Stu Taubel, Manhattan

Move to Idaho

MUGGER: Now, if only a few more people who live in the San Francisco Bay area were in agreement (6/12). The new arrivals have taken over what was once the most beautiful city in the world and made it unsightly, unseemly and odiferous. Imagine offering a minimum of 300 bucks a month to any bum who chooses to walk in and apply. Feinstein as mayor introduced much of the laissez faire and the present mayor is finishing it off by skimming whatever respectability was left. Can you imagine a worse situation than having Feinstein and Boxer representing you in Washington?

Ralph Oswald, Menlo Park, CA

The Jeffrey Slade?

I read J.R. Taylor's interview with the Star Spangles ("Music," 6/5) and I have a few questions. I'm 29 and I've been reading the Press for seven years, since I first moved to New York. For the last five years I've been in New York City rock bands. High rents and low pay have forced me to move from Bleecker St. to Astoria and here's a "New York Story" you don't read about much: I work for a living. Two years ago, one Saturday night, I even graced the stage of CBGB with the now monstrously famous Strokes. It was a fun night, the headline band was from DC. The Strokes played first with really great vintage gear. Then came the DC headliner (sorry, I forgot their name). Then my band played. We played great, someone even asked me for my autograph. So now I'm still at my day job and the Strokes are on MTV. Hey, my dad is in human resources in Ohio and a Stroke's dad owns a modeling company. I'm not saying they are not talented, I think they're a breath of fresh air in music today. Don't think I'm some bitter failure. Major labels have listened to my stuff, I'm doing another demo. Maybe if fashion magazines said I was the best new thing in New York I would be. But then again maybe I wouldn't.

Anyway, what is everyone afraid of at the Press? Nepotism is a fact of life in this world and it is the rule of thumb in New York City. I'm all for the viewpoints of the Spangles: hating hipsters, being jealous of trustfund babies. I can't believe that those people are so powerful that even underground bands must censor their speech. Is Taylor afraid he'll never get to write for Rolling Stone? Are the Spangles really afraid of some rich daddy avenging the bruised ego of his son's band? And if they live on the Lower East Side, how poor can they really be? Are they going to be the next signed NYC band?

The real question here is, should the rich kids who already have everything get to be the rock stars, too? "What is a poor boy to do, but sing in a rock and roll band." I guess life is just not fair. At least we all have Ozzy, doing for his kids what his parents couldn't do for him.

Jeffrey Slade, Astoria

Below the Beltway

MUGGER: I was disappointed by Drudge's delinking of Taki's columns (6/12), because I always turn to the Drudge Report first, and if not for those links I never would have known where to find them. You guys lost thousands of current and future readers when Matt dropped those links.

And deservedly so. Did Signorile really call Drudge a "nasty faggot" over his story that Brock had been in a psych ward? That was a real scoop. In case you've been under a rock these past few years, Brock has become a lefty media darling for his backstabbing of his old GOP friends. Even Bill Clinton's been overheard quoting him. If Bryant Gumbel, Dan Rather and Frank Rich all take him seriously, and if he's trying to sell a book in which he's claiming everything he wrote about Clinton and Clarence Thomas was false, then the fact that he's actually a paranoiac freak is newsworthy.

And speaking of "nasty faggots," why is Signorile defending Brock? If Signorile is, as you say, "smart," what is it that he sees in Brock that so many of the rest of us don't?

Finally, why are you defending a writer who resorts to such demeaning, seventh-grade rhetoric?

Your butt-licking compliments of Drudge's work, without apologizing for Signorile, come across as disingenuous. I hope Drudge keeps you guys on probation for a long, long time.

Mike Lewis, Washington, DC

Don't Worry

Regarding Armond White's statement about The Sum of All Fears to Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air" a couple of weeks ago, I have a question: What, exactly, is meant by the phrase "worried white-men frowns"? Is this some form of blatant racism on a show predominated by tolerance and acceptance?

As a white man who sometimes worries, I worry more about the fact that some reviewers lump those of us who happen to be white into categories and generalities such as this. Is there a similar group to whom we can attribute "worried black-men frowns," or is it the opinion of Mr. (ironically named) White that fellow individuals who are darker of skin are innately cool and non-worrying? What about those "worried Asian women"? Do they have a look he can generalize as well?

Don Stephens, Springfield, MO

What Took You So Long?

MUGGER: Thought you might like to know that since Drudge has delinked you and New York Press from his site I have added you to my favorites (and near the top).

Gary Chapline, Kemah, TX

Leftier than Thou

MUGGER: You're all over the map in your latest column. Even the subheads changed to italic when you got to "John Keats vs. Judy Blume." 'Sup wid dat? Good stuff, though. That Drudge deal is weird. But, about hating San Francisco: you and I both know you don't really hate SF, you just hate all the stupid crap we have to put up with here. The papers really are juvenile, except for the sports guys, the muckrakers and Farley the cartoon. But we have nothing on the ignorant pomposity scale to equal the Times. They're repulsive. The politics here are as cheap and mean as the old days at Tammany, and none of these clowns would last a second in Manhattan, but we have nothing as sleazy as Fat Al and the Sharptones. He's a sick song. And remember, the surrounding schools are the factory for the archetypal weak-kneed, bleeding-heart, crybaby liberal. But at least they're funny?really funny. The Stanford band is so stupid, it makes you think fondly of your old diploma mill. So, say a nice word about Frisco, the only oasis of civilization west of the Hudson.

Next, about baseball. I used to hate interleague play?as well as the DH?but it's growing on me. That series with the D'backs was a crusher for both of us: Boston and SF needed some wins there. I was sure Martinez would get Schilling. Damn, it's gonna be a tough slog to the pennant. As for the loathsome and cowardly Clemens: you were too nice to him. The Oakland A's used to beat him like a cheap drum (unfortunately when he was in Boston). Remember how he got so frustrated pitching against Dave Stewart that they threw his worthless white ass out of the game? That's where he belongs?gone. Please advocate the removal of his head. The Mets have no love for him and will do a good job.

James B. Klein, San Francisco

California Dreamin'

MUGGER: I started reading your columns about two months ago?first on Jewish World Review and now directly at New York Press. I just wanted to thank you for your clear, concise and intelligent work. You're a terrific writer, and you don't pull any punches. I enjoy that. Oh, and you're right?the Yankees suck. Of course I'm an A's fan, so we can throw down about an A's vs. Sox ALCS some day.

Dave Rodenborn, San Jose, CA

They All End Up in S.F.

MUGGER: It is not that too little attention is given the Chronicle, but that so little is warranted (6/12). I suffered with it as my local paper for years and it never, ever, improved. The columnist you have to watch, however, is their daily fellow, Jon Carroll, a specialist in cute cat columns, word play columns and, lately, deep political think pieces. He passes one of these every week or so and they are, without exception, dull and retroactively stupid. A recent one, reads, in part: "I have known people sort of like John Walker Lindh. They were uncomfortable in their own skins, uncomfortable in their environment. They set off seeking the Answer. It was charming that they believed in the Answer; most of us didn't. I think most of us were right."

Gerard Van der Leun, Manhattan

Slap Happy

MUGGER: Matt Drudge is a curious fellow (6/12). His success is not easily understood. I use his website as my home page and was pretty irritated when I discovered that he had dropped New York Press and "MUGGER" links from his site. I think that was a pretty childish reaction to an equally childish assault on him by Mike Signorile ("The Gist," 6/5). Please, boys, take it outside if you want to pull each other's hair. I share your disappointment and lack of enthusiasm for this contention. I hope Matt Drudge knows that I can type www.nypress.com and don't need his help getting to your site.

As for MLB, I don't like interleague play. I think all the hype that surrounds situations like Clemens hitting in Shea Stadium is wasted energy, and I couldn't care less if Barry Bonds hits a home run in Yankee Stadium. Interleague play is all about putting butts in seats and selling "gear" and hotdogs and beer and any other concessions. To me interleague play is just about marketing, and I don't care for it. Call me a cynic if you will.

I love baseball at all levels and can prove my commitment by the 285,000-plus miles on my Chevy Suburban. Miles that have been consumed in pursuit of the game at all levels, from Little League to high school, to AAU, to college, to Minor League, to the Big Leagues. I love the game at all levels, and have gladly driven all over America to watch it. It's a passion not only for me, but for my family. Baseball is what we do. My oldest son is a college baseball coach and my youngest is still playing the college game. "Baseball is Life, and all the rest is details?," and I still wish I had said that first.

If there is a work stoppage at the MLB level this year, it will drive a dagger into the heart of the Big League game. I would hate for that to happen. Watching millionaires argue with other millionaires over who gets what would really piss me off, and if it kills another World Series MLB ownership will be the big losers. I'll content myself in the future with amateur and Minor League ball. I won't spend another red cent in a MLB park ever. I won't buy a ticket, and I won't watch it on tv. I'll burn my Astros gear and any other MLB gear I've got. I realize that my behavior won't bankrupt ownership, but I have a feeling that there are zillions of others out there who feel just like I do.

This argument between Signorile/Drudge in a strange and zany way mirrors the brewing storm between MLB and the players association. It makes me want to line them all up, just like in a Three Stooges movie, and give them all a good "Triple Slap."

Tracy Meadows, Brenham, TX

Gotcha

MUGGER: Attack my family, and you lose, too. Don't think baseball and beer ever mix. And steroids may well be the reason for all the "leavers" last year (and this). The ball doesn't seem to test livelier. While steroids only test deadlier?in the end, where it's all at.

Bob Cooper, Irving, TX

Of Course They Read It

Michelangelo Signorile is to be commended for writing a truly insightful analysis of forthcoming congressional hearings ("The Gist," 6/5). But several points must be raised.

No serious analyst regards the present House-Senate probe as anything other than a standard whitewash. What is really needed is a blue-ribbon commission with subpoena power, half of whose members would be Republicans, half Democrats. Most importantly, the commission ought to have two chairmen, not just one. One a Republican, one a Democrat, of the highest integrity. I would like to nominate former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan to fill that slot.

While the vast majority of commentators believe that the Bush administration possessed nothing more than vague, generalized warnings of a possible attack, there do exist reputable dissenters, whose existence is not known to the general public, who say otherwise. One such dissenter is Mr. Rodney Stich, a former investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration whose books, including Defrauding America and Drugging America, are underground classics. All of Stich's writings are highly respected among students of conspiracy theories.

Stich has claimed that he has evidence that a) the Bush administration knew precisely when and where the attacks would occur, before they happened, and b) the Bush administration did what it could to facilitate the success of the attacks. Whether or not this is true or false, Stich cannot be ignored by any competent researcher who is desirous of determining the facts of the case.

Should the ringleaders of The New York Times, the world's newspaper of record, be reading this, I would like to ask them, if Rodney Stich were to submit an article to the op-ed page of your eminent newspaper, in which he were to give his proof of his allegations, would you publish it, on a page where it would command worldwide attention?

If Mr. Stich is "the emperor without any clothes," he must be debunked and discredited without delay. But if what he is saying is true, the entire world ought to know this. The best way to determine what the facts are is for the op-ed page of the world's most important newspaper to agree to serve as a forum for unconventional ideas, at least briefly. So Mr. Sulzberger and Mr. Raines?if you read the letters page of the New York Press, what do you say?

Clifton Wellman, Manhattan

Cue "Battle Hymn of the Republic"

Just as the Israelis have declared Yasir Arafat irrelevant so should thinking Americans make the same declaration for self-hating American journalists. Wrapping themselves in the flag and presuming to believe that the current war and its shadow enemy could even possibly have been contemplated by the Founding Fathers when they drafted the Constitution is just plain stupidity. The rules of engagement have been altered. New tactics must be employed to defeat a pernicious enemy. Battlefield tactics in 1776 called for armies to square off face-to-face. It was the gentlemanly way to fight. The new citizen-soldier army hid behind trees. Stick and run...retreat...stick and run again. The redcoats thought it was a vulgar way for civilized people to fight a war (oxymoron for sure) but it allowed a small band of dedicated fighters to defeat an empire and establish the greatest democracy the world has ever seen. Let us not make the mistake now.

Howard Gleichenhaus, Delray Beach, FL

Aww, Go On

MUGGER: You are the best. I love your columns.

Dave Faber, Manhattan

He Said...

RE "The Mail" (5/29). Tammi Weinstein of Forest Hills carps about "the liberal press" that "they keep referencing the occupation that Israel did not choose?it was attacked." Wrong in two ways, Ms. Weinstein. First, the U.S. media has for many years been totally silent about the conditions of life of the Palestinians. It's only after 30-plus years of "terrorism" that some elements of the American elite figured out the Palestinians wouldn't just go away quietly from their homeland, and so some accommodation must be made. To that end, they very gingerly began telling bits and pieces of the other side, instead of only presenting pro-Israel propaganda.

The second way it's wrong is not a matter of interpretation at all, but an inarguable fact: Israel wasn't "attacked" in 1967, the year it conquered the West Bank and Gaza Strip (or "Judea and Samaria," if you insist on turning the clock back 3000 years, as the Zionists do, harking back to Ancient Israel and Judeh, which existed for all of three centuries). Israel initiated military operations in the 1967 war?go look it up. It was the 1973 war that was started first by the Arabs, after President Anwar Sadat of Egypt was rebuffed for three years in his attempt to make an exchange of land-for-peace. (Egypt lost the Sinai peninsula in the '67 war.)

I've noticed that this piece of mis- (or dis-, depending on the awareness of the true facts by the speaker/writer) information about who started the 1967 war is quite commonplace. By merely repeating the incorrect info over and over, it becomes "fact," a false piece of common knowledge.

But that's not the worst of the distortion of that war. The Israeli attack and attempted sinking of the U.S. surveillance ship Liberty has been thrown down the memory hole. The U.S. has agreed to officially pretend that the preposterous cover story of it being "an accident" is true. Readers interested in the details can refer to several chapters in James Bamford's new book on the National Security Agency, Body of Secrets, or to a book that came out in 1979 by one of the ship's surviving officers (almost everyone onboard was either killed or wounded in the broad-daylight attack by the Israeli air force and navy that lasted several hours), James Ennes Jr., Assault on the Liberty, published by Random House.

Jason Zenith, Manhattan