The Mail
Long Time Ago, That
But who cares after you chicken-poops betrayed your commitment to First Amendment rights and to the highest common denominator by letting go of Taki, the military industrial complex's worst nightmare.
Ivan Helfman, Canton, MI
A Southern Gentleman
Re: Matt Taibbi "Totally Gauche" (2/16): The seven paragraphs starting with "But of course we all know exactly what left means..." are incredibly astute, funny and pretty darned accurate.
Kudos to Mr. Taibbi for such good insight and writing.
Ron Johnson Jr., Jefferson, LA
The Seitz Is Right
Re: "Get It, Then Beget It," 2/9: Just saw this film (Masculine Feminine). Matt Zoller Seitz's review really nails this film better than any of the reviews I've read in the Voice, New Yorker, Times, etc. Nice work!
Fred Doner, Manhattan
Iraqi Kurtistan
Matt Taibbi writes in his 2/23 column ("I Spy a Sell-Out") that opponents to the Iraq war do not face a Hobbesian choice. He says this because he believes there are endless other outcomes to "root" for.
First, as an analogy, the Hobbesian choice is frequently used in criminal law. Most often it's cited when a defendant is faced with testifying or suffering a detriment to his overall case (i.e., a judge denying bail, giving a jury instruction or imposing a stiffer sentence). However, under Mr. Taibbi's logic, there is no such dilemma. A defendant could: a) kill the jury; b) kill his lawyer; c) try to skip bail or escape his holding cell; d) try and pay off the judge or prosecutor. See, there are other options, but the problem is they are idiotic.
Let's see what other outcomes Taibbi suggests opponents of the war "root" for. Ê
He starts by saying Bush could just admit he fucked up and plead for help stabilizing Iraq. But he fails to tell us how doing so would get say, Spain to recommit troops. Indeed, I have not read of one world leader saying that if Bush would just own up to the mistake, they would help us out. He then says, get this, Bush should admit he fucked up specifically to Annan, and then, withdraw all of our troops immediately! Brilliant! ÊAgain there is no explanation how an admission of wrongdoing would somehow resolve anything (except Taibbi's broken heart), and of course there is no explanation of how withdrawing our troops immediately would "stabilize" Iraq.
And of course, the best suggestion: give up the oil contracts. To whom? The U.N.! Okay, Mr. Taibbi, I know you work for a free paper, so your fact checking and general awareness of news may be hampered. Have you read anything about the oil-for-food scandal lately? Have you read anything about France, Russia and Germany all having what I would call "sanction profiteering" schemes? Did you know all American companies were forbidden from engaging in contracts in Iraq after the first war by Bush senior? How about this, let's just give Annan and his staff a quarter of the oil contracts, give Chirac another quarter, Schroeder a quarter, and give Putin one of Saddam's old palaces with a view over one of the oil fields (and a quarter of the contracts). Then at least we know we aren't bullshitting anyone.
Taibbi, you are indeed younger than Kurt Andersen, but you still suck.
Ramon A. Pagan, Manhattan
Matt Taibbi responds: The term "Hobbesian choice" may be a term used in modern law, but when I referred to the "original Hobbesian choice," I was talking about the chaos-vs.-authoritarianism choice posited by Thomas Hobbes, not the choice Mr. Pagan faced at his last traffic-court appearance.
Follow The Bouncing CXB
Wow, has the cheese fallen off of this guy's cracker ("Idiot Patrol" 2/16)? Isn't Brodeur usually the guy who throws the word "fascist" into every other sentence? Now he's a law-and-order enthusiast who thinks the prison system is too lax? Where does he get his 99 percent statistic?
I'm with him on the wasteful horror that is the war on drugs, and I don't see the logic in giving violent felons weight-training equipment, but really, is the guy's gimmick supposed to be that he's so smart and brave that he can't articulate a single coherent thought?
Anthony Fisher, Brooklyn
Howard's End
I can't tell you how disappointed I am with your editorial in regard to Howard Stern (Jeff Koyen, "Stern Warnings," 2/16). In essence, what I see is a rather mercenary attempt to use Howard's persona to attract attention, all the while slandering him in spectacularly shallow and unimaginative ways.
In essence, you are picking on Howard for being an imperfect freedom fighter for free speech, although you yourself have done essentially zero to further the same cause. You criticize Howard for "fight[ing] for the right to talk about fucking Paris Hilton in the ass," while boasting about how you wrote your own anal-penetration story.
At the end of the day, Howard is the most influential and popular radio broadcaster of the last 50 years. You are the heretofore-anonymous editor of a free newspaper. You do the math.
Screw you for using Howard's sizzle to sell your steak, all the while dragging his name through the mud. You make "Jeff Gannon" (aka James Guckert) look like Walter Winchell.Ê
Tony Edwards, Minneapolis, MN
He's A Busy Man
I was listening to Howard Stern this morning and heard him complain about being part of the vile list. How fucking old is that list, already? What the hell is he doing just getting around to commenting on that list?
Michael Carpio, Brooklyn
We Write the Jokes Around Here
Great job to Jeff Koyen and the writers on the 88 things the International Olympic Committee should know ("Olympics Go Home," 2/16). However, you forgot one, #89: Athletes may get emphysema from New Yorkers' smoking outside the bars, due to another of Bloomberg's self-aggrandizing laws.
David Lunderos, Manhattan
Synchronized Satirizing
Whether we get the 2012 Olympics or not, New York Press should get a gold medal right here and now for "Olympics Go Home" (2/16). I haven't laughed so hard in years (well, months, anyway). Maybe you should make the "Top 88" list a regular feature, you know, like what's-his-name on tv.
Richard Fried, Brooklyn
Which Way Democracy?
Re: the Harris Poll and Matt Taibbi and confusion over left and right politics ("Totally Gauche," 2/23): If you don't mind my saying, both the pollsters and Matt have it wrong. The concepts of left and right originally focused on distribution of power. Thus, those who favored power in the hands of a few, the elitists, were to the right, and those who preferred to distribute power evenly amongst the people, the democrats, stood on the left. The later-evolving British Westminster compromise was seen to be in the center.
Simple enough? Not when you add academics and journalists to the equation.
Academics were preoccupied with what politicians said they would do-the theories. Journalists, on the other hand, were more interested in what politicians did. And with a predilection to reduce all human activities in terms of philosophical spectrums that could be equated with good and evil, they interpreted accordingly. This tended to reflect the political leanings of media owners and influential pressure groups. In the U.S., by the end of WWII, with Russia emerging as the perceived future threat, left became equated with evil and, by default, right with good.
Today, absolute confusion reigns. The solution? Stop using what are now meaningless terms. If we want to communicate relative political positions, the more accurate terminology is elitist or democrat.
An elitist supports the concept of government by the few, whilst a democrat favors government by the people, for the people-all of the people. We can see such sensible and meaningful definitions being adopted. Ha! Nobody in power wants this sort of clarity.
Tony Ryan, Maroochydore, Australia
Koyen 1, Stern 0
Way to go ("Stern Warnings," 2/16)! I personally am glad someone finally stood up to that prick Stern. Oh, hey, I heard the argument on the radio, and all Stern did was look even more like an idiot.
Marla McGee, Sicklerville, NJ
The Middle Mind
Matt Taibbi is correct in saying that the left-right political spectrum is confusing indeed ("Totally Gauche," 2/16). I am a libertarian and on that spectrum I am in the middle, a moderate.
I'm no moderate, but I am an extreme supporter of the rights of the individual. I support a completely laissez-faire market system, with private property and economic freedom. Also I support complete civil liberties. This puts me on the far right for economic liberties and the far left for civil liberties.
President Bush is my opposite; he supports almost no individual rights, meaning very little in the way of economic liberty and nothing at all in the way of civil liberty. This puts him in the middle too, where I am! Something is wrong here!
See http://www.LP.org where you will find the "World's Smallest Political Quiz." It is brief (too brief) and shows that rather than a line spectrum, there should be a grid for locating yourself politically.
It works much better. Try it!
Alice Lillie, Henderson, NV
Screw Youth
Re: "The New Screw Review" (2/23) was a great trip down memory lane.ÊFew remember the literary contributions made by Screw Magazine and founding publisher Al Goldstein. Many have forgotten his biting political humor and fight for First Amendment rights that others in this field take for granted today. Compared to what is available to the general public at video rental stores, cable television, pay-for-view, newsstand and Internet, yesterday's Screw Magazine would get a PG-13 rating today.
What adults listen to, consume, inhale, perform, read or view in the privacy of their own home or workplace is their own choice. Our civil and economic liberties prosper best when Big Brother stays out of the bedroom and marketplace. The free marketplace will always provide what consumers desire, despite the best efforts of Big Brother and the Moral Majority.
Larry Penner, Great Neck, NY