Neal Pollack and Armond White Get Mugged; Caldwell's Coffin, Cockburn's Headline; Taki's Luftwaffe
Re: "Underground Saints: Roger Richards and Gregory Corso" by Jim Knipfel (2/28):
A terrific article. I like the way Roger Richards, in a few words, rights the misconception so many of us (who weren't there then) have about the Beats. This is especially so in his describing how Corso and Herbert Huncke preceded the definition of "Beat," and how Allen Ginsberg created a movement. They were beat by nature, from their guts and from the lifestyles they chose, not imitated. They were the ones the others tried to emulate.
I was only introduced to Roger's bookstore shortly before it closed down?that was my loss, and the loss of others of my generation, who came too late to know those who frequented it, except as literary icons. Most stores like that are gone today?sad, because they were more than stores, as Richards says, but meeting places where a kind of camaraderie could exist.
Linda Lerner, Manhattan
Downward Slope
Ned Vizzini: As a former?and I mean former?Park Slope resident, all I can say is, great fucking piece ("New York City," 2/28). Beautifully written and right on the money.
Gary Goldstein, via Internet
Duh
Who is the "Paul O'Neill" referred to in the list of insufferables in the last paragraph of last week's "MUGGER" column? I'm sure you don't mean our current secretary of the treasury, but whom then do you mean?
Can you tell me why you've put Matt Dillon on the list?
Nicholas Delany, Brooklyn
Russ Smith replies: Paul O'Neill, as in the sourpuss Yankees outfielder. Matt Dillon, because he's a dope who happened to win life's lottery.
Mahwah's Even Worse
So I guess Neal Pollack ("New York City," 2/28) doesn't like living in Philadelphia. His snotty diatribe, disguised as humor, betrays his utter lack of understanding about the city, its residents, its problems and its enduring strengths.
Aside from its clear bias, the piece lacked focus, foundation and coherence. What exactly was the point of the story about the cop getting killed by the gigolo? Oh, of course?Philadelphia is a cesspool. And what are we to gather from the oh-so-funny antics of SEPTA and its riders? Right?public transit riders are unfathomably stupid, and so are the people who operate the system. By the end of the story we know little about either the city or the author, which fact casts doubt on the whole dubious enterprise. Pollack could have spent a paragraph on Philadelphia's attractions, if he's managed to see them, like the historic district, the better residential areas like Manayunk and Roxborough or the city's vibrant nightlife, to name but a few. He could have picked up a book, like the moving A Prayer for the City, and read about Mayor Ed Rendell's effort to lead an urban renewal. But no, all we get is one shallow man's astonishingly stupid reflections on a city he barely knows.
Does Philadelphia have its problems? Of course. It is peppered with neighborhoods that no sane person would enter at night without an armed guard. The taxes are too high, the schools are a mess and yes, the Phillies are a national embarrassment. But if you've ever lived there for more than three months, you have to admire the spirit of the place. Here's a city, left for dead, that has struggled valiantly to resurrect itself in the face of monumental odds. Maybe Pollack could actually, I don't know, do something to help, instead of making fun of its working-class residents and using its violent crimes as amusing little anecdotes. Philadelphia certainly doesn't need smug nihilists who move to the city so they can "not really have to work for a living." I'd rather bide my time with a stadium full of Wing Bowlers, most of whom probably work harder in one day than Pollack does in a month, than spend a moment with this insufferable loafer. To Pollack I can only recommend, on behalf of the great city of Philadelphia and its long-suffering, hardworking and unique residents, that he take his snide condescension and continue his search for an untouched urban bohemia elsewhere. I hear New York is nice.
Finally, after a little research I discovered that Pollack is a "humorist" who jokingly calls himself "The Greatest Living American Writer," and who is associated with literary phenom Dave Eggers. I'm not familiar with Pollack's work, but his letter from Philadelphia?if it was intended to be taken seriously?is not at all funny. If it was some kind of send-up, then he needs to polish his satirical skills. While I'm sure there are many readers out there who consider Pollack's musings to be brilliant, I fail to see the fun in kicking a beautiful city while it's down.
David Faris, Mahwah
Neal Pollack replies: David, I love Philadelphia too. I chose to move here from Chicago, a booming city swarming with yuppies, because I wanted to live in a real city populated by real people with real problems. Chicago, of all places, had grown too fancy for me. I bought a house here, which I couldn't have afforded to do in Chicago, or especially New York.
Actually, I read Bissinger's book, loved it, and I was completely sold by the Philly plan. You must excuse me, though, for being a little cynical if an off-duty cop gets beaten up on my corner, if Philadelphia's coolest neighborhood is being overrun by bullshit hipsters and if your peeps from Jersey tore up South St. last week during drunken Mardi Gras riots. That, to me, shows a lot less respect for this town than my pointing out, as the daily papers do every day, that we have some pretty wacky crimes here. It wasn't me on Fat Tuesday stealing doggy beds from Accent on Animals, where I buy cat litter. As for Manayunk, as far as I can tell, all the "working-class" businesses run by "unique" residents were bulldozed in recent years by a greedy developer who replaced them with Restoration Hardware and restaurants frequented by people who shop there.
And do you really want me to cover Philadelphia's "attractions"? How much more can we hear about Rittenhouse Square, or about the Pat's and Geno's cheesesteak debate, or the Betsy Ross house? It would be like me writing an article for New York Press about ice-skating in Rockefeller Center or about the food at Lindy's.
To you, David, I say, "Yo." Next time you're in town, send me an e-mail. I know about 40 good places to get a beer.
Hot Buttered Hole
Tama Janowitz: After reading your "Donuts of New York" ("Food," 2/28) article, I wanted to let you know that if you're ever in South Jersey near a town named Riverside, go to the L&M bakery.
They have the best cream-filled donuts possible. They are filled with a buttery cream filling instead of the sugary, grainy stuff you get at all the donut chains. Also, try the chocolate-covered crullers, which are scrumptious. Then try the chocolate-covered cinnamon rolls, which make me talk to myself about them out loud whenever I bite into one while driving alone in my car.
L&M used to have a little coffee counter with about four or five swivel stools facing a wall, which was paneled with knotty ponderosa pine. It was cool, but they renovated the place and now they just do takeout.
Name Withheld, Langhorne, PA
Puppy Treats
MUGGER: Well, you are one sick puppy, you are a dreamin' sucker, what you forget is, Al Gore has his own wraiths to contend with, like, a certain federal judge who told him recently "I gotta jail cell with your name onnit, it's just a matter of time." You see, little Al isn't so innocent. In fact, if convicted he's looking at some serious time for espionage, subversion, conspiracy?see, if you were up to your facts, you would know how deep in the caca ol' Al really is, it's all going to come out soon, just wait, it's right up there on par with Ol' Slick Willie and the Hilldebeast!
Oh, and liberals suck.
Jim C. Negro, via Internet
Russ Smith replies: Compared to Clinton, Gore is so clean he looks like Orrin Hatch. Don't kid yourself. He won't be dragged down in any criminal proceedings. Bush won't allow his Justice Dept. to waste time on it and give the media more ammunition. Mind you, I can't stand Gore, and my column wasn't an advocacy of him, just an observation of what he ought to do if he wants to stay alive politically.
Coffin Nailed
Small point, but even Christopher Caldwell could use an editor, as when he writes ("Hill of Beans," 2/28) that Hillary Clinton came to view herself as similar to "noblesse-oblige liberals (like Archibald Cox and William Sloane Coffin or whomever their equivalents were at Wellesley and Yale)."
Caldwell may be too young to recall that Coffin (and no equivalent) was at Yale. In fact, he figures in a much-told anecdote about George W. Bush. Coffin apparently told the young W, after a loss by his father in Texas, that his father had lost to a better man.
And isn't it "whoever their equivalents were," not "whomever"?
Name Withheld, via Internet
Operation Mush
Alexander Cockburn claims ("Wild Justice," 2/28) that he remembers an old Wall Street Journal editorial (criticizing some vapid pronouncement from Jimmy Carter) that was headlined: "More Mush from the Wimp." Cockburn's drug-addled brain remembers incorrectly. The headline was actually in the Boston Globe of all places. The official explanation was that some junior staffer had inserted the headline as a prank and it was quickly pulled after the first edition.
Doubtless the drugs also explain the fact that Cockburn is one of the few people in America still willing to stand up for the former Criminal-in-Chief.
Stanley A. Bowker, via Internet
Alexander, Hamilton
In his New York Press column this week, Alexander Cockburn blasts Hamilton Jordan for his "First Grifters" piece. He writes:
"Yes, this same Hamilton Jordan is now happy to flail Clinton on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, a page that mercilessly abused him through the Carter years. I remember one Journal editorial appearing in the wake of some message of doom from President Carter under the title 'More Mush from the Wimp.'"
Of course, that headline famously appeared on an editorial not in the Journal but in the Boston Globe, where an editor inserted it as a gag and forgot to replace it before the paper was printed. I'm too young to remember if we ever used the same headline (and the Journal goes back only to 1984 on Dow Jones News Retrieval). It doesn't sound like something we'd use on an editorial. But I did find this, in a 1987 review of Cockburn's book Corruptions of Empire by Conor Cruise O'Brien in the London Times:
"Cockburn makes light of the actual and glaring weakness of American capitalism under Reagan. In a 1983 [Wall Street Journal] piece headed 'The bi-partisan appeal of more mush from the wimps' he jeers at a 'number of the crowned heads of corporate America' for warning about the dangers of the Federal deficit. 'The hysteria about the deficit is bunk,' was Cockburn's verdict."
James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal, Manhattan
Alexander Cockburn replies: Bowker, stop reading with your eyes closed. I wrote that the evidence on Bill being corrupt was available in 1992, which was when I first began attacking the man. My problem with outfits like Salon and The New York Observer sniveling is that it took the Rich pardon to peel the scales from their eyes. Even so, the Bush pardons of Hammer, Weinberger, et al., were worse.
And yes, it was the Globe of course. Looking at Taranto's researches, I reckon I must have remembered my own use of the Globe's swipe at Jimmy Carter.
We Thought So
I don't think I've ever read a less inviting cover line than Russ Smith's "Given my libertarian/conservative political point of view, it's no surprise that The Weekly Standard is a must-read in the Smith household..." ("e-Billboard," 2/27). How convenient, too, that there's an ad for weeklystandard.com on the same page.
Lou Kesten, Lorton, VA
Robert Flack
MUGGER: New York Times columnist Bob Herbert finally realized, in his 2/26 column, that Bill and Hillary Clinton are morally, ethically and politically corrupt, something most unbiased Times readers knew long before Monica or Marc. When do you think Bob will figure out that he's just a flack for the Democratic Party? Or that the Times is just a newsletter for the Democratic Party? I can't wait for that column.
Bob Kingsbery, Mill Creek, WA
Russ Smith replies: Since Bob Herbert is about as intelligent as most of the teachers who staff New York City's public schools, that day will never come.
That Was Different
MUGGER: Curious that, within one column (2/28), you first attack the blood-in-the-water opportunism of post-Watergate journalism, and then entreat Al Gore to pander to "shocked" Americans in deference to this latest media feeding frenzy. Clinton's actions certainly raise valid questions about the opaque presidential pardon process, but where was the hysterical handwringing punditry when our current president's father pardoned (convicted heroin smuggler) Aslam Adam, (terrorist) Orlando Bosch, (illegal GOP contributor) Armand Hammer or (potential prosecution witness) Caspar Weinberger? Gore could drop trou and join in this latest orgy of kick-him-while-he's-down hypocrisy, but without real debate about the roots of this recurring problem, such political capitulation would only serve as chum for class after class of fresh Woodward/Bernstein wannabes.
John Atkins, Manhattan
Down with the King
Armond White continues to amaze and astonish me with each passing issue. His Unbreakable rant ("Film," 12/6) was bad enough, but now (2/28) he's trying to pass off the misogynistic and mean-spirited 3000 Miles to Graceland as a near-Kubrickian feat. The line about the film expressing a "modern generational dilemma" nearly had me on the floor. I can't wait to read Armond's review for The Fast and the Furious, in which I'm sure he'll have some sort of thesis on how the film examines the "class struggle." You can dress up your review in pseudo-intellectual critic-speak all you want, and bend the facts in any way you choose (as you often do: Mission to Mars is a great film [3/22/00, 3/29/00], Unbreakable is racist, etc.), but the film is still sub-Armageddon in terms of quality.
Why did you guys fire Godfrey Cheshire? You should have let this joker go instead.
Michael Kruder, Los Angeles
He'll Have to Kill Himself
Armond White has to be the most unintelligible pseudo-intellectual critic I've ever run across. I'll be sure to avoid anything he writes in the future.
John Nesbit, Phoenix
Lost by a Herr
So Taki ("Top Drawer," 2/28) thinks the German bombing of Guernica, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Coventry and Warsaw in WWII was "tactical bombing" and not terror bombing. And that German soldiers in the war fought "gallantly." They may have fought bravely and they may have fought for homeland, but gallantly?I think not. The mass terror wrought by German armies in WWII is unforgivable, and you don't have to have seen the Russian film Come and See that recently played in New York. The Germans invented WWII terror and they paid the price. Taki seems to relish fighting WWII over again, this time with the Germans as winners.
When are you going to rid Nazi Taki from your newspaper?
Allen Schwartz, Manhattan
In Retrospect, a Misunderstanding
I was pleased to see Taki taking time off from his usual Israeli-/Jew-bashing-themed articles to praise the German Luftwaffe for their humane tactics during WWII. I'm sure the survivors of the London Blitz and the devastating attacks on Coventry will be pleased to learn that they were not the actual targets of the countless bombs and rockets that hit them.
Charles Garcia, via Internet
Bombe Glacee
I have enjoyed Taki's words for more years than I care to admit, but his latest column is troubling. The premise has a fatal flaw, in that he makes no mention of the Nazis' terror bombing, including the first use of missiles, on London. Dresden was a horror?of that there can be no doubt. I remember sitting up late a decade and a half ago in the Galapagos with the owner of the boat we toured on as he told of being a child in Dresden the night of the bombing. His stark descriptions were so powerful that I could not forget them if I wished to.
Ultimately, Taki's point is well-taken. How much stronger it would have been but for the failure to make mention of that small fact?the Blitz of London. My question to Taki, who surely is not unaware of the Blitz, is why? I hope it is not because of some unconscious desire to slam the Brits because of his own unfortunate "troubles" there in past decades. To take Churchill to task for Dresden while ignoring Hitler's Blitz of London is to attempt a moral equivalency that is frightening to behold.
James Tailer, Boulder, CO
Nash Bridges
Carolyn Nash's "CEO of Girls Inc.: Dominating Indiana Softball, and Leaving It Behind" (2/21) was one of the best pieces of sports journalism and/or biography I've read in years. If Nash has written anything else, I would like to read it?can you steer me in the right direction?
The piece really gets into the mindset of the pitcher standing tall above the field, in control of the pace, in control of everything?and surrounded by a team that will eventually lose whatever control over their own lives they may have had.
I'm reminded of my Pony baseball days. Boys 11 to 12 play Bronco ball, and when I was 10, I was drafted by the team that had won the Bronco championship that year (yes, they actually drafted 10-year-olds). Both of my Bronco years were similar?I started the season very sluggishly but came on at the end, going from riding the bench at age 11 to starting at age 12 and being one of the team's best hitters. We won the Bronco championship again when I was 11, but the team wasn't as good when I was 12.
What sticks out, though, isn't how well I played, but what happened to some of the guys I played with. One of the guys a year older than me wound up being shot in a drive-by shooting a few years later?not killed, but still. And then two of the guys I played with?one of them my age, the other a year younger?would eventually be found guilty of murder. The one my age, whom I played with both years, was a fairly soft-spoken kid at ages 11 and 12, and when we moved up to Pony ball and we wound up on different teams, he seemed even more meek at ages 13 and 14. But he would get into a fight if a fight was brewing?in retrospect, he was a fairly meek guy who had to be tough sometimes. One day, being tough apparently meant killing someone. His mother and my mother had actually played in the same softball league for years at that point. My mom and his mom weren't all that unlike the girls Nash played with, I guess, and my teammate was apparently a lot like them in that respect as well.
Thankfully, I was a lot more like Nash; but instead of being unable to play, I stopped playing baseball when I found myself shorter, tubbier and slower than the guys I was playing against, and spending more time on the bench than off at ages 13 and 14. Like Nash, I miss the game?in fact, I play in a short softball league now with a bunch of guys who look a lot like me?but she's busy drinking gin and tonics in New York City, and I'm busy writing theses and going to concerts in Columbus, so I'm guessing she and I don't miss the game all that much after all.
Phil Huckelberry, Columbus, OH
Friendly Ghost
MUGGER: Your continued excoriation of Bill Clinton via a prosopopoeia to Albert Gore Jr. (2/28) puts me in mind of a long-ago dispute between two illustrious members of the Democratic Party at a critical moment in American history.
In 1952, Harry Truman was president. Following the nomination of Dwight D. Eisenhower as the Republican standard-bearer in a bitterly contested GOP convention with Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, the Democrats proceeded to choose the Illinois governor, Adlai Stevenson, as the designated successor to Truman. I will not go into the atmospheric details of the prevailing odium of McCarthyism, except to say that no president since has labored under the handicap that Truman faced in 1952. What I will say is that at age 14 I was very much aware that Truman and Stevenson were locking horns over policy matters well into late October of the year that saw the Eisenhower landslide.
My point is this: A candidate for office who is seeking to succeed the current incumbent who is the leader of his own party cannot run against the record of that incumbent, whatever his personal views of the matter. Gore's loss did come as a complete surprise to me; but I attribute it to his choice of runningmate?a man who, at the height of the impeachment hysteria, stood in the well of the Senate chamber to sanctimoniously denounce his party's leader as a philanderer. Simply put, a man seeking to succeed the incumbent must run on the record of the incumbent. I will not speak of the Lieberman strategy of showing his confidence in the ticket by seeking to retain his Senate seat as a fallback position; I merely suggest that the next Democratic candidate must not quail at the prospect of using the political power of the office, whatever that may require, even if it may appear to some captious persons as being of doubtful legality (whatever that means, and I'm sure it's nothing good).
Perhaps in your next article you can regale us all with a rationalization of President Bush's pardon of Caspar "Suitcase" Weinberger; but failing that, I do thank you for giving over your chowderhouse reviews of Gotham restaurants, since it is clear by now that the eatery scene is too stressfully boisterous and noisy to make a serious contribution to society.
I do very much appreciate your mention of H.L. Mencken, who never suffered the humiliations of a college education, but grew up on the streets of Baltimore, where as a police reporter he was exposed to "a hundred giddy arcana," and forged the mace-and-chain weapon of brutal journalism that set the gold standard of honest reporting.
Paul Callahan, Forest Hills
Russ Smith replies: I thank Callahan not only for his history reminder but also the notion that it was Lieberman who cost Gore the election. As I've written, if Kathleen Kennedy Townsend had been on the ticket, Gore would've won. But I don't think the elections of '52 and '00 are analogous, just as I don't think that Clinton and Truman ought be mentioned in the same breath. Had Gore resigned, he still could've shared in the credit for many of the administration's successes, such as his slaughter of Ross Perot in the NAFTA debate and his recommendation that Clinton sign the welfare bill.
But times are different. That Clinton was a liar and philanderer did matter in 2000, because every American knew about it. There was a call for new morality in the White House, and had the current economic downturn started a year ago, Bush would've actually won the popular vote and people would still be enfranchised in Florida.
Pool Boy
MUGGER: For me it's finally resolved why former President Clinton chose New York City as his post-presidency residence. Obviously, it's the only place in the country where you couldn't possibly impanel a jury that would convict him of anything. His move to Harlem was just further poisoning of the jury pool. He's always two steps ahead of us.
Brian A. Perkins Sr., Fort Worth
A New J-Lo
Armond White: Are you getting lazy, buddy? Without even having seen Pat O' Connor's new film Sweet November, I can tell your review of it ("Film," 2/21) is just the latest in what has been a noticeable downhill slope for you. You begin by saying that for the film, a remake, "A credible new twist would involve a protagonist whose serial monogamy wasn't just accepted habit but also revealed some deep, mortal fear?perhaps a gay protagonist."
What you fail to do is explain why the hell this would be a "credible twist." Do all homosexuals indulge in serial monogamy that reveals a "deep, mortal fear"? Are you just so self-indulgent that you assume readers will know what you're talking about?
And by the way, when you say that star Charlize Theron's "cuteness" fails to recognize "the modern practical view of romance" expressed in songs by such musical geniuses as Jennifer Lopez and TLC, do you mean to imply that all modern women (or all women?) share this view? How could you possible fail to notice that Lopez's "Love Don't Cost a Thing" totally conflicts with "Bills, Bills, Bills" by Destiny's Child (another act you cite)?
Finally, there's your leftfield appraisal of Cast Away, a movie that, back in December, you bunched in with Traffic (a film you take yet another opportunity to bash here) as "just okay." Suddenly you're making Robert Zemeckis sound like he were Godard or something.
I got news for you pal: a "break in the title" does not a good film make.
Matthew E. Goldenberg, Manhattan
Lynch Law
MUGGER: I can understand your sharing Henry Hyde's view of the world, but a hero ("e-Billboard," 2/20)? His customary girlish skipping behind slimmer colleagues when cameras are about seems less than heroic. His running of the impeachment committee strictly by the clock?a decision that ensured that many issues would not be explored?denied both pro- and anti-Clinton forces a reasonable understanding of all issues, and hustled a half-heard matter through in a shameful manner. He dared not use his gavel when one 70ish member of the committee threatened a 70ish witness with physical violence in the congressional parking lot.
Heroic? Hardly. In the current Republican Party, Hyde may loom large as does a person of normal stature among dwarves. The party's brightest young lawyers treed Clinton in the White House, wasted time asking questions about whether he knew what an oath is and then let him off the hook, time and time again, through simple bloody stupidity. The then-president started out obviously scared and flushed. As the incompetence of the young Republicans became obvious, his features changed to display an entirely appropriate contempt. Three good reporters would have nailed him in 30 minutes?had they been able to demand direct answers to their questions. Not New York Times reporters, of course.
Kind regards!
Paul Kunino Lynch, via Internet
Russ Smith replies: I didn't say that Henry Hyde was my personal hero, but rather a congressional hero. His courage in the impeachment hearings?along with the courage of men like Jim Rogan, Lindsey Graham and Asa Hutchinson?hasn't been seen in Washington for decades.
Rope Trick
MUGGER, you dumb bastard, with that speech (2/28) you just published a blueprint for Al Gore to make a comeback and win in the next election!
Just when it appears that the Democrats are self-destructing, you have to give them a perfect way to survive and foist off additional years of crap on the public. The whole liberal world was drowning in a pool of its own bullshit and you had to throw them a rope.
You gave them enough whiny-assed material, which will appeal to the average street idiot, to win a Pulitzer.
Shut the fuck up!
Earl H. Bell, Powderly, TX
Cox, Sucking
MUGGER: I couldn't agree more with your 2/28 comments about the pathetic state of lapdog bigfoot journalism in this country today. The children of Woodward and Bernstein have delivered us a national press that is so conflicted we may as well turn to the National Enquirer for breaking news. Hmmm. Of course that's where the breaking news has been lately.
I was moved to write you by your offhand mention of Macon, GA, as a place where a motivated young journalist could scrap for a living and learn a voice and how to write. I wanted to point out that the Macon Telegraph, that city's daily, is superior to the Cox-family-owned Atlanta Journal-Constitution in nearly every way. So Macon might not be a bad place at all for our next H.L. Mencken or Hunter Thompson to incubate.
Rob Maynard, Atlanta
Bob Pulls Through
MUGGER: Good 2/28 column. I was wondering if you had the chance to read Bob Herbert's scathing 2/26 New York Times piece on Clinton prior to writing your most recent column. If so, I'm very surprised you didn't mention it. I never thought that I'd ever read anything like that from one of the biggest Clinton suck-ups at the Times.
Steve Hume, Canton, MI
Russ Smith replies: I didn't mention the Herbert column, which I read before writing my own, because I knew it would cause such a stir in other media outlets. Herbert is an absolute moron, but people forget that he's also somewhat of a moralist, and at the height of the Lewinsky scandal ran some pretty tough columns on Clinton. So, while he really ramped up the rhetoric, it wasn't entirely out of character.
Weekly Standard
MUGGER: Your 2/28 column is not up to your usual standards. Al Gore blew his chance at the presidency when he and Tipper left town for Hawaii when the Lewinsky scandal hit the fan. That was his opportunity to do the right thing and denounce Clinton for what he was then and is to this day?a corrupt prick. It appears his political mentors were the three see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil chimps. He should join the staff of the junior college where Mike Dukakis teaches and promote the school as the place where two of the biggest political losers in recent U.S. history hang their donkey ears.
G. Chapline, Houston
You May
May I take issue with Charles Glass at "The London Desk" ("Taki's Top Drawer," 2/21)? Since most UK households use a tv set , it's not surprising the bureaucratic process gets involved to chase up why he himself doesn't. License-fee evasion is a lot more common than intellectuals, which is probably a good thing for the future of civilization.
A lot of this high penetration of tv in the UK has to do with the BBC. For about three dollars a week my family and I receive two major tv channels, six major radio channels and a number of specialist digital satellite channels. All of these run without advertising and as such provide pretty good entertainment and information?some of it available, I note, on New York public television. Even intellectuals would agree that breaking into a drama for painkiller ads might harm the mood. We also like at least one broadcaster to be free of political and business interference. It does make it easier to expose dirty dealing and sleazy, corrupt politicians. This could be useful in the U.S.?Barabas didn't have to pay up for Pilate's presidential library, but he got a pardon anyway.
I'm sorry Charles thinks our tv fare dismal. Lots of us quite like it, and we Brits still have the odd critical and commercial success.
Last week my son and I visited Manhattan and we were surprised how coldly and even downright rudely New Yorkers treat each other in public. Yet when you talk to people on an individual basis, their charm, warmth and friendliness (especially to visitors) is wonderful. May we simply thank them?but I fundamentally can't understand this public/personal difference in dealing with each other. Maybe foreigners just don't understand everything. Maybe Charles Glass and I could agree on that one.
Damien Hood, Cardiff, Wales