Conglomo Wisdom Conglomo Wisdom I never thought I’d ...

Conglomo Wisdom

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be aligning myself with Wal-Mart, but God bless Ned Vizzini for sticking up for the retailer's right to ban empty-headed wank material like Maxim, et al., from its shelves. ("Daily Billboard," 5/6). There's no moral high ground here: Wal-Mart, in case people have forgotten, is a corporation, and it's going to do whatever it feels is in its best interests in order to make money, just as Dennis Publishing has been doing since the day it set up shop in America. Somehow, I'm sure the oppressed journalists at Dennis will find an alternative means of reaching the intellectually insatiable readership they've been denied, perhaps by packaging their trademark softcore porn within the guise of a legitimate magazine. Perhaps they could even call this magazine Blender.

Dave Itzkoff, Manhattan

Jesus Sayeth

Excuse me, but the letter from Jack Seney ("The Mail," 5/7) regarding Jesus Christ's views on marriage has a very serious error in terms of properly quoting the Bible.

Mr. Seney refers to Matthew 19:4 as the proof positive that Jesus believed "marriage is for one man and one woman and this certainly excludes homosexual or any other illicit sex." Which Bible is Mr. Seney reading? In Matthew 19:4 and the verses before and after the passage, Jesus was actually talking about divorce and how it is a sin for married couples to end their union and to remarry after a divorce. It is ironic that many people who misuse the Bible to advocate homophobia casually forget that Jesus never spoke against gays but spoke very clearly about heterosexual shenanigans like divorce, which contemporary society considers to be anything but sinful.

Rev. Phil Hall, Manhattan

Bible-Thumping

Margie Phelps writes ("The Mail," 5/7): "You and your readers are in desperate need of about five dozen readings of Romans 1?quickly."

I would like to point out the first verse of Romans 2: "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things."

Ms. Phelps needs to read Romans 2:1 about five dozen times herself.

Deana M. Holmes, Mesa, AZ

Swiss Sterling

Matt Taibbi: Thanks for your editorial. I too am appalled by the Politburo capitalists and astonished by the passivity of the American street ("Cage Match," 5/7). Do they even listen to what is being said? Or object to the loss of all rights to privacy and free speech and association? All they seem to care about is having rights to assault rifles.

Sterling Doughty, Adliswil, Switzerland

McAngel

It was terrific to read C.J. Sullivan's article on the origin of the Guardian Angels ("Bronx Stroll," 5/7). I think they were and are just great. At the time they were formed many of my friends feared them as some sort of paramilitary nuts, but once I saw how they were going about their business and minding their own except for the reporting of potential violence on the subways, I became a big fan. Just one factual question: Did Curtis Sliwa also manage the McDonald's on White Plains Rd.? He talks about it on the radio.

David S. Levine, Lincolndale, NY

Gangbaggers

Did the 30 cadets (or other men) in the gangbang use condoms or not? Signorile brings up the issue regarding Andrew Sullivan's behavior but not in the airforce case ("The Gist," 5/7). Did he ask the question?

Gini Sikes, Brooklyn

MUGGER, Sr.

Is Harry Siegel serious ("New York City," 5/7), or is he another mentally ill writer like MUGGER you hire to write outrageous things in order to inspire hate mail? His article about Bloomberg and taxes was completely mentally ill, because it's already been demonstrated that taxes have no effect on the economy. Don't forget, Reaganomics failed according to every study; that's why Bush Sr. called it "voodoo economics," and Clinton got elected saying we had to bite the bullet and raise taxes, and that's exactly what he did. The result? A booming economy. Now Bush Jr. keeps "cutting taxes" and the result is plain as day, and our economy is dead. Get Siegel some antipsychotic meds and send him back to elementary school.

Janice Amato, Manhattan

Gotta Be Quick!

Re: Your feature on the Staten Island Bigfoot ("Trashquatch!" 4/30), after 27 years of research, I have found that these beings are paranormal entities and are not flesh and blood 100 percent of the time. Hence, they are never captured, but can only be photographed.

Jon-Erik Beckjord, Berkeley

Comrade Kwiatkowski

Just a quick note to say Matt Taibbi is a genius. Lew Rockwell linked to this week's article, and as usual, Matt was brilliant ("Cage Match," 5/7). He has captured what many of us felt watching the "war hero"?who never bothered to show up to his State Guard hidey hole during Vietnam?wear the uniform and "medals" on the U.S.S. Lincoln. We joked about this when we hated the Soviets. It's no joke now, though.

Karen Kwiatkowski, Mount Jackson, VA

Feeling Safer Already

This is certainly a terrific article ("Cage Match," 5/7), but Taibbi missed one interesting item. The Department of Homeland Security has actually just hired Primakov, the former head of the KGB. Yes, it's true.

Richard Cummings, Bridgehampton, NY

Vintage White

Maybe I'm off here, but Armond might be loading up this movie with just a wee bit too much artistic expectation. His beef isn't with the film at all, but with the comic. Every criticism he levies against this flick is picking on it for being true to the source material. Every detail and character flaw Armond is so disappointed at Bryan Singer for not doing something more with comes straight from the comic. If Singer had intended to make a film about all these lofty social themes, he wouldn't have chosen to direct a comic book movie in the first place. Besides, the comic movie that Armond would like to see would be a boring muddle weighed down by themes it couldn't support.

The movie is about escapist entertainment: good, imaginative, skillfully constructed, but pure entertainment nonetheless, something Armond seems completely incapable of wrapping his pointy head around. Yo! Armond! Will you get some fucking perspective?

It's fitting that in the same column, Armond heaps praise on the intellectual shuck-and-jive of Matthew Barney. See, that's really Armond's problem; he's a frustrated art critic who, like the solipsistic intellectuals he aspires to, can't enjoy something merely on the merits of being beautiful/entertaining/well-crafted. I hate to think I'm naysaying someone who's trying to raise the level of discourse and encourage more ambitious artistry, but he is so completely misguided in his diatribe half the time. I suppose if he were writing music criticism he'd go after the Ramones for only using three chords and glorifying the simple pleasures of New York street life.

Of course, in his own backwards way, Armond performs a valuable public service. I can think of no more ringing endorsement for any pop film than his antipathy.

Mike Strassman, Brooklyn

West Words

Mike Signorile: I love it when you highlight the fictitious nature of the current administration ("The Gist," 4/30). One of the results of recent world events has been for me to discover a wealth of alternative press. It is all based out of this country. But as far as someone in this country writing about the duping (manipulation) of the American public by the current administration, you're still tops in my book. Please keep up the great work.

Mike West, Hollywood

Killers for Christ

Mike Signorile: Your article on terrorist attacks, Iraq, etc., was right on the money ("The Gist," 4/23). I'd like to ask, far and wide, is there anybody in this country who is considering the potential for terrorist attacks from within this country? Not only in "the backwoods of Arkansas" but the backwoods of Idaho and many rural areas is lurking a potentially bigger threat: right-wing extremism. Furthermore, is it any coincidence that this administration, well known to be in political bed with right-wing/religious-millennial-fanatic/Aryan Nations groups, might be resisting gun control because, in doing so, they arm a shadow army of right-wing militiamen?

I rarely hear anything about this in the press and I believe it to be more than simple lefty mistrust of the current regime. And, while we're at it, whatever happened to the anthrax terrorist acts of a year ago? Where is the investigation of this going, if anywhere? Why is this right-wing regime ignoring this very real use of WMD against the American people? If anybody were to ask me, I'd say that our real threat is from right here inside this country by right-wing, white Christian fanatics (that might lead to some interesting racial profiling!). I think the press needs to start asking some tough questions here.

Lou Dattilo, Austin

Smoked Out

Thank god for Jim Knipfel for constantly bashing the smoking ban and updating me on related news in the "Daily Billboard." I've lived in California for the past three years. Don't worry, Jim, you'll be able to find a bar to smoke in; you just might have to wait a while. Things worked themselves out in San Francisco. There are a ton of bars that allow smoking. It just takes some time to find them. And people have largely left these places alone. The law doesn't wipe out smoking in all bars, just most. The law sucks, but hope remains out there.

Nick Yulico, San Francisco

Koyen: B-b-b-body slammed!

Jeff Koyen's piece ("The Intro," 4/30) is a fine example of why I quit reading the Voice years ago. "The Intro" to what? Pointless personal maundering replete with international intoxication and precious references to locations in Budapest introduces me to nothing. Manu Chao's Clandestino may be someone's national anthem, but I never heard of him, or the song. The abstruse namedropping and narcissistic insularity smacks of the same juvenile essays in terminal hipness that dripped over the pages of the Voice.

What really incited this letter however, was the caption under the cryptic photograph accompanying the piece. Two hangman's nooses, hanging from a co-joined gibbet above a platform with stairs leading up to it is shown. The caption: "Galleys stand in memorial to the six rebels executed after an attempted coup at the Staten Island Zoo's serpentarium, 1955."

"Galleys"? Try gallows. Lack of attention to your own galleys I presume, since it smacks more of lazy malapropism than misspelling. A quick Google search found nothing awry at the zoo in 1955. Could be there was. Could also be a senselessly obtuse joke caption, however poorly presented. Either way it's a waste of ink. The whole piece is burdened with self-absorption to the point of being sophomoric.

Uninformative opacity is a poor substitute for depth. It's as tiresome in the Press as it was in the Voice.

Bruce Robertson Smith, Manhattan

Shrewd Observer

MUGGER: In fact, I totally agree (MUGGER, 5/7) with the Observer that Bush is "the worst President in 100 years, a President whose decisions have placed the nation's economic and environmental health in jeopardy." I also think that he is not only "leading the country into economic meltdown" but in addition, blithely allowing his neo-con millionaire buddies to turn the entire country into a banana republic with no civic responsibility to do anything but shut up and shop.

We build, sell and own more arms than any country in the world. We have more prisons and more people locked up in prisons than any country in the world. We are fast on the road to having the most poorly educated citizens in the world, and we are destroying the world's resources as fast as we can complete our denial about the consequences for our children and their children. We are definitely on a road to ruin. This hopeful experiment of democracy, dreamed up by the original patriots, is on the brink of being extinguished.

Berkeley B. Stewart, Whittier, CA

Suzie's Dated Info

Back in 1977, the Village Voice continued a long-standing policy of telling the Stuyvesant H.S. student paper, the Stuyvesant Voice, to cease and desist. Our student paper used the same style of logo as the Voice, and while the editors complained it was unreasonable bullying, the fact is that they purposefully copied the Voice. According to your piece, this was still when "the Voice [presumably the Village Voice] represented the values and practices of local, progressive, independent publishing." To me, every Boca Voice is making a humorous connection to the Village Voice, rather than coming up with an original name (The Boca Breeze).

That New York Press, a right-wing-funded and -founded paper that came into being expressly to counter the political views (liberal, pro-working, middle-class and poor) of the dominant New York listings paper is making a jab at corporate policy is absurd. To me, it's all part of the effort to denigrate the Voice and by extension its politics by all means necessary. It seems the Press picks and chooses its issues (i.e., we'll flaunt sexuality; that'll work in NY) in order to support its main goal, Republicanism. New York Press is consistently pro-Bush, pro-tax cuts for the wealthy, pro-war?MUGGER was the mother lode; Taki closer to Pataki than Voice-style working-class sympathies.

There, I've said it; now I hope you print it and people start reading a little more critically. But it seems your bet is that most people are sheep; make it sound cool and they will come, whatever it is.

Susan Arkun, Manhattan

After-School Detention

Matt Taibbi goes to great lengths to discuss what Neil Lewis of the New York Times left out ("Cage Match," 4/30) in his story on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, but he leaves out something significant himself. Taibbi never mentions how the prisoners got captured. None of them were snatched off the street?as Taibbi imagines doing to Lewis?but all were captured as they were members of an international gang of armed terrorists who were engaged in conflict with American troops. And this even includes the 15-year-old cherubs.

Jerry Skurnik, Manhattan

Q&A with Klein

MUGGER: In the months before the start of combat, I was repeatedly asked by several of my soft-headed bartenders how long the war would take. I said, "This war is over. All that's left is to drive to Baghdad and divvy up the spoils."

Now, in the aftermath of victory, the latest keening is about the new Iraqi government; concern for the future of Iraq makes more sense, because there'll be trouble for the children of the prophet if we don't get their new government right. Just as war is too important to be left to the generals, so peace is too important to be left to the diplomats.

Newt was right: Foggy Bottom is a swamp, and Powell is not the guy to clean it up. He's just too nice, and will fail unless his choke chain is kept snug. Bush will keep control if we want this new government to survive. He seems to know that. Iraq needs only three things: a constitution that protects the rights of all, a judiciary to review all legislation and a democracy with separation of powers.

Only then can the passions of the lynch-mob be controlled. It will take a while for these notions to settle in: for elections, legislation and judicial rulings to become the laws of the land, and for the system to work smoothly. Democracies need time to grow.

I've also been asked how long we'll be in Iraq. Since I let history be my guide, I answer with: "How long've we been in Germany and Japan?" When I tell them we could be in Iraq for fifty years, they blanch. Well, it's true. We have occupied them since WWII. Everyone's horrified that we'll be there till 2050. But, democracies also need a safe place to grow, protected by the steel walls provided by the American military.

James B. Klein, San Francisco

Freedom of Information Mack

Cecil Adams ("The Straight Dope," 4/30) neglects to mention that the government has a federal holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. in spite of the fact that the FBI file on King is suppressed until 2027. What information is so derogatory about King that it has to be suppressed under lock and key? What about the "right to know" that liberals are always touting?

For further information, consult the Congressional Record for October 3, 1983 (pages S13452-S13461), and the book It's Very Simple: The True Story of Civil Rights by Alan Stang.

David Hammer, Bronx

 

Ray on Alert

You're being disingenuous, Mike, with your shotgun attack on anything that doesn't make 100 percent sense to you ("The Gist," 4/23). But here are some questions you need to ask yourself: After 9/11, how many successful terrorist attacks would you have expected to have occurred on U.S. soil by now? How many do you expect in the near future? Do you think there really is a threat? Or not?

To criticize everything the administration is doing, without in the meantime admitting that your answer to question number one above was certainly not zero?is absurd. And since the answer to date, thank goodness, remains zero, doesn't somebody somewhere deserve some credit? I trust you saw the Reuters story today about the Egyptian who died in Brazil after opening a suitcase suspected to be full of anthrax. It appears the drop-off was to be made in Canada. I imagine they are counting on guys like you to scream if Ashcroft ever thinks about restricting border crossings. Keep up the good work.

Ray Martin, Ridgefield, CT

Grimm News

William Bryk's "Old Smoke" column (4/30) was an interesting overview of Edward MacDowell. One irony he missed was that many of the musicians who ignored MacDowell were beneficiaries of the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire (at MacDowell's summer home). For many years, being invited for the summer at MacDowell was an important addition to any artist's resume.

Perhaps Bryk overstates the case. MacDowell's second piano concerto?a true masterpiece?has had at least 10 recordings since the 1930s and, at any time in discographic history, has always been in print. The problem is that MacDowell has lacked a high-profile champion to promote his cause.

But what's with the Ives bashing? Every time someone wants to promote an early 20th-century American composer, it comes with a statement denigrating Ives. To say that Ives' major works "are unlistenable" is not to listen.

Foster Grimm, Manhattan

Gayish and Liberal?!

You can count on C.J. Sullivan to generalize unfairly against white ethnics. In his essay "Crossing Broad Channel" ("New York City," 4/30), he mentions a Jewish friend dropping into a bar there at 3 a.m. and getting unfriendly stares, comments. Of course, this wasn't right, but still he shouldn't generalize against all residents there as racist.

If Sullivan dropped into a Russian-Jewish eatery on the Brighton Beach boardwalk late at night, he could expect his gayish looks would get stares, but maybe more subtle. This is not racism.

It's liberals, not non-liberals, who seem most race-conscious and deluded in thinking they are tolerant of diversity of thought and class.

S. Smith, Manhattan

Skewed Perspective

Mike Signorile: Thanks for writing the article about Sen. Rick Santorum's ghoulish method of traumatizing his children ("The Gist," 4/30) for the remainder of their lives (petting the dead baby Gabriel). It sure beats burying a goldfish for teaching kids about death, doesn't it?

It led me to check up on (Oregon) Sen. Smith's criticism of Santorum's remarks. I couldn't find it on the net, but I did find a raging homophobic group, www.conservativeusa.org/homoagenda.htm, that speaks of perverse pachyderms, sodomites, anal-sex practitioners and diseased sodomites. There are diatribes against Bush, Ashcroft, Frist, Gordon Smith and Santorum.

Apparently this group thinks Santorum is pro-gay. How about that? Headline: "FRIST, SANTORUM, AND OREGON'S GORDON SMITH PROMOTE GROUP RIGHTS FOR SODOMITES"

Quote: "Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) hosted a meeting with senior LCR leaders to discuss a range of issues such as antidiscrimination legislation, hate crimes and gay marriage. LCR's leadership also met with Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, to discuss the deadlock over judicial nominations and upcoming votes on legislative issues."

They were condemning Santorum, Frist and Smith for consulting the LCR to obtain their views. How about contacting this organization and asking their opinion of Santorum, in light of his past "behavior" and his current grandstanding? My, my, politics does make for strange bedfellows, doesn't it?

Elaine Cole, Joseph, OR

Budget Buster

Harry Siegel missed the real issues related to the fiscal crises facing New York City ("New York City," 5/7). Billions of dollars have been lost over the past decade up to the present due to administrative costs. Moving tax dollars from the city, county and state level to Washington and back eats scarce tax dollars in overhead costs. Year after year, former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan documented how New Yorkers send more money to Washington than we get back. Many of the 50 states could make the same argument.

This imbalance also holds true in the distribution of federal and state aid among the 62 counties of New York State. Within New York City, residents of Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island or each of the 59 community planning boards don't always get back the same amount of money sent to City Hall, Albany and Washington. You could take this analysis down to the local census-tract level. Since this imbalance will never change, we would be better off leaving tax levies at the most local level of government. There will be significant savings in administrative costs and a greater percentage of locally generated revenues remaining in our communities.

Larry Penner, Great Neck, NY

2008

MUGGER: How about Condoleezza Rice for president or, at the least, vice-president? Black, woman, smart, knowledgeable in foreign relations, friendly with the Russians, speaks Russian fluently, owes nobody nothing.

James Magill, Lyons, NY

Smokin'

MUGGER: Another column dedicated to blowing smoke up Bush's rear end (5/7). I wish you'd turn your attention to New York City and its problems.

Thomas G. Boyce, Manhattan