Mean People Abuse MUGGER; Is Strausbaugh Kind to Animals?; Spin Sucks, Taki Sucks, DeBord Sucks, the Catholic Church Sucks; and Other Charming Sentiments

ONT FACE="New York" SIZE=5> Uh-oh, the old canard ("MUGGER," 11/15) about Richard Daley "stealing" the election for JFK: If you ever bothered to read, MUGGER, you moronic cocksucker, you'd know that, first of all, the Republican Party in downstate Illinois had a long history of stealing elections from Democrats. Daley prevented them from doing that by holding the Cook County totals until all the other votes were in. There is no proof that he "stole" anything. Furthermore, shitbag, Kennedy's electoral total was high enough that he would have won even without Illinois! Read some history, you brain-dead illiterate!

Sid Johnson, Chicago

Hooked You, Sucker

MUGGER: Man, you need an editor. Were you actually foaming when you wrote that? You're obviously a graduate of the "more is more" school of commentary. Any of your sporadic valid points were swallowed up in your hyperventilating prose. It was like watching a car wreck. I was repelled, but could not look away.

Name Withheld, via Internet

At Least He Doesn't Live in Cleveland

MUGGER: Your strange column hit a new low (if that is possible) of one-sided punditry last week. There's a long line of despicable people in politics, and if you truly believe that Gore and Daley stand out in that respect, you are either naive or in denial. For example, is James Baker really enhancing his reputation as a man of principle with his ridiculously transparent efforts to portray his campaign's desire to win as an objective or rational set of principles?

That is not to say that the Gore people are any different. But to say that one side is significantly more blameworthy than the other is to not face reality.

Matt Carroll, Cleveland

Russ Smith replies: Carroll is wrong. Of course politics?especially at a "Let's Drop the Big One" time like this?is all partisan, but Bush's team doesn't have a clue how to match the manipulation and distortion of Daley and Gore. Baker's fighting like a tough but honest boxer; Daley is all rabbit punches.

La Mort de la Democratie

MUGGER: Why are you so worked up? No matter which loser gets the presidency, it won't even be worth what John Nance Garner felt the vice presidency was worth.

Gore & Co. should hang their heads. They were the administration that oversaw the best economy in history, and they still lost. Bush's people almost managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Karl Rove ain't no patch on James Carville.

Do you think anything is going to get done? Tom DeLay, Dick Armey, David Bonior and a few other jerks will make lots of noise. If something serious must be done, the adults of both parties will get together and make it happen. (Think NAFTA and welfare reform.) Look at it this way: with Bush stumbling and fumbling, and Hillary Clinton in the Senate, the next few years will be fat city for the nattering classes. By the next election you and Jonathan Alter will have spewed so much bile...

Cheer up.

By the way, I can't find any mention in your piece of the fact that Bush got fewer popular votes than Gore. An editor's oversight, for sure.

Mort Weintraub, Larchmont

Bastian of Democracy

MUGGER: I am generally inclined to look charitably upon your eccentric political beliefs and delusional predictions?remember the great Republican victory of '98??if for no other reason than their entertainment value. But when you suggest that Bill Daley "concoct[ed]" 49,500 Gore votes in Florida in 20 minutes, I truly fear for your mental stability. (Besides, don't you think he'd have come up with an extra 500 to wrap things up quickly?)

I suggest some quiet meditation to clear your head. Try sitting in a dark room, closing your eyes and chanting repeatedly: "SEN-A-TOR-HILL-A-RY-CLIN-TON." You should be feeling better in no time.

Chris Bastian, Brooklyn

Russ Smith replies: Best letter all week; thanks for the tip, Chris. No, of course Daley had to keep some votes outstanding. He's not that obvious.

Expelled Within a Week

I am writing to respond to Russ Smith's column about Bill Daley and Al Gore in the 11/15 New York Press. I am a college student and also an ardent newspaper reader. I have never written a letter to a journalist before, nor do I ever plan to in the future, but, Mr. Smith, that was undoubtedly the greatest piece of journalism I have ever read in my life.

I don't know why Republicans across the country don't echo your sentiments, but if they do, this thing may be over. Keep up the great work.

Tom Vintzel, Bowling Green, OH

Baker's Dozin'

MUGGER: Although I didn't vote for Gore, the extent of your flackery for James Baker (11/15) is quite disturbing. First of all, you attack Gore's allegedly horrendous campaign, but Gore at least did well enough to score more popular votes than your fratboy hero Bush. And the Florida thing is a mess beyond repair, but how can you so arrogantly be sure that Bush won? If Gore was up by a few hundred votes in a state where his brother was governor, you'd be whining like disgraced former Rep. Bob Livingston when he got busted for hypocrisy.

Josh Beckerman, Jersey City

Russ Smith replies: I'm hardly a flack for James Baker, a man I flogged relentlessly for his tepid effort in President Bush's failed reelection campaign in '92. He gave a smart statement last Saturday, explaining that recounts can't continue just because Gore wants them to. Bush isn't my hero, Gomer. Bob Livingston didn't whine when his marital problems were revealed, he resigned. Clinton whined, and is whining to this day.

Leave Us Alone

It is time to stop the deceitfulness of Al Gore and declare George W. Bush the winner. This nation will not last very long if we do not make morality and God the center of our vision.

Respectfully submitted,

James Sawchak, Felton, DE

Lavender Princess Phone

MUGGER: Your dad evidently sent you through the carwash strapped to the roof of a customer's car one too many times, as the election dispute in Florida has revealed you to be a fractured, neurasthenic, bawling pussy. One does not succeed in stifling a guffaw as you sob (11/15): "?the days that've followed have left me with no appetite, despondent, cranky and blind with rage. Maybe Alter believes that the tumble of the stock markets is a thrilling story to write about as well. Yes, I'd like Bush to win, but even more than that, it's not 'as good as it gets' to see firsthand how thoroughly corrupt our electoral process is."

Please expect delivery under separate cover of a Shirley Temple outfit and some fake scabs to glue onto your knees so you can throw yourself on the floor of 333 7th Ave. and weep hysterically when the mood strikes you.

Listen, you dimwit: the Demmycrats aren't going to "steal" the election. They are going to argue as best they can, in courts of law, that events should proceed in a certain way. That's how our fucking system works. If the arguments they present are as ludicrous, or illegal, or baseless, etc., as you, George Will, the National Review and Weekly Standard staffs and the other members of the Republican Girls Choir (the "RGC") insist, then the judge(s) overseeing the case(s) will rule against them. That's the way the system works. Do you have any idea how terrifyingly completely our privileged American lives would disappear if the system worked otherwise? We enjoy, and we are seeing, the opposite of a banana republic.

Worse?and my motivation for writing such a pretty little princess such a big letter?is the execrable hypocrisy of the RNC's whine concerning the Democrats' actions: "It isn't fair for the Democrats to question the methodology of an election after the election has occurred. Machine-read ballots may be inaccurate, but everyone knew they were inaccurate before the election, too, and no one objected. Plus, the deadlines have passed."

In other words, You Democrats shouldn't dispute the legitimacy of a system that may produce a result you don't like. Agreed? Well, take the shit out of your ears for a minute and listen to the echo, girls: You Republicans shouldn't dispute the legitimacy of a system that may produce a result you don't like.

Cheer up, hot stuff, you're still rich; and your kids'll have plenty, even after the inheritance tax.

Damon Liston, Manhattan

Varmint Rifle

It is indeed no surprise to me that New York Press has chosen to print such an article as John Strausbaugh's column about Gary L. Francione ("Publishing," 11/15).

It should be clear to any critically thinking person that the purpose of this article is to a) discredit persons who advocate on behalf of animals, b) focus an ill-intended, opinionated and hateful position against people who (upon learning the ugly truths behind grossly exploitative industries such as the dairy, meat and clothing industries) are left with no other recourse than to advocate against them and c) attempt to create discord.

Why else print such a blatantly deluding and hate-filled article? Nothing positive for the animals can be derived from this jumble of agenda-driven propaganda.

I know that your readership is above the kind of inexcusable and unproductive ramblings of Strausbaugh's article, and I hope that none of them will fall for the bait that has been hooked out by Strausbaugh.

What kind of fear is behind your motivation to not print a series of articles disclosing the real story?the story of the unconscionable suffering among animals that occurs well in excess of 11 billion times a year (the actual number of animals that are exploited, abused or murdered is nearly incalculable and inconceivably high) in the United States alone? Whose toes would you be stepping on, then?

Name Withheld, via Internet

Your Mother's?

Re: "Top Drawer," 11/15:

Well, slogging through Melik Kaylan's wholly partisan ravings (has he tried thorazine? Might help) caused even the Republican spin of the past week to fade into the distance.

I plodded dutifully on. Departing somewhat from his usual nancy nattering, Taki informs us, authoritatively, that: "Oh yes, I almost forgot. [Right!] There's a grotesque clown by the name of Bill Maher whose nose looks exactly like a penis [and which penis, exactly, causes this fond reminisce?], and, I am told, who called George W. horrible [gracious!] names in his unwatchable (for halfwits and morons only) late-night program? George W. is a good man, a brave pilot, a successful businessman and a very good governor."

That's it. A slavishly sycophantic entire paragraph, virtually devoid of actual facts. Is there an award for this sort of "journalism"?

These leads ruined my appetite for an otherwise perfectly good column by George Szamuely. However, your newspaper returned to its consistently silly standard, in the "Classicus" column, by going over Papa's decades-old dreary suicide. Classic, all right. It recalled nothing more than Woody Allen's ultra-neurotic Warren Commission reprise from Annie Hall.

Have you ever seen anything die, human or animal? Reflexive spasms? Might that be an alternate explanation for a second shot?

Bleagh! Get a life! Better yet, get some competent writers.

Frank Smith, Bluff City, KS

The editors reply: Maybe people really are stupider in flyover country. Our writers are so incompetent (at least by the high standards of Bluff City, KS), that Frank Smith read articles by four of them, and is sufficiently familiar with New York Press to be able to talk about our "consistently silly standard." Send us a postcard next time the 4H fair comes to town, Frank.

Heavy PETA

I was very happy to see that you opened your mind and your publication to the ideas of Gary L. Francione, one of my former law professors at Rutgers University. I can attest to the fact that our small staff at Friends of Animals is striving to keep the public's focus on hard issues instead of wasting time on the kinds of shocking ad campaigns and impulsive publicity stunts in which so many "activists" now engage. It is extremely frustrating when the media uses the juvenile antics of "PETA types" to gauge the level of intelligence and social consciousness of everyone in the animal rights community.

For example, while some groups' "anti-fur" campaigns may consist of superficial stunts and scare tactics aimed at women, one of our projects this year was teaming up with a local grassroots group, Animal Rights Front, obtaining valid trappers' licenses, bidding on state land and paying thousands of dollars to prevent the cruel and senseless lethal trapping of fur-bearers on those parcels.

Bottom line: the people who are making a day-to-day effort to improve animals' lives directly may be few and far between, but they are out there?you just need to know where to find them.

Megan Metzelaar, via Internet Wise Use Movement

John Strausbaugh writes about Gary L. Francione as a more thoughtful, reasonable animal-rights activist. As a vegetarian who doesn't object to the use of animals in medical research, I was disappointed?Francione's problem with PETA seems to be more about tactics than goals.

I don't think that granting animals rights necessarily means granting them human rights ("equal consideration"), or that we need to "abolish all the ways humans 'use' other species." What about the Asian farmer who needs his ox to plow the fields? Should he set the ox free and let his family starve?

To use a variation on the image of a burning house with a human and an animal trapped inside, where Mr. Francione tries to create scenarios in which a passerby might run in and save the animal rather than the human, suppose instead that Mr. Francione is himself the human inside the burning house. Is there any scenario in which he would save the animal and allow himself to remain inside and burn to death? I doubt it.

And that, I think, is the central weakness of the animal rights movement?the activist is always weighing somebody else's suffering, rather than his or her own, against that of the animal. Is it always slavery, always wrong, to use animals for our benefit? Or are there instances where the animals benefit also and don't mind the arrangement, or where it's sometimes okay to put the welfare of humans ahead of the welfare of animals? I think the latter.

MUGGER: regarding politics, it's admirable that you prognosticate with your heart instead of your head, but it's rarely a good idea to bet that way.

Timothy Maguire, Brooklyn

Pudknockin'

I enjoyed the yokel anecdote about Ol' Pud, Ol' Oop and good old Dave Vaught in "Way Better than Watergate" by Lucian K. Truscott IV ("Opinion," 11/15). That rustic witticism about the rabbit guardin' the lettuce set me to slappin' my thigh until it was darn near black and blue.

Nevertheless, there were a couple of points open to criticism. Nobody can deny that George W. Bush "kept chanting in stump speech after stump speech that he trusted citizens, not the 'government' to invest their retirement money wisely." Yet it does not follow that consistency obliges W to trust every single person and group that makes up the citizenry?not even boards of elections warmly recommended by Dick Daley's boy Billy. True, the members of such boards are citizens. True also that no Republican who has an opinion on the subject doubts that Lucian K. Truscott IV is a citizen. But does it follow that we all assume IV can be trusted to invest all his Social Security money wisely? Not really.

R.S. Thomas, my old friend and classmate from God's Mills, ME, sent me an e-mail suggesting the result might well be a portfolio stuffed with Amalgamated Frosted Monocle Ltd. and World-Wide Wicker Bath Towel shares. I'm loath to use any big, scary words, but we're talking "synecdochis" here. In rough round numbers what this means is that we Republicans divide the world into two unequal parts: the great majority who can understand the words "synecdoche" or "nuance" when they are explained, and those who can't. For rhetorical purposes we call the larger group "the People" (or "the citizens"). In the same way, when we say "retirement money" we don't really mean all the retirement money. Were IV to look into the matter, he would soon discover that W has always been explicitly clear that he does not refer to all the retirement money, even though he refers to "retirement money" all bald. If IV had managed to construct a line of reason connecting his obvious scorn for politicians with his contempt for the enfranchised Yokelry of colorful Twin Privies, MS, etc., he'd be more understanding of why we Republicans look with skepticism on government.

The fear of imposing cerebral overload deters me from further explanation at this time.

I hope I've been helpful.

John N. Frary, New Brunswick, NJ

A Dick, Daley

Is it ignorance or chutzpah that accounts for William Bryk's repeating ("Editorial," 11/15) the tiresome Republican lie that Richard Daley stole the 1960 election from Nixon? There was a lot more volume than evidence to charges that Daley's superior trickiness put Illinois in JFK's column.

But what's indisputable is that it wouldn't have changed the result in any case. Kennedy got 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219. Illinois had fewer than 30, not enough to turn the tide.

Alan Whitney, Manhattan

Aww, You're Mean

This is better than the Subway Series! For political junkies there's never been a better time to enjoy our other national pastime than right now.

You like hypocrisy? How about the two parties arguing the ethics of recounts when you know they'd be arguing the other side just as vehemently if the roles were switched. Maybe you like irony? Listen to the tale of how the crookedest American politician of the 20th century put the good of the country before his own political ambition in 1960. The only reason Nixon didn't challenge Kennedy in Chicago is because he was doing the same shit in other parts of the state. A fan of hyperbole? How about MUGGER calling (11/15) Daley and Gore "the most despicable men in public life...men who have made a mockery of this country's democracy." As if there were anything left to mock. You like scapegoating? Ralph Nader's not doing anything else this week.

It's hard to pick the most enjoyable part of a week spent watching the two disgraced and disgraceful political parties ripping each other apart. But I keep thinking about MUGGER, in his column last week, stumbling around with "no appetite, despondent, cranky and blind with rage." That put a smile on my face that'll be there for a good long while no matter which dirtbag steals this election.

Michael Power, Bronx

Hold That Thought

MUGGER: After reading your 11/15 column, I think the solution is obvious.

Abolish the popular vote.

Oh well, just a thought.

Ken Pedigo, Oklahoma City

Rambling with Gambling

MUGGER: It dawns on me now that I incorrectly marked several of my numbers in the last lottery drawing. Does anyone know a good lawyer so I can rectify this?

Brad Johnson, Fair Oaks, CA

Ouch, Strained My Metaphor

MUGGER: I finally understand clearly why you have given yourself the moniker "MUGGER."

You revealed yourself in your 11/15 column as just that in regard to your own profession. In your third paragraph you made a completely unsubstantiated claim that votes were stolen from Bush in the final tally (the count moved from a 50,000 vote separation down to a 500 separation). As a journalist you are a mugger?which is why, obviously, you have to buy your own news outlet in order to be heard.

You did, in fact, like any other mugger, admit to being "blind with rage" at an infuriating situation. In the end, whether or not Gore wins this race, he will have won the nationwide popular vote and your prediction of a Bush "blowout" appears worse than laughable. It reveals how out of touch you are with people's daily lives.

Such distance from the quotidian lives of the populace also explains why your column willfully yet unconsciously espouses the postmodern tendency to genderbend (yours is a political-column-cum-restaurant-review-column-cum-family album). Your only contact with real people, or let's just say the majority of people, is when you talk to taxi drivers and waiters. When the majority does not bend to your way of thinking, you do what all the rich do in one way or another?you mug them.

I appreciate your column for its honesty and will continue to read you, but this one made me feel mugged. In all politics hardball is hardball, but blind rage is below you, or at least that was my impression.

Finally, in all honesty, if the tables were turned and Bush had won the popular vote but was going to the lose the election by 300 or so votes in a state whose governor was Al's brother, you wouldn't expect Bush's team to play all-out hardball?

Peter Consenstein, Manhattan Russ Smith replies: Pedro, I'm glad you read my column even though you disagree with the opinions expressed. Let's not kid ourselves: both sides are playing "hardball" in this election. Yes, Gore won the popular vote (so far; not all the absentees have been counted). But both sides knew the rules going into the campaign and that's what they based their strategies on. As for Bush's brother being governor of Florida, he recused himself. Most of the other players making decisions in this weird drama are Democrats.

Slatternly and Moist

Amazing that while we were all looking for the great "November surprise " to manifest itself in some Mideast war or some nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan or some biological attack on America, the vaunted surprise was to fix the fucking elections!

That was brilliant! I feel like a used whore.

Daniel Cook, Austin

Fabricant Is Their One Bright Spot

MUGGER: I read your column and "e-MUGGER" pieces as often as they come out, and I wanted to thank you for holding The New York Times accountable for its poor reporting and lack of objectivity on a weekly basis.

I attend Davidson College in Davidson, NC. In most of the political science courses that I have taken, we have been consistently taught to take the "reporting" of The New York Times as gospel truth. In fact, some classes require that the students buy a daily subscription to the Times. This struck me as odd when I first came here, since I had always heard that the Times was anything but an objective paper. Reading your weekly recital of their poor efforts at journalism gives me the courage?and facts?to argue with my liberal classmates about the Times and to prevent me from buckling to the order to subscribe to it.

Thanks and keep up the good work.

Brandt Leibe, Davidson, NC

Mojo Rising

MUGGER: I love New York Press, adore your willingness to publish a variety of viewpoints and even mostly enjoy your column. Occasionally, however, you sound like a right-wing Eric Alterman on crack.

First, Rolling Stone was an anachronism (11/8) at the latest by 1977, when it blithely ignored the New York punk scene that had been germinating under its nose for years while anointing the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac as the "new future of rock."

Second, Spin was always a dreadful magazine, a piss-poor successor to Punk and Creem, both of which it slavishly sought to emulate. Bob Guccione Jr. screwed everything up by hiring washed-up 60s hacks on the one hand and hiring younger writers who knew even less about how to write than they did about music on the other. I'll just add Guccione to the list of idiots and no-accounts with whom you seem abnormally fascinated (Robert Hartley, Dubya, Ronald Reagan).

Finally, a question. If Newt Gingrich was so brilliant, how come he's now the poster boy for national irrelevance, the political equivalent of Vanilla Ice?

John Davis, Mount Vernon, NY

Gets More than You

Re: Taki's ugly liberals ("Top Drawer," 11/15). You must be, M. D'Un Nom, a full-fledged fucking Adonis, albeit by means of some green-card prosthetics. Guess your "old friend" Nixon is the exception to the rule.

Hope you shan't stay too long in Switzerland. They might steal your gold fillings when you fall down the ski-lodge steps.

Sam Hendricks, via Internet

Can't Win

Matthew DeBord: Your 11/15 "Food" column had too much detail about Tokaj, don't you think? Kind of boring. We're not winemasters or brewers. You did not bother to even name specific brands or bottles that taste best.

Come on, Matt. Spare us the wine course. Get out to a good restaurant and stick to reviews.

Name Withheld, Manhattan

Musto, Philip Guichard, Etc.

Egad, another New York Press alumnus embroiled in scandal!

My woefully undervalued roommate, Subaltern Neal Austria, recently brought to my attention a wire story detailing the alleged misdeeds of former "Convergence" columnist John Ellis. Allegedly, while manning the Fox News Channel's election night "decision team," Mr. Ellis also placed a number of enlightening phone calls to his friends and relations George W. Bush and Florida Gov. John Ellis Bush (that's Jeb to you and me). Mr. Ellis, however, denies he violated Voter News Service regulations, which forbid the untimely release of exit poll results to interested candidates.

I wouldn't even note this bit of quintessential buckra insiderism were it not for how nicely this news complemented an historical television moment. I think we all recall that creepy election night scene in Austin soon after all the networks declared Florida for Gore. Suddenly, the viewing public was rushed off to behold a Bush family pictorial. Ogling cameras streamed images of a spaced-out Laura Bush lolling about nearly offscreen and Mother Hen and Grandpa Bush prattling on by W's side. At that moment, everyone in the country believed Florida was in Gore's pallid little hands. That is, everyone save W.

When asked about the Sunshine State, W mumbled how, "Our people think the media has it all wrong. We're confident we'll carry the state of Florida." At the time you may have wondered just who was "our people." I know I did. I suspected GOP-faithful election workers and partisan journalists whispering into Karl Rove's waxy ear.

I never suspected that "our people" would be John Ellis, a columnist I recall forever touting the "New Economy."

Damn, it's like the Press gets all the exciting writers. Who do the other guys have? Michael Musto? Coco McPherson? When was the last time any of their scribblers got in any shit with something like the FEC?

In any event, I voted for Keith Moon. So leave me alone. Peace out.

Sean Corley Burke, Manhattan

Cooper Union

I am writing about Marc Cooper's "Opinion" piece in your 11/15 issue. I found it very insightful and refreshing, given the preponderance of Democratic Party apologists on the progressive side of politics. It is good to see that Cooper stands firm against the attempts of the Democratic Party's self-styled thought police to silence dissent on the left-of-center side of U.S. politics.

Allon Uhlmann, Los Angeles

Ritalin Administration

Marc Cooper is right in two respects:

First, no sane (and honest) liberal would vote for Gore, who champions the death penalty, trade with China (an affluent communist dictatorship, yes, but still a communist dictatorship), welfare reform (or, to be honest, welfare elimination) and sanctimonious lectures on how people who don't believe in God are not as good as himself. (A trait his pro-business, pro-death-penalty, pro-school-prayer runningmate Joe Lieberman shares and preached about incessantly.)

Second, the sham called economic prosperity is about to collapse. As dot-coms are folding, displacing young, hip and semiliterate public-school graduates, it becomes obvious that outside of computer technology, not much is percolating in today's supposedly hot economy. This disaster will be inherited not by Gore (who richly deserves a chance to be the worst president since Bush the Elder), but rather by Bush's illiterate, drug-addled offspring, who has spent a cool hundred million telling us that he may not know much, but he'll hire people who'll know more than he does. (Not a difficult task, by the way.)

If Maria Cantwell knocks off Republican Slade Gorton in Washington, he'll be working with a one-vote majority in the Senate (and that one-vote margin includes such old-school Republicans as Jim Jeffords and Olympia Snowe, neither of them beloved by Trent Lott & Co.) and four votes in the House, ensuring that his fantasies of electric sofas (an invention seriously promoted by South Carolina's attorney general) and cutting taxes like it's 1980 again will go nowhere. This, as Cooper pointed out, is the best possible outcome for Democrats with a modicum of integrity, intellect and patience. By 2004 the Clinton-Gore era will be behind us (with Hillary Rodham's single, loathsome exception) and Democrats can actually win an election without turning into Republicans.

That may be an election worth waiting for. And getting rid of Clinton/Rodham/Gore in the process would be a bonus.

Name Withheld, Manhattan

Bayonets at Attention

Jonathan Kalb, in his otherwise perceptive review of the new stage musical The Full Monty ("Theater," 11/8), has given new mileage to an annoying Yank misperception that has persisted since the American release of the film that inspired this musical.

Kalb asserts?like countless American film critics before him?that the British working-class phrase "the full monty" means "totally naked." This is incorrect. The full monty is the direct equivalent of the whole shebang, the total shmear, the complete megillah, the kit and caboodle, the whole nine yards. It means, in other words, "all the way," or the utmost degree of whatever concept is under discussion. If two or more people are debating the merits of partial nudity versus total undress, then "the full monty" applies to full nudity. But the phrase can be (and is) applied in any context to indicate totality rather than moderation.

There are various theories concerning the origin of this phrase. Allegedly it was first used by British soldiers in North Africa during WWII, under the command of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. On some days, "Monty" would subject his troops to an exhaustive inspection of their uniforms, field kits, mess kits, weapons, etc., whereas on other days they received only a perfunctory once-over. The soldiers never knew from one day to the next whether or not to expect "the full Monty." But this had nothing to do with nudity, unless of course the soldiers were undergoing short-arm inspection.

Or would that be Monty's python inspection?

Fergus Gwynplaine MacIntyre, Glasgow

Alex Through the Looking Glass

Alexander Cockburn's got a good take?entertaining to a degree. But he's still a socialist, and I'm tired of those who would tell me how to live my life or wax generous with other people's (mine) money.

D.J. Weber, Yuma, AZ

Martin Luther

To "Name Withheld," Manhattan, who published a letter called "Critical Mass" in the 11/15 "Mail":

Regarding your profound insights on the Latin Mass?you are either a rapacious fucking predator of the most evil sort (if you're a priest, nun or layman in any position of authority) or just a pathetic boob getting fucked by one (spiritually, emotionally, financially, intellectually and?gee whiz?maybe even in the mouth).

You say that "in the old days you could offset the guilt with a beautiful ritual, one that was the same all over the world and had been for centuries." Right. The closest it got to being the same was the Tridentine Mass, imposed on pain of eternal damnation at the 22nd Session of the Council of Trent in 1562. So "for centuries" turns out to be roughly four hundred years. The 1500 years before that? All over the map. And?pay attention now, you fuck?the first Mass, spoken by the Man himself, was not in Latin, but in the (shudder) vernacular Hebrew.

What really chaps my ass about your little brainfart, though, is the notion that a little ritualistic exoticism now and then is worth a lifetime soured by guilt. The use of Latin in the Catholic Mass long after the ordinary churchgoer stopped speaking it, much less understanding it, sends a powerful message?to wit, not only does God not give a shit whether you understand him, he wants to maintain a high wall between you and him, so back off, sit the fuck down and think about how bad you must be for God to have to stay so far away from you (just one more cruel irony from the folks who brought you the touchable Jesus).

The benefits accruing to you predators of corr