INVALID POPPYCOCK Your horoscope analysis is ugly and untrue at best. ...
CK
Your horoscope analysis is ugly and untrue at best. I am a Christian and I have never seen such cruel poppycock from a valid web site.
Cheri Spencer, via email
Hellfire
Are you utterly insane? One can only hope so, for there is no other excuse for the vile abortion you call "Crime Blotter."
Whoever hides behind anonymity to issue such detached dispatches contemptuously detailing battered infants shall have his in due time, as will whatever monsters consume this God-forsaken whore-rag. Hellfire indeed, sir. Hellfire indeed.
Michael Intosh, Queens
PUSSY-ASSED LIBERAL BULLSHIT
Just had to write to let you know your "article" is the most BIASED unprofessional, subjective garbage only a hack "writer" like you could spew out ("After the Flood," 9/7). You (mr. marchman) don't give a rat's ass about "the people". Your whole article was anti-Bush, pussy-assed Liberal bullshit. Why don't you march your sorry ass down to N.O. and help? This was a biased "I hate G.W. Bush and Republicans" bullshit article. Your Hatred of Bush is all I got out of it. Absolutely pathetic!
M. Reed, Queensboro Correctional Facilities Parole Office
BLADDERS AWAY
Harry Siegel correctly reports that New York City lacks public toilets despite a French company's offer to build them for free ("City in the Wilderness," 9/7). But Siegel neglects to tell your readers what the hold-up is. The problem is a clash between the city's government and the handicapped-rights lobby.
The city is absolutely adamant that the street toilets must not be large enough to accommodate two people, lest they be used for drug buys or sexual couplings. Meanwhile, handicapped-rights groups have vowed strong opposition to any puablic toilets that aren't wheelchair-accessible. But any toilet cubicle that's wheelchair-friendly is also large enough for two able-bodied occupants.
The handicapped lobby's policy on street toilets is: If we can't have 'em, we won't let anyone else have 'em either. No Manhattan politician is willing to shaft handicapped-rights advocates (or handicapped voters) by approving a toilet design that accommodates only able-bodied individuals. The city's attitude is: Better to make all New Yorkers keep their legs crossed than give one disabled combat veteran an opportunity for soundbites that make City Hall look prejudiced against crippos.
The coin-operated street toilets in London work just dandy. Each is wheelchair-accessible and therefore large enough to host two people, yet the toilets attract very little extracurricular activity. After a generous time limit, the toilet's door reopens automatically, discouraging all-nighters. New York City should follow London's example.
I'm not holding my breath. Or my bladder.
F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, Manhattan
GOOD QUESTION
When you got rid of Taibbi, did you get rid of any trace of sarcasm or wit as well?
Christopher Persheff, Manhattan
PARANOIA DISMANTLED
Tim Marchman's article on New Orleans was stunning-possibly the best single piece I've read on the Hurricane Katrina disaster ("After the Flood, 9/7). He managed to assign blame where due and yet also dismantle some of the more paranoid and partisan theories about the dreadfully slow rescue response. Kudos for a job well done.
I must add that I looked eagerly to MUGGER"S column to see what idiotic partisan defense of Dubya he could manage in the incredibly sorry circumstances. But I couldn't find a word from him anywhere in the lastest issue. I guess even MUGGER could not come up with a justification of Bush and his patronage-hiring-crippled FEMA this time-a really telling lack of commentary, rather like Sherlock Holmes's clue in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" of the dog that didn't bark.
Lisa Braun, Manhattan
PRESS VOICE
Unless you want the "new" New York Press to sound like the Village Voice, banish Marchman from the front pages ("After the Flood," 9/7). I stopped reading the Press shortly after Smith sold the paper and have picked it up again recently. If I wanted to read hysterical anti-Republican, anti-conservative screeds, I can go just about anywhere. Do something different, would you?Marchman should never be allowed to venture beyond sports.
Elizabeth Powers, via email
A SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVE
There's no need to say that New Orleans is a disaster ("After the Flood," 9/7). There's no need to have another fundraiser; and there's plenty of people working on that, anyway. There is, however, a need to blame someone. So we ask ourselves, not being New Yorkers or Washingtonians, and unfamiliar as such with such large scale tragedy, how in the hell we're going to deal with this situation. We don't have a terrorist to blame. We do have good old mother nature, or God if you believe in one. That said, there really is no way to exact punishment and take out our frustration. So where do we look to turn loose our hostility? The government of course is the obvious answer.
I find myself sitting in bars, near a local private college, and hearing of persons who perhaps own property there, talking of selling, talking of taking extended vacations, and talking of how Tommy Lee is going to college. The thing is, these people are not affected, and those who are, have no voice and most likely are not even registered to vote. I wonder if someone somewhere has noticed that there is a single thing missing from the whole "reality" series that CNN and all the rest have made of this catastrophe. What is missing is simply this-a god damn protagonist. I find myself wondering, where is the fucking leader here?
Is he in Texas? Is he in Iraq? Where in the fuck is he? As I ponder those questions, I immediately arrive at a deeper question. That question is, where in the fuck WAS he? I don't understand how that somehow, someway, that something had taken priority over this matter. Perhaps something didn't take priority over this matter. Perhaps the fact of the matter was summed up best by Kanye West, who said "George Bush don't care about black people." I find it so hard to believe that he knows when Osama Bin Laden last farted, or took a shit in the god damn desert somewhere, yet, he doesn't know that there is a god damn catastrophic event here in America? It's beyond fascinating, it's a very strange and telling perplexing ironies. Maybe we should take some of those geniuses who are listening to Osama Bin Laden farting over a ham radio, and most likely jerking off at the idea of advancing their own careers, hoping, someday, that they too can distort the truth and convince their fellow citizens that private interests are worth dying for while our own people deserve to be ignored because they don't vote.
How about we take some of those geniuses and brain wash them to give a god damn about their own people and forget about licking the president's ass.
Meanwhile, team CIA is damn busy with all their sociologists and political analysts getting ready to hand us another god damn Lee Harvey Oswald in the form of the FEMA director, or another god damn bullshit Warren Report or 9/11 report to explain to us, once again, why they suck. This is all done to preserve a leader who obviously sucks at leading. I have a better idea. Let's brainwash that team of analysts to find us a real god damn leader who will inspire us and manage our resources in a manner that is prosperous to all Americans and not only a fraternity of coffin masturbators with dreams of black gold. Black gold is the only black that they are concerned with.
Finally, one more god damn thing. They censor Kanye West, but they refuse to force someone to talk about who in the hell outted the CIA agent? Something is deadly ass-backwards about this country. When people speak to tell us what's wrong they are censored. Meanwhile, people who know what's wrong refuse to speak. If you'll notice though, in both these instances, the mouths are opened and shut by the same ineffective leader. All this is done to preserve his status and shift blame to a FEMA director who was rendered inert without the help of our military, who ironically are building god damn Iraq while America is falling apart. It is a troubling and telling perplexing irony in which the American Penis is bent back between our legs and jammed up our own ass. I have only one thing to say to my President. Stop fucking us up the ass!
James Wes Brown, formerly of 353rd Special Operations Group, 17th Special Operations Squadron, via email
Looming Shame
Armond White's review of Transporter 2 had one looming issue ("Action Oomph," 9/7). Everybody knows it is NOT the director who gets credit for a good script's writing. It's the screenwriter. Shame on him, as a fellow writer, for denying credit where credit is due.
Lois Ann Demko, via email
?
When Armond White disdains a movie, his skepticism overcomes his criticism. If he wasn't such a hater, he'd be a greater lover.
Andy Irvine, via email
BAD NEWS
Sorry. I tried to keep reading New York Press but it's just not the same without Taibbi. I'm now removing you from my computer list of "favorites."
Sandra Hartman, via email
FAMILY GIVES A CRAP
The chef's name is Chris Randell not Randall ("Mo Pitkins," 9/7). If he wasn't my brother-in-law I wouldn't give a crap.
Matt Weinstein, via email
A BIGOT
Russ Smith calls Pat Buchanan a bigot because Buchanan thinks the president should defend our borders and enforce the immigration law as he promised to do when he took the oath of office ("A Rumor for a Day," 9/7). No matter which immigration policy any citizen believes in, the right of the American people to make immigration policy through their elected representatives should be beyond dispute. The duty of the federal government to defend our borders and to enforce the immigration laws should also be beyond dispute. The weak-minded can try to advance a disreputable argument by claiming that those who oppose it are bigots, but this slimy tactic is less effective then ever. If Smith thinks the American people have no right to limit immigration he should make his argument.
TJ Favor, via email