Why, That Was the Bestest "Best of" Ever; No Blues over Strausbaugh's "Train"; All Cried Out over Taki; Lay Off Our Peggy, Signorile; Bryk's Mother Loves Him; More
Mark Galbraith, Washington, DC
Hmmmm
After noting with distaste that illustrators are prone to think somewhat negatively about George W. Bush, your writer justifiably heralds Ward Sutton's masterful, full-page Sept. 11 memorial cartoon, "Visitors" ("Best Village Voice Cartoonist," Best of Manhattan, 9/25). He points to the cartoon's depiction of media hounds, a faded rock star, an ambulance-chasing lawyer, a rights-bashing attorney general, a soldier and Osama himself?and neglects to mention that Sutton also draws W into the pool of users making a selfish profit off the man's impending death. (The President emotes to the terrified man trapped in the burning tower, "At this moment I see a photographer taking my picture aboard Air Force One. Months from now, that photo will be used to raise money for the Republican Party. God Bless America.") I'm glad to see Sutton's opinion of Bush didn't dissuade your writer too much from recognizing this artist's work, but the omission is as transparent as Bush's politicking.
David Morgan, Manhattan
Public Art vs. Private Grief
I hope that I am enough of a loyalist to differ ("Car 54, Where Are You?" Best of Manhattan, 9/25). The falling-woman statue was properly removed from its public and involuntary-to-view location. No one is asking Goya to turn down the reds in his war scenes, or Picasso to turn Guernica grimaces into happy faces. The question is public display, which otherwise usually comes with "Warning: graphic material ahead."
I am no fan of Andrea Peyser, and Maureen Dowd is such an idiot that her stupidity is no longer even entertaining, even as one plumbs the abyss of the leftover mind to see if it ever bottoms out, which it does not, but the sculpture does not belong in a public place, if the public objects. Dowd is as much fun as a cranky spoiled 12-year-old who has been deprived of her moral princess supremacy.
In passing, I resent the moral supremacy of l'Artiste, who claims the right, even divine mission, to intrude his/her consciousness/ worldview onto/into those too n'est pas artistique for the artists condign pleasure.
If one wishes to shock one should use a cattle prod. Art is about esthetics. Art is as much to change by illumination and exaltation, as by confrontation and gritty pseudo-hyper realism (GPHR). We all know what happened on Sept. 11, which I have called the Bombing, and most of us know someone who died, or know someone who knew someone (I know two dead, dozens saved), but we do not visit the slaughterhouse, the charnel, the battlefield, the graveyard and the hospital triage room to remember. "Remembrance" is as well solemn and peaceful, vs. this smug "epater le bourgeois." Epater yourself, m'sieur l'Artiste, from a remaining tall building, and do so at night (less pedestrian collateral damage), with infrared film (how's that for toning down red), and make your death a performance art "statement." Until we hose you down the sewer, with the other wet trash.
Martin Heilweil, Manhattan
Lovin' Those Blues
John Strausbaugh: I'm John Sinclair's publisher at Surregional Press. Thanks for that story?it was great ("Blues Train," 9/18)!
Dennis Formento, New Orleans
Dancin' for Shit
Fuck John Sinclair and his Blues Scholars. White boys should listen to the blues and not try to mimic it, which is all they are doing when they try to play it, 11 years old and a girl or what. Sinclair is mimicking when he tries to rotely learn everything he can about the blues. I know a couple of guys in New York City who know more in their little fingers than John Sinclair holds in his tiny dick. These guys are still involved with trying to help the black blues performers who are still struggling in the system to record and sell their recordings. John Sinclair would be much better advised, instead of promoting himself, helping like Jimmy Reed's (who is also from the Delta and had much more influence on American white music than even Rice Miller and Muddy Waters) family stay off welfare, being denied any moneys for the many hits Jimmy had for those two swindling white Chess brothers?and Sinclair is, I grant him, a promotional genius?how many other dudes in Michigan busted for pot are still rotting in lockdown while John is out still promoting himself as a know-it-all?
Down in New Orleans we call guys like John "smart asses," and for years one of New Orleans' favorite theatrical performances was called "Nobody Likes a Smart Ass." Your article reads like someone who knows nothing whatsoever about the blues idolizing a guy who also knows nothing about the blues but is convincing silly white wigger-mimics that he does.
Hey, John, get up and dance with those black women calling you "Mick Jagger," 'cept the truth is, you can't dance for shit, motherfucker. Most bluesmen in those days of yore traveled by automobile, by the way. Cadillacs were the autos of choice, though Rice Miller told a fascinating story about trying to outrun the Mississippi cops in a Buick. Oh well, I guess John's "bluuze" tour will be a success and soon his fucking CD and movie will be out and we will know the "honest" truth about today's great blues scholar. Funny how black people don't even come to blues gigs, unless it's B.B., and the women always dug B.B., who, I guess, is still a "boy" to John "the Man" Sinclair.
M.M. Greene, Manhattan
Ain't This Nice?
Once again I have enjoyed my son's writing. What a sense of humor!
Joy Bryk, Bradenton, FL
Ron, We Hardly Know Ye
No one is less consolable than I about the passing of "Taki's Top Drawer" and Taki's own wonderful column. But as Taki's deputy during the first wonderful year, I have to take issue with my friend Ron Mwangaguhunga's assessment of Scott Ritter ("The Mail," 9/18)?and I do so based on Ron's own words at the time that Ritter won the first Taki award. Ron's nomination letter accurately and nobly described the Scott Ritter of 1998:
"Ritter served with UNSCOM from 1991-August 26,1998, when he resigned because, well, the United Nations is the largest collective organization of windbags on earth. I know whereof I speak. My father was Uganda's ambassador to the US and UN in 1978 and 1979 respectively. Ritter refused to play cat and mouse with Saddam, who carefully switches the location of his weapons of mass destruction and documents so that inspectors will, eventually, give Saddam a clean bill of health. Ritter won't play that game. He resigned from UNSCOM where he was the chief inspector. Had he stayed on like a Machiavellian, he would surely have rose through the ranks of the UN and enjoyed post-prandial brandies with the pooh bahs; he did not, he resigned. Bravo: there are still gentlemen at the UN."
In other words, the Ron of 1998 admired the Scott Ritter of that year?the Scott Ritter who resigned because he knew that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?as he told the Senate?and that it could reconstitute its arsenal within three months?as he told The New Republic.
It's one thing to find out that Ritter has inexplicably become convinced that he now believes the opposite of what he observed when he first returned from Iraq. But for Ron Mwangaguhunga to have forgotten as well?Ron, who was "Top Drawer"'s first and most loyal admirer?is a blow from which I am not sure I can recover.
Sam Schulman, Manhattan
Bears' Hug
I've just read William Bryk's article about me, and the book my daughter and I write, Bears' Guide to Earning Degrees by Distance Learning ("Old Smoke," 9/18). It is one of the two nicest articles anyone has ever written about me, and what I (try to) do, and I just wanted to say thank you to New York Press and Bryk. My only complaint is that you/he misplaced the apostrophe. When my daughter joined the team 10 years ago, the book title changed from Bear's Guide to Bears' Guide. No big deal. If I can find one of those Ethiopian ear-pickers (50-50 chance), I wonder if Bryk would like it?
John Bear, El Cerrito, CA
William Ass Repsher
I read an article on the Tori Amos album Scarlet's Walk by William S. Repsher ("Daily Billboard," 9/24). I was wondering if that was supposed to be a critical review of the album? The reason I ask is because Repsher chose to take quotes from MTV.com to write a scathing piece on an album that he clearly hasn't even listened to. Otherwise he would have been writing about the songs on the album and giving a legitimate review instead of criticizing Tori Amos for the quirky things she says in interviews while promoting her work. Since when has anyone written a review on what someone says about their album on a promo tour? Repsher shouldn't quit his day job. If I wanted to hear what an ass had to say, I'd fart instead.
Joshua Diaz, Manhattan
Did You Even Read It?
Your publication is known for printing strongly opinionated commentary by various contributors. Here, in place of opinion, is fact: Every two minutes in the United States a woman is forcibly raped. In the amount of time it takes most people to brush their teeth or reheat dinner, a woman is forcibly raped. And now my opinion: When William S. Repsher states "that poor rapist who had a go at her was simply responding in the only way he knew how to years of intimidation and repression," he trivializes the pain and anguish suffered by the millions of rape victims across not only America, but the world. In his article he seems to try to call-out singer Tori Amos in what he feels is her hypocritical viewpoint on the Sept. 11 attacks on America. By his words, he seeks to compare the concept of a woman dressing sexually and getting raped to the idea of our country being attacked. Here's a little input: Rape victims haven't attacked first, in any capacity. Rape victims don't have a political agenda of any nature. By essentially blaming Tori Amos for her own rape because she chooses to, in your opinion, blame America for its recent attacks, you make an analogy that shames every person who has ever been victimized by sexual assault. You shame yourself. You shame your country.
Jenny Lewis, Alexandria, VA
Hazardous Business
As usual, Lionel is a Tiger in his analysis of even so quotidian a subject as pensions ("Best of Manhattan's Financial World," Best of Manhattan, 9/25). As a retired English teacher who was an economic moron who never thought about his pension one way or the other before he took early retirement at 55 in 1982, even CREF can be a joyride! It tripled in payout between l982 and 2000, then tumbled $400 a month in 2001 and a further $40 in 2002. Needless to shudder, my fingers are crossed for 2003. But my fiscal fecklessness was not their doing.
Patrick D. Hazard, Weimar, Germany
Big Easy
Many thanks to you, John Strausbaugh, for the great piece on John Sinclair ("Blues Train," 9/18). Your writing helped me relive my own trips in the Delta and on trains. I hope many New Yorkers make the time to go experience John Sinclair and the Blues Scholars. He's truly a transcendental poet of our times, reminding us of the cosmic beauty of the early blues lyrics and the richness of the Delta culture that emerged from the heat and poverty of the South. I am a cultural anthropologist gone astray as a special-events coordinator for Gambit Weekly and a project manager for the Vo-Du Macbeth in New Orleans. Bravo! I loved your piece.
Gloria Powers, New Orleans
Likes Her Peggy Raw
Re Michelangelo Signorile on Peggy Noonan ("The Gist," 9/18): Bah humbug!! Too many of us love what she writes. Too many of us felt among the walking wounded after Sept. 11, and found comfort reading the words of one who was also being buffeted by every kind of emotion possible. Anger, compassion, heartbreak and, yes, suspicion were all there. Noonan reflected our raw feelings, nothing more. We only wish it were all a dream.
Linda Bator, Los Angeles
She's Straight, Too
Mike Signorile: Are you cracking on Peggy Noonan just because she's conservative? Noonan is an excellent writer. Such a good writer, in fact, that you seem to follow her religiously yourself!
Sergio R. Bichao, Hillside, NJ
From NY, with Love
Re Mark France's letter ("The Mail," 9/11). Free speech is one thing, but for you to write?in any context?that "Seeing New York City taken down a peg by a Third World Country is somewhat like watching the bully of the schoolyard getting his butt kicked by some kid half his size" is deplorable. I hope that you are just a poor writer because to imply (and I can't see how it doesn't imply this) that there was any satisfaction on your part that it was NYC and not some other city that lost thousands on Sept. 11 is sickening.
Your resentment toward New Yorkers is obvious when you state that "you can't spend years and years and untold sums of money telling the rest of the country that it is not qualified to carry your piss bucket and expect everyone to share your pain when you suddenly find out you are not bulletproof." How you came upon this resentment is unclear?perhaps you had a few bad experiences with several New Yorkers that you're projecting upon an entire city? Hey, Mark, you're from Little Rock, so I should assume, what, that you're a dirty politician who cheats on his wife with interns? Of course not.
Or perhaps you do hear the many voices, including my own, who claim New York City is the best place in the world to live. Is this so wrong? Is Little Rock just another city to you? Is the town you grew up in no different from neighboring towns? In fact, isn't every town and city in this country entitled to a little civic pride? Isn't it that civic pride that melds houses, roads, buildings and people into a community? Just because we're big doesn't make it wrong.
I read your misguided letter prior to 9/11/02 and I am sincere when I tell you that this year on Sept. 11, this New Yorker, if only for an instant, thought to himself, "I hope that Mark France of Little Rock takes a few minutes today to reflect on the victims of 9/11." Bullies, Mark? Bullies? Try fathers. Try mothers. Try sons. Try daughters. Try friends. But bullies? It's an insult of the highest degree.
Mike Shapiro, Manhattan
Raul's Wacky Aunt Scores
Thanks for printing the essay by Raul Reyes ("First Person," 9/11). It was both poignant and sadly thought-provoking.
Louis Perry, Manhattan
Tabb Gets Torked
George Tabb: You are an idiot ("Daily Billboard," 9/24). The Michelin Man is a French corporate icon, not an American one.
Jabairu S. Tork, Boston
It's Still Art
Russ Smith: Perhaps Rockefeller Center was the wrong venue for Fischl's sculpture ("Car 54, Where Are You?," Best of Manhattan, 9/25). Maybe it isn't appropriate as public art. I am hoping the always reliable, never shying-from-controversy Brooklyn Museum of Art might be willing to show it. Thanks for speaking sense on this issue?New York Press remains one of NYC's most reliable reads, be it electronic or papyrus.
Anthony Napoli, Brooklyn
Stultification
Re Russ Smith's bewailing the disappearification of Eric Fischl's Tumbling Woman. Eric Fischl trades on the seamy, the sleazy, the corrupt. There is as well an odor of voyeurism to his art. For him to tuck such a work as this sculpture into his oeuvre is necessarily to force one to view it as part of his continuum. Doubtless most viewers will not have been aware of Fischl's other work, but were only reacting at gut-level to the all-too-graphic depiction of the most horrific details of the Sept. 11 massacre. I and, I suspect, others as well reacted to both the latter and to a suspicion of dishonest capitalization on the part of the artist. You give me a Henry Moore or a Jacques Lipchitz or any of a hundred other good (unfortunately in the case of the last two, dead) sculptors working on a commemoration of Sept. 11 victims?then we can talk.
Jeffrey S. Erickson, Davidson, NC
Herd Mentality
I hate to see our wandering martinet MUGGER marching in lockstep with the rest of the spaniel press. The spectacle of poor MUGGER falling in behind the strutting chickenhawks is a sorry sight. Gee?Dubya's disgusting attempt to glom onto our genuine rage for his lame-ass oily war on Iraq is a national disgrace. MUGGER's low skunk morality, usually such fun, isn't playing well in the face of this war of aggression.
Phil Ericsson, Manhattan
Sweet September Thoughts
Russ Smith: I think that you and Rich Lowry are right about the new construction at Ground Zero ("Look Back in Anger," 9/11). My thought is that they should rebuild the towers in black concrete and glass, but taller. New Yorkers invented the skyscraper, and we should always maintain the tallest building in the world in Manhattan (and we would if not for the various Luddite factions that routinely oppose any new construction).
Finally, I'd have them install a Patriot battery at the base of the towers and an Aegis system at the top. Anything that flies within a restricted airspace directly above Manhattan would be blown out of the sky before any damage could be done. Of course, it's unlikely that hijackers will be able to take another flight with boxcutters, so an attack on these towers would come from some other means, but that's still no reason not to build. Ultimately, the only real security from terrorism is to make the price higher than the supporting regimes are willing to pay. In the case of totalitarian Arab states, that means overthrowing the corrupt monsters in charge and feeding them to the mobs that they've oppressed. When Saddam Hussein is dangling from a Kurdish/U.S. rope, you'll be amazed how many Arab rulers suddenly decide that jihad isn't in their interest.
Mike Harris, Venice, CA
La Recherche
C.J. Sullivan: I loved your piece on Montreal and the Expos ("The Fall of Montreal," 8/28). I'm not a big sports buff and rarely go to baseball games. But the last time I was in Montreal (May 1999), I caught an Expos-vs.-Phillies game, mainly because I'd never seen a baseball game in a domed stadium (except on tv) and, just once, I wanted to see what baseball looked like indoors.
The stadium was well over half empty that night (though that's probably typical for most ballparks these days). But the fans who did show up were a spirited bunch, cheering and merrymaking and?yes, as you said?using their seats as noisemakers. I even joined them at that once or twice. There was no Elvis imitator that night, but we had the Expo mascot (some sort of fat birdlike thing) roaming through the stands, which was just as good. Philadelphia won.
I haven't been to a ball game since. Like I said, I'm not big on sports. Also, I loved William Bryk's article on Santa Anna ("Napoleon of the West," 9/4). Great piece of writing!
Richard Fried, Brooklyn
Thom's Jones
I really liked the essay by Raul Reyes ("First Person," 9/11). I wasn't crazy about the cartoon that went with it, but the article was nice. I was fully engaged. Is Reyes a regular writer for New York Press or was this a one-time-only column? I would like to see more.
Thom Jones, Manhattan
Smiles All Around
Just a quick note to say that I've been reading Taki for decades (as well as New York Press since its inception), and that he was a true credit and highlight to the paper, as well as a gentleman (increasingly rare). I'll miss seeing him in your pages. See if you can talk him into an occasional contribution. By the way, thanks for getting Christopher Caldwell back?he's a great read. Look forward to him every week. And keep Michelangelo Signorile around for a while, too; he's good, dependable comic relief from the kneejerk left.
E. Dwight Northup, Manhattan
Strip Club
Comics are the primary reason I and the many millions like me open New York Press, though once I'm in, much of the writing ain't bad either. I was terribly concerned when they disappeared for a couple of weeks recently. Thanks for bringing the strips back ("Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles" especially, but MUGGER Junior's "Idiot Man" too). How about a couple more: perhaps "Too Much Coffee Man" (Shannon Wheeler), or "No Exit" (Andy Singer). Thanks for giving me something to read while I eat my falafel.
Zach Berman, Brooklyn
Steve's Not Laughing
MUGGER: I'm glad that you are providing a strong voice against The New York Times vendetta against George W. Bush. Paul Krugman, in particular, is just absolutely ridiculous in his never-ending anti-Bush tirades. However, did you see this utterly ridiculous statement in Maureen Dowd's Sept. 15 column?:
"[T]here was no compelling new evidence. Mr. Bush offered only an unusually comprehensive version of the usual laundry list. Saddam is violating the sanctions, he tried to assassinate Poppy, he's late on his mortgage payments, he tips 10 percent, he has an unjustifiable fondness for "My Way," he gassed his own people, he doesn't turn down the front brim of his hat."
Apparently, Dowd thinks extermination of Kurds by use of poison gas and attempted assassination of a former president are funny. I usually like black humor but certain things are just not funny. Dowd and Krugman have become virtually unreadable.
Steve Hume, Canton, MI
Have a Retsina
Having read the Press for many years, I always begin each new issue with Taki. Last week my paper was scratched and viciously shredded desperately searching for Taki. I'm totally heartbroken he has abandoned the Press for Washington political ho's.
I mean what's a Greek girl to do?SLIT WRISTS!?!
Kiki Papoulos, Manhattan
Ramblin', Gamblin' Man
William Bryk's article about Santa Anna ("Napoleon of the West," 9/4) was interesting but left out a few of the more outrageous reports about the former president of Mexico. After he lost his leg, he had it encased in silver, and thereafter took it with him wherever he went. Once, when he was tapped out at a gambling game, he tried to stake it so he could continue to play. And he often tried to get a Roman Catholic priest to say mass over it, and could never understand why they always refused him.
There have been other political exiles who have lived in New York for a time. Leon Trotsky once lived in the Bronx, where he was unpopular among the waiters at his favorite cafe because tipping was against his principles. And do not forget Ho Chi Minh's stint as a kitchen worker at the Waldorf-Astoria.
John Boardman, Brooklyn
But We Want Our SUV
Bush and Cheney are doing okay tracking down Islamic militants who are causing problems all over, but they seem to have no clue that the reason we're in this mess in the first place is that the militants are funded by oil-producing states like Saudi Arabia and Iran, and that the only way to cut off funding to terrorism is to use less gasoline. Cheney said flatly that Americans would never conserve (just as people used to say that Americans wouldn't recycle). Bush said vaguely that 20 years from now we might be driving cars powered with fuel cells. His solution, in other words, boils down to this: Let's do nothing for 20 years.
However, there are many techniques and technologies we can use to cut gasoline usage now: 1) biomass, 2) hybrid cars, 3-6) wind, nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal power, 7) compact fluorescent bulbs, 8) recycling, 9) inflating tires correctly, 10) bicycling, walking, 11) mass transit, 12) carpooling, 13) combining trips, 14) cutting out wasteful trips, 15) turning off lights, turning down heating, 16) living closer to work, 17) coasting into stoplights, 18) not buying SUVs, 19) giving your kid a bicycle for school, etc.
Local and state governments can also help by switching their vehicles to electric or hybrid, and making sure that every school and community has a recycling program. Also: get local utility companies not to use petroleum for electricity generation. Lower immigration.
Saving fuel saves money, the air and maybe your life. In other words, it's a win-win-win situation. So why wait 20 years? Let's conserve gasoline now.
We could commemorate Sept. 11 by making September our National "Drive-Less" Month, or National Conservation Month.
Jay Miller, Palo Alto, CA
Peace Be with You
MUGGER: You have printed some items about the policies of President Bush, but I believe you are too polite. What I find amazing is his lack of common sense. He was lucky to be able to move into the White House, considering that his "election" was not handled according to the U.S. Constitution. At that point, he should have begun to behave like a generous and benevolent person. Instead he became combative right away, getting on our nerves.
After the terrible attack of Sept. 11, he had a chance to be a great statesman, help the attack victims and the disaster areas. Instead, he was mean and stingy to us; and then proved to be mean and stingy to disadvantaged areas of the world where people are dying from starvation or poor medical care. He has even refused to transmit funds voted by Congress to send to women suffering illnesses resulting from childbirth.
And now, while we still fight in Afghanistan, he wants to plunge us into another war! But why? Does he consider himself a great manipulator? Does he want to exceed his dad, who fought Iraq but left Saddam Hussein in office?
Leaders all over the world have now condemned Bush's extremism and aggression. We want a president who is wise and kind, not self-serving and intemperate. He is ruining our good name abroad, threatening to kill large numbers of people because he dislikes Saddam Hussein.
We have two more years with this dummy. We are sure to get a more sensible president then?if we are still alive. We have to resist violence. We have to walk a careful line. We have to condemn adventurism and resist cowardice, but always stand up for peace. We have to think of the younger generation. Do we want to send them off to participate in disasters, or do we want them to grow up and grow old in peace?
We have to stand up for sanity, honesty and international law.
Marjorie Lewis, Brooklyn
Be the Best MUGGER You Can Be
MUGGER: Get real, pal. Relax. So Bush shamelessly made up this war hysteria Sept. 11 and 12. So what? Admit it. See it for what it is. Don't pretend its not gee-Dubya to the core. He's gonna demagogue this specious horseshit all the way to November. This is hardly the chucklehead's first big lie. The party was skulking along and the election wasn't going away. You gotta know this was some serious shit for him and the party. Losing the Congress is disaster for him, his party and for his tiny warrior-manque soul.
What was the party supposed to run on? Tax cuts for the rich and corporate? Privatizing Social Security? He did what he had to do. Besides, he's delusional enough to sorta believe it. You know how he loves playing the badass commander. This hurry-up offense was just crazy enough to appeal to him. He gets to be the wacky Austin Powers president throwing a $200 billion bash. The wild party animal with the realpolitik morals of a Lee Atwater. And his goldmember sense of humor.
What else did he have going for him but this pumped-up War Presidency? That and the wonderfully goofy Hans and Franz strut he occasionally gives us. But how can our MUGGER parrot this cribbed bullshit with a straight face?
MUGGER, propaganda just ain't your thing. You do not do it well. Loosen up, be more critical, be more the New Yorker, less the lackey newsman. Stay inside yourself, no need to go all shrill on us.
Cheney and Rove and Rumsfeld are tough, pure politicians. Tough guys, face it MUGGER, they ain't conservatives, they ain't loyal Republicans, they sure as hell ain't free-market champs. These are loose-canon hack politicians grubbing for themselves and their crony capitalist sponsors. They're survivors. Crass and totally cynical. Smart and funny as only the truly corrupt can be. Sadly, not smart enough to survive all the shit that is about to rain down on their heads. Their domestic fuckups are too out-of-control for that. And they probably aren't smart enough to survive the exposure of their brilliant, ignoble campaign scheme. It's too much the impeachable crazy dogpile for that. That is for later. Now is the time for the wise and detached MUGGER. Not the spaniel waterboy for the authors of this inglorious train wreck.
Principles and enlightened self-interest, my man. This zany adventure may have bought them a few weeks reprieve. But as everyone starts discussing this elephant in the room, the truth of this sick gambit will become more and more obvious. Then gee-Dubya's frozen smile, his malaprops and his shit-eating grin will betray the cause. The false illogical bunkum from Cheney's side-of-the-mouth sleaze to Rumsfeld's inane wisecracks won't save 'em. A cold light is about to fall on their base calculus, on the economy tanking, the stock market in the toilet, the looted pensions, the squandered surplus, the odious trade deficit, their craven trade policies, the weak-dog dollar, the fucked 401(k)s, the party pissing away its majorities. MUGGER, be the sharp-eyed, perceptive, bemused MUGGER. Why carry water for these losers? Why whore for these sorry curs?
Peter H. Edmiston, Manhattan
Choose Love
Various and sundry New York Press opinions, columns and reader responses about Iraq. I had thought that people by now might?just might?have enough healthy skepticism of worldly government and big business that they wouldn't march in lockstep with politicians, whose dubious motives are always suspect and are even more so when they want to involve America in gravely bloody foreign wars. But it seems that this profoundly rational and moral cynicism toward the ugly human world may never be seen to any great extent, unless people take advantage of the chance to get very smart, very fast.
Many people think it's fashionable to be skeptical of the Lord Jesus Christ and the rules that God gives in the Gospels for the salvation of souls. They don't doubt the eminently doubtable functionaries who are our human "leaders," but they doubt the God Who their very soul is telling them is their Creator and Master. The Democrat-minded followed William Clinton and wife into the bombing of a historical ally (Serbia). And now the Republican-minded want to follow George W. Bush into the invasion of an even more recent ally (Iraq). What's the matter, you don't remember our strategic dealings with Saddam Hussein during the 80s, and how he wasn't too crazy or too dangerous for us then? In fact, Hussein has always been crafty rather than crazy. And in fact, if you'd look into it, you'd see that even a nuclear-powered Hussein would never be so clumsy as to guarantee his death and loss of power by attacking America.
That's another problem, people haven't been reading enough for the last four decades or so. Read some books like Saddam Hussein by Efraim Karsh and The Fire This Time by Ramsey Clark, and think twice before you support yet another fortunate son in the White House who wants to lead yet another group of underprivileged grunts to their lauded-then-forgotten deaths, and America into a continuing gory hodgepodge of Babylonian world entanglements. Also, try The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith, both by Lee Strobel, to curb that fashionable skepticism about God.
Jack Seney, Queens
Well, Someone Has
Mike Signorile: The hypocrisy in the Catholic Church runs deep insofar as their "intrinsically disordered" ("The Gist," 9/11) position on homosexuality is the very thing that has drawn so many gay men to their ranks. They're responsible for having taught me and many others to hate themselves for who and what we are. It drove me into longtime therapy, while it has driven others into bogus marriages. But it has also driven many more into the very source of their self-hatred: the Catholic Church.
It's called denial. By buying into the concept that being gay is wrong and a sin, many gay men have been drawn into the service of God, of celibacy and a sense of worth by serving Him and others?all while negating the supposed "sin" of their nature, their human needs and of their own self-worth. But it doesn't work, does it? Like the marriages some gay men depend upon to rid themselves of their "disease," Catholic priests find that their marriage to God can be just as bogus.
Now the Catholic Church wants to sweep clean from its ranks all those with "deviations in their affections." Why hasn't someone noted