A Little Voice A Little Voice As a ...
As a resident of Beachwood Canyon in L.A. (Hollywoodland, actually), I loved reading your article ("Flower Power," 4/23) about the mean and strong-armed tactics of the Village Voice in its legal harassment of our local homeowners' newsletter. For pete's sake, we are a small neighborhood (500 homes) and have no connection and, happily, no similarity to the Village Voice?which represents something we definitely are not. We are proud of Fran Reichenbach's efforts to inform us of our neighborhood issues and like the title of her newsletter.
Kris Sullivan, Hollywoodland, CA
Goliath's Slingshot
Alexander Zaitchik: I just wanted to take a moment to applaud the good sense and gumption behind your article on the Village Voice. I grew up on Long Island in the 50s and 60s with liberal parents who took great pride in having the Voice delivered to our home. It was a great paper that was not afraid to tell the truth, with offices located on Broadway (in the West Village) with their logo lettered on their second-story windows that seemed to speak of their great pride in having survived their own birth.
Now they've become the Goliath that they used to pride themselves in going up against, and sadly, they are in danger of consuming themselves. In regards to their lawyers' bullying local rags with similar names or logos, it is bad business, bad law and bad form for a once-great anti-paper to act in this shameless fashion.
I guess when they moved out of the second-story office on Broadway and into the former home of Seagram's on Cooper Square, things started to change for the worse. And it finally got to the point where they had to start giving the paper away for free just to get circulation back to the point where they could get the advertising revenue needed to survive. For whatever reasons, the Voice no longer seems fresh or relevant anymore. It's sad to say, but from the 80s to today, when most of us stopped drinking, maybe the Voice just stopped thinking. Thanks for writing the truth. It does matter.
Michael Gladstone, Los Angeles
Page 10 Is "Nether"?
I think that your latest issue provides a perfect example of why your paper sucks. You devote a huge fucking spread to some stupid, petty Village Voice "scandal" and meanwhile, an important?and dare I say it??relevant article on something like genocide denial is relegated to the nether pages of your "New York City" section.
Here's a suggestion folks: dedicate a little less time to being vindictive, bitter bar-huggers and a little more time to being discerning journalists, and you won't have to compete with the Village Voice for the title of "Least Crappy Free Paper in New York."
J. Brunero, Manhattan
Co-Op Shitty
I enjoy C.J. Sullivan's writings, and this was another fine article ("Bronx Stroll," 4/23). However, I would like to comment that Co-Op City was a disaster for the Bronx. The construction of the complex sucked the middle class right out of the old neighborhoods. The bad planning of Robert Moses, the building of these huge apartment complexes and the invasion of the uncivilized destroyed the borough. The Bronx that turned into rubble in the 70s and 80s was actually fairly young. Those apartment buildings were all early-20th-century, post-code and post-subway construction. In theory, that real estate was, and remains, prime.
John McKeown, Canandaigua, NY
Deeper Than You Think
Mike Taibbi is 100 percent right about corruption at the MTA ("Unfair Hike," 4/16), but he doesn't know quite enough about insider politics at the MTA to understand the Louis Anemone tiff.
Anemone was hired to put security measures into effect that would prevent some massive terrorist incident, particularly in the subway or railroad tunnels. To take that job seriously, he had to worry about the presence of private contractors in those tunnels and their adjacent electronic control rooms, since they compose new workforces of transient laborers on a daily basis. Who is lurking in those under-river tubes? As I see it, Anemone favored using the in-house workforce (which happens to also be cheaper) instead. But those contracts are worth billions of dollars, and so MTA Chairman Kalikow and Pataki henchwoman/Executive Director Katherine Lapp had to choose between Anemone and the ability to dispense money. It was an easy call.
What gives Anemone's story the gleam of legitimacy was his fingering of Gary Dellaverson, MTA director of labor relations, and the ultimate insider, as his source of information on corruption. Of course Dellaverson denied any role once Anemone began to swing in the wind: Dellaverson didn't raise stupid children. And the mainstream media obligingly accepted his denial. But Dellaverson, though he plays hardball with labor on costs, is a "good government" type who takes offense at the contractors' waste of public money. Most likely, Dellaverson saw Anemone as an ally?the enemy of my enemy is my friend. He just didn't realize that Anemone wouldn't be deft enough to swim in the treacherous waters of MTA politics.
Marc Kagan, former Assistant to the President of Transport Workers Union Local 100, Manhattan
See Below
I CAN hardly wait to see how many humorless readers write in to protest Matt Taibbi's clearly sarcastic column ("Cage Match," 4/16). Judging by the previous clueless responses to Neal Pollack, there should be quite a few.
Lisa Braun, Manhattan
See Above
PLEASEHAVE Matt Taibbi tested. I'm fairly sure he's retarded.
Matthew E. Goldenberg, Manhattan
Salad Days Salute
MUGGER's panegyric to Donald Rumsfeld?"Bush's number-one visionary" (MUGGER, 4/16)?disgusts and saddens me and fills me with nostalgia for the glory days of New York Press.
In the mid-90s, New York Press gained a reputation as one of the most intellectually scintillating and cutting-edge "alternative" papers in the country. The Press filled the vacuum left by the intellectual decline of the Village Voice, which had become stale and predictable, and it refurbished New York's own faded image as a home for the underground and bohemian avant-garde. The Press' cultural eclipse of the Village Voice, a phenomena duly noted in the world of alternative journalism, was made possible by the unusual collaboration of antiliberal but libertarian publisher Russ Smith (a.k.a. MUGGER), and leftish editor John Strausbaugh. The writers for the Press in the 1990s were a motley crew of postmodern hipsters, existentialist intellectual nomads and politically incorrect lefties.
By the mid-90s, Press contributors included distinguished journalists ranging from socialist Alexander Cockburn to right-wing libertarian Christopher Caldwell. But unfortunately, as the fortunes of the Republican right burgeoned in the late 90s, MUGGER gradually morphed from a quasi-conservative iconoclast into a journalistic groupie of George W. Bush, and thus eventually into a neo-con racist pro-war cheerleader of the new American imperialism. After Bush's election, MUGGER's tolerance for the talented NYC misfits he had hired had worn thin, and he turned the Press into his own mouthpiece?with a few remaining dissenting voices.
Fortunately, the new management that recently took over has reined in MUGGER's ego, made significant strides in an effort to restore the Press' New York vibe, and added Matt Taibbi to the Press' pool of assets. However, the journal has not yet fully recovered its mid-90s elan, and MUGGER's increasingly virulent and vapid neo-fascist cant, as exemplified by his recent article extolling Donald Rumsfeld as a great "visionary," (MUGGER, 4/16) is an insult to the numerous enlightened artists and intellectuals who once read the Press regularly.
It's bad enough that Bush is our führer now. How many New York intellectuals want to pick up an "alternative" magazine that contains weekly plaudits to the Great Leader?not to mention the fan letters to MUGGER that keep streaming in from Rush Limbaugh-ites in the boondocks? The Press will continue, I grant you, to "sell in Peoria" (as Nixon used to say)?but I'm afraid it has lost its allure in NYC, in San Francisco, in Paris, in Berlin.
But it's not too late to restore the Press to its former stature, if you are willing to take two simple measures: First, encourage MUGGER to move on in life. Don't feel sorry for him?I'm sure there is a place waiting for him (with a larger salary) at the New York Post or the New York Sun, or the Weekly Standard?or perhaps he can even have his own talk show on FOX News Channel. Second, call John Strausbaugh and ask him to come back on board?at least as a regular contributing writer (perhaps as a replacement for MUGGER). I say this not because (full disclosure) Strausbaugh wrote a couple of interesting articles on books I wrote, but because he is a brilliant cultural critic (as exemplified by his book on rock music)?and he was a meticulous and inspired editor. And please, could you also bring back Cockburn and George Szamuely?
Seth Farber, Manhattan
Eric the Alderman
MUGGER: I'm all for mocking the pomposity of the so-called cognoscenti?the reliably obnoxious behavior of the fabulous helps keep Kraft Mac & Cheese on the tv trays of people like me?but it bugs me when journalists take unfair potshots at easy targets (MUGGER, 4/23).
Even though George Gurley decided against providing the context of my comments, he knows that what I admire about Eric Alterman is his generosity in fostering my freelance journalism career. See, without having an actual job?say, for example, at the Observer?cub reporters don't get invited to the after-work parties where the swell folks who rule the NY media landscape mingle and mix. It is at such schmooze-fests that a freelance reporter can meet editors, ingratiate oneself with potential sources and, sometimes, generate story ideas. Eric takes me to some of these shindigs, and he gets nothing out of the deal (except, of course, my delightful company). Sickening as it may sound, my success in securing assignments relies, in part, on my having the occasional opportunity to foist myself upon the Michael's set.
Eric is the only "media insider" I have ever met who has been consistently encouraging of my work?whether I'm on a hot streak or throwing air balls. If Gurley had ever tried to bootstrap it as a freelancer, he would recognize that Eric's kind of support is unique and, in fact, admirable.
Katherine Rosman, Manhattan
Nuts and Bolts
MUGGER: You'd do well to lose the case of denial that you suffer from. Reagan, while a spectacular president, was a criminal, or is the sale of weapons of mass destruction to Saddam just peachy to you? Must be tough to know that the guy whom you consider a saint is in reality a traitor and a dangerous man. Do you right-wing nuts really believe this? Is being anti-Bush the same as being anti-military? When Clinton saved Kosovo, and you right-wing nuts were against it, were you being anti-military, or are you guys just being the hypocrites that you always are?
Matt Gelfand, Brooklyn
Isn't That in Latvia?
MUGGER: I hope the contractual obligations at the time of the sale that call for you to continue the column have a sunshine clause. The paper has morphed into the Voice Lite, and it is regrettable that our side of the political fence has one less conduit for expression. The boys should have stayed in Prague.
Ron Malpeli, Staatsburg, NY
For Kicks
MUGGER: Why are you so bitter and snide? I feel that it hurts the points you make.
Matt Mecs, Manhattan
Shinn Kicker
MIKESIGNORILE: I don't pay much attention to Grove or other slammers ("The Gist," 4/23). I'm certain you are aware of the fact that there have been zero lawsuits resulting from Brock's book or Conason's book, two of the better renderings of the whacked right. To me, that says they nailed it!
James C. Shinn, York, PA
Not Anymore
GOODPIECE on the Voice's bullying of smaller papers ("Flower Power," 4/23), but you don't mention the current owner, who I imagine might have something to do with the paper's legal policies. Isn't it Rupert?
Bob Laurence, San Diego
The editors reply: The current owner of the Village Voice is Village Voice Media, Inc., a group of investors that bought the Voice (and seven other weeklies) in 2000 from Leonard Stern. Rupert Murdoch owned the Voice from 1976 to 1985.
Travis?Fimmel?
YEAH, YEAH, I know you ran that "50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers" article (3/26) more than three weeks ago, and I know this letter is late. However, I'm still pissed off about #36, "That Guy in the Huge Calvin Ad at Houston & Broadway." For your information, "that guy" has a name: it is Travis Fimmel. How did I know this, since I don't really follow the celebrity/model scene? Well, it's not exactly obscure information. I mean, come on! If you're going to mention a public figure in an article, at least make an effort to find out the person's name!
And the whole "loathsome New Yorker" thing started me thinking: if the Press can't even bother to find out the guy's name, how the heck do they even know he's a New Yorker?
Curious, I did a little search online (something apparently your staff was unable to do). I found out that?surprise!?Fimmel is not a New Yorker at all, loathsome or otherwise. He was raised in Victoria, Australia, and now lives in Los Angeles.
And what exactly is loathsome about Fimmel? Is he some kind of stupid, vapid, social-climbing, obnoxious celebrity asshole? Or was the all-male committee for this article merely jealous of Fimmel's good looks?
Suspecting the latter, I did another search online. Interestingly enough, I learned that Fimmel is apparently a regular guy, even though he does hang out at trendy places with celebrities, as might be expected for someone in his line of work.
So, let's review the info: #36 has a name, is not a New Yorker, and, to our knowledge, has not exhibited any loathsome06-MAI attributes or behavior. If, in a city of eight million people, you can't find an actual New York resident who has worse qualities than Fimmel, then maybe you'd better look a little harder.
Amanda Jones, Brooklyn
Waiting for Orders
MATTTAIBBI: Your last two pieces have been amusing, but where's the Slowdown? I'm waiting for marching orders. When I wrote to you, I didn't mean for you to slow down! It's the economy stupid! Yes, I like the idea of the stock market?beat it into the fucking ground. And remember, gasoline means oil, which means Bush and Cheney. That's all those mental midgets understand. Kind of like MUGGER. And, the sooner it happens the sooner we are freed from the insufferable, mindless utterances of MUGGER! He can go to Guantanomo Bay along with Bush and crew after the 2004 elections. Special provisions are being provided there for all of them?lots of maps, videos of flashing ordnances, a revised version of the Bible wherein Bush 43 is heralded as the manifestation of the second coming!
And in another category of activity, what's with Colin Powell? He's managed to mislead, misdirect, lie, change uniforms, and no one seems upset. Is that leadership? He was supposed to be the soldier's statesman?the Vietnam vet, the army general, the man who had been there. Old soldiers are supposed to remember where they came from. General Powell forgot.
Is Powell George Bush's nigger? As I've come to understand the word, one needs to show some linkage between Powell's behavior and his race to use this epithet. I had dismissed Harry Bellafonte's suggestions to that effect, but now I'm not sure. Let's throw it open to your readers.
Gerald S. Rellick, Santa Ana, CA
Ever Hear of Legacy?
MUGGER: Loved today's column (4/23). You should check the educational background of these Hollywood creeps. It will surprise you, for instance, that Cher never finished high school. They call our president a dummy. He has two degrees from prestigious universities?can Sarandon, Sheen and the rest match that? They should stick to what they do best and keep their mouths shut!
J. Reekie, San Marcos, CA
Gurley, Gurley, Gone
MUGGER: I definitely agree that George Gurley (3/26) did a splendid job of skewering a major-league asshole in the Observer, however I was wondering what the hell has happened to what was once quite an enjoyable, quintessentially New York paper. What really did it for me was the change on their editorial page of late, especially regarding the war. What is going on over there?
N.S. Heftler, Manhattan
Robbins' Roles
MUGGER: When I was listening to Tim Robbins at the National Press Club, I wondered where I'd heard that accent. It is the voice of a second-rate, community-college actor bent on taking all the life out of Chekov, Shakespeare and Shaw. It is: Listen to me, I am an actor in an important role.
Laura Skamser, Elgin, IL
Elite Models
MUGGER: That was a great column on Donald Rumsfeld (MUGGER, 4/16). He is a hero for our times. I kind of figure that since his stint as secretary of defense in the Ford administration, he's had a chance to completely analyze how to perform the job better than anyone in history. I know New York Times management's panties are twisted over the success of the Bush administration. Even though Karl Rove may be Lee Atwater reincarnated, he's got his work cut out for him in the upcoming election with the press being so rabidly anti-Bush.
You know, I think the real reason Howell Raines hates the Bush administration is not as much ideological as it is the fact that the Times has lost so much influence on the world and national scene. The ties to the Council on Foreign Relations have been a real detriment to them since President Bush is determined to control foreign policy instead of letting the New York-Washington self-appointed jerkoff elites run things.
Phil Elmore, Montgomery, TX
Take Back the 16th
MUGGER: You wrote, "Unlike the first President Bush, who had no affinity for campaigning or concentrating on problems at home, his son not only is a better politician, but is far more ideological" (MUGGER, 4/16).
James Baker had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he described himself a reformed drunk on the issue of marginal tax rates. He noted at one point that Ronald Reagan got the top rate reduced from 70 percent to 26 percent. Then he notes that when W. gets to office, the top rate was near 40 percent; but he didn't mention the role played in this by his fellow Rockefeller Republican George Herbert Walker Bush, who lied his way to election by telling us to read his lips.
The irony is that the two major policies of W.?removal of Saddam and reduction of taxes?will, at best, reverse the most disastrous mistakes of his father's administration. You wished for a treasury secretary with Rummy's resolve. I wish his last one, William Simon, had more success in selling the single most important reform we need to restore the proper relationship between the people and the federal government: the repeal of the sixteenth amendment, which permits an income tax and replacement of the revenues by a national sales tax. When the government wants to know how much money citizens make, how they spend or invest it, how many kids do you have, do you own or rent, the citizen would be free to respond in a way to make the original George W. proud: None of your fucking business!
Terence Favor, Seattle
Smith on Smith
UNFORTUNATELY, like many of the right-wing media's ideologues, Russ Smith presents a baseless (and sometimes paradoxical) argument, lacking in derivation in his article on the vindication of secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld (MUGGER, 4/16). The composition is a poorly reasoned thesis ripe with key omissions, pockmarked with childish vituperations toward the left.
First, Smith argues that Rumsfeld is President Bush's number-one guy and should be vindicated based on his recent behavior that has included showing signs of obstinate prudence when asked about the present looting in Baghdad, terseness with the media, bellicose rhetoric regarding Syria and the voicing of a warning against American hubris by stating that the war is not over yet. Really?
Regarding the looting, Robert Fisk, in an April 12 article posted on Zmag.org states: "Pillage merits a specific prevention clause in the Geneva Conventions, just as it did in the 1907 Hague Convention upon which the Geneva delegates based their 'rules of war.' 'Pillage is prohibited,' the 1949 Geneva Conventions say? When an occupying power takes over another country's territory, it automatically becomes responsible for the protection of its civilians, their property and institutions."
Not to see the legal and moral correctness in finding a defense secretary's lack of knowledge of the rules of war culpable is beyond me. Rumsfeld's order that only the Ministry of Oil and the Ministry of Interior be protected by troops, but not the Ministries of Planning, Education, Irrigation, Trade, Industry, Foreign Affairs and Culture Information is hardly meritorious behavior. In fact it is blameful behavior not worthy of vindication no matter how understanding Rumsfeld is of "the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of repression." John F. Burns' Times article does nothing to clear from blame the U.S. military's ignorance of the conventions the previous five days of "chaos that turned Baghdad into a place of nightmarish lawlessness."
As for Rumsfeld's giving explicit opinions to the media, how is this proof of vindication when it's those same belligerent opinions that turn world opinion against U.S. policy (and also against a vulnerable U.S. population)? Contrast this argument with Smith's approval of Ari Fleischer's "necessary evasiveness." Well, which deserves praise: frankness or equivocalness? Concerning Rumsfeld's opprobrium of France and Germany, Smith reasons that since Rumsfeld had the chutzpah or hardheadedness to make his personal opinion public, that Rumsfeld's audaciousness alone exculpates him. What? There isn't even an argument here. If the argument is it's his frankness that allies him with Bush, how is Rumsfeld's Nixonist "mad man" persona helping Bush's diplomacy, besides helping him to put the fear of god in every non-American and to render international law obsolete? Is that the point?
Smith then argues that Rumsfeld should be praised or vindicated because he asserts the U.S., not the U.N., should plant the seeds of a new Iraqi government. Smith, like Rumsfeld and his ilk, are just oblivious to the workings of democracy. An occupying power cannot just set up any government it deems fit. Even the choosing of any candidates by the U.S. sabotages the Iraqis' right to free elections. This is just elementary.
Finally, Smith reasons that since Rumsfeld was more restrained in his response to the fall of the Ba'athist regime than Dick Cheney was, this again is a call for accolades for the secretary. Smith is praising Rumsfeld for something that a defense secretary should be doing. Rumsfeld is supposed to be even-headed and logical as the secretary of defense during wartime, or for that matter, anytime. It's not a big surprise that he's not high-fiving his pals and crushing beer cans on his head. Again, I have trouble following the general argument: Is it bellicosity or restraint for which Smith praises Rumsfeld?
As of this writing, looting and lawlessness continue in and around Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. Al Jazeera reported today that tens of thousands of protestors rallied against the U.S. military's occupation of their country. Regarding Iraqi deaths?estimates are in the thousands. The majority of the countries in the world are against the jingoistic behavior of the U.S. administration and its military. But, with media commentators like Russ Smith to gloss over bad things like the indignation and death of the "liberated" while deifying the gods of government, Rumsfeld's prospects for job security are anathema to the rest of the U.S. population's.
Scott Smith, Brooklyn
South Central Baghdad
LOVE your column, MUGGER. Have you noticed that in Baghdad they are "looters" and "rioters," and "chaos and destruction" reign?yet in Los Angeles after Rodney King, they were "protestors?" No bias there.
Frank Gaines, Santee, CA
Robbins, Williams
MUGGER: Dale Petrovesky made a mistake when he wrote Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon a letter that excluded the pair from the Baseball Hall of Fame's celebration of Bull Durham. I abhor Robbins' being allowed an opportunity to politicize his involvement in this event. Petrovesky should have postponed the event indefinitely and then privately restructured the celebration if need be. Publicly acknowledging that Robbins and his partner's anti-administration words and actions might jeopardize the event only allows them to claim themselves to be victims of "the vast right-wing conspiracy."
Contrast if you can, the great Ted Williams and the sacrifices he made in his baseball career for his country to the self-absorbed Tim Robbins, and then ask the question out loud: "Should Tim Robbins even be allowed in the same building that honors Ted Williams?"
Tracy Meadows, Brenham, TX
Where's the Remote, Honey?
MUGGER: My wife, no ideologue, sat down to watch a movie, Ice something or other. She had no idea who the actors were, and when Susan Sarandon appeared on screen, she switched channels saying, "I just cannot watch these people any more, especially after Martin Sheen actually appeared with duct tape over his mouth." Vitriolic political comments, offensive to more than 70 percent of Americans, is not a good "role" for those to play who depend on loyal fans for their riches. All they have earned is resentment.
G.B. Hall, Montgomery, AL