Gurls Cant Rite on Hiphop; Poor MUGGER's Got No Clout; Signorile Rights Wrong Writer; Protracted Treatises on Various Subjects; More...
I thought it was telling that you didn't assign someone with a clear understanding of hiphop like Adam Heimlich or Armond White to review Northern State ("Music," 10/16). Maybe either of them would have asked some serious questions about this lame outfit (like, say, how exactly are you like the Wu-Tang Clan, or, maybe, does this mealymouthed crap really matter?), rather than commenting on their bracelets.
Brian Boyles, Brooklyn
Tarheel Boo
MUGGER: I do so hope you are wrong about the Dole/Bowles Senate election (10/23). I have written the Charlotte Observer three times to ask why they haven't written about the state of Connecticut's lawsuit against Forstmann Little, Erskine Bowles, et al. I think it is important that thoughtful voters know about his association with the firm that lost more than $100 million of state workers' pension funds. A lot of this loss occurred via an investment in McLeod, a telecom on whose board sat Erskine Bowles. Alas, I haven't seen any coverage yet by the Observer. I always enjoy reading what you have to say. Please write every day.
Janet Peterson, Charlotte, NC
No
Does Alexander Cockburn think that North Korea only began building nuclear weapons after President Bush used the phrase "axis of evil" ("Wild Justice," 10/23)?
Anthony Almudevar, Wolfville, Nova Scotia
MUGGER: Clout-Free
Since 1988
MUGGER: I enjoyed your recent column (10/16). It was an excellent summary of many individual points being discussed in the conservative press about current events and the failings of liberals.
However, I take serious umbrage at the decision to run a picture of President Bush directly above the headline "Oatmeal for Brains" (at least on the online version). Based upon the story, the picture should have been of President Carter, Clinton and/or Harry Belafonte. I am aware that the writer of the column often has no input into those types of decisions, and in this case the artwork is attributed to one "Pecker." I strongly urge you to dissociate yourself from this insultingly unfair juxtaposition. If you don't have enough clout at the Press to prevent such shenanigans from occurring, I suggest you move your act over to the Sun.
Ralph Drury, Carlsbad, CA
So There
Mike Signorile's statements in his column ("The Gist," 10/16) are factually incorrect. He writes, "I'm just suggesting banning the sale of, oh, say, sniper rifles...like the one the Beltway sniper is suspected of using, as well the .223 ammunition (confirmed as having been used by the sniper) that shatters inside its target's body, doing deadly damage." The .223 Remington or 5.56-x-45mm NATO does not shatter inside the target's body because it's illegal for it to do so under Article III of the 1899 Hague addendum, which states that 'The Contracting Parties agree to abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions.' In fact, the round features a full metal jacket specifically to prevent it from breaking up after entering the body. The U.S. military doesn't use the 5.56-x-45mm NATO round for sniping because it's ineffective in that role. Also, there is no such thing as a sniper rifle. They are physically indistinguishable from a customized hunting rifle with a good scope. The M24 and the M40A1 that the U.S. military currently uses for sniping is based on a hunting rifle receiver that has been in production for decades and that literally hundreds of thousands of copies have been produced.
Eric Soencksen, Brooklyn
Michelangelo Signorile replies: The Washington Post, Oct. 10: "The .223 rifle round that investigators have identified is widely used in what are loosely referred to as military and 'military-style' weapons that are mass-marketed for dubious 'civilian' uses. According to Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, one of the most lethal types is the sniper rifle, designed and manufactured for the purpose of killing human beings at more than five times the range at which hunters shoot deer."
The Washington Post, Oct. 17: "...the .223 bullet the killer has been using...shatters within the body, causing catastrophic trauma?and leaves a gaping exit wound."
Hitach.com (gun retailer website): ".223 Caliber MILITARY Ammunition Menu: Israel Military Industries SS109 Nato Green Tip... This is the "Real Stuff"... It is standard issue and quite deadly."
Michael O'Connor, Brooklyn
Zach's Phat
Hats off to New York Press again for finding talented writers who are both visionary and witty and giving them a forum to say whatever they please, no matter how many feathers get ruffled in the process. I'm referring, of course, to Zach Parsi ("Adipose Nation," 10/9), whose piece on the grotesque fattening up of this country struck me as downright brilliant. Proof that it was brilliant came the following week, with the squeals of outrage from those denouncing Parsi for his "nakedly fascist" idea or (even better) for being "some skinny little prick." It reminds me of how the self-styled intellectuals of the day trashed Lolita, but good old Nabokov paid them no mind (he knew the value of what he was creating, and so did we equally sentient beings) and neither should Parsi. Let's see more of this exciting writer.
Serdar Riva, Brooklyn
He Loves Women
Over the years I've followed Armond White's film criticism with relish?even when his occasionally empty verbal pyrotechnics prove him to be a total hotdog. His fascinating impiety is energizing and lodges a real protest against the daily-reviewer-as-studio-flack that has become the unfortunate norm. But he can't have really called Jennifer Aniston's character in The Good Girl a "hateful twat" in his recent review of Auto Focus ("Film," 10/16) can he? Please tell us he meant "twit" and that his slip revealed only his unconscious sexism and not his overt misogyny.
Jeff Melnick, Cambridge, MA
Cheers & Jeers
IS MUGGER implying that because Maureen Dowd can still publish a column ridiculing the President it's proof that there are no violations of constitutional rights by the administration? By that logic there is no recession because Bill Gates still has money ("MUGGER" 10/23). Civil-rights violations work from the bottom up. Dowd writes from perhaps the most privileged perch in American journalism. By the time they come for her they'll have forgotten what they did with you and me.
To Tim Hall on "The 'New Williamsburg'" ("Real Estate," 10/23). I can't decide which is more appalling, his sense of entitlement or blatant racism. Yes, Tim, Bed-Stuy would be a great place for you to live if it weren't for all those darn black people. You need to realize that when the locals are hostile to you, it's not because they see you as an "evil white man," but as a potentially astronomical increase in their own rent. Also, he seems to think getting a tenant to pay your mortgage is a new idea and a sinister yuppie plot. No, it's what working-class people of every color have always done to get ahead and gain some equity. He really needs to get over himself.
Re Armond White's review of Bowling for Columbine ("Film," 10/23). Did he see the same film I did? More to the point, did he stay till the end? Moore's ultimate conclusion was that the problem of gun violence in America is more complex than simply banning firearms. White actually accused him of making a sensationalized film about media sensationalism! Also, Kmart did not work "with" the wounded students to stop selling handgun ammo. Moore and the kids were blown off on their first visit. It was only after dragging the national media in were they able to sufficiently embarrass Kmart into phasing out ammo sales.
To end on a positive note, I'd like to thank Matt Zoller Seitz for his clear-eyed and informative piece on Frida ("Film," 10/23). Over the years he has consistently been one of the few critics who write about the film at hand, rather than the one he thinks the director should have made. Thanks to him Frida is now at the top of my next-to-see list.
Richard Bozza, Brooklyn
Vinnie Get Your Gun
I can't tell if Vincent Turner ("The Mail," 10/23) is being serious or facetious (I suspect the latter) in his fervor to acquire a firearm, but for his or other interested parties' information, there already exists at least one Gay Gun Rights advocacy group?check out Pink Pistols at www.pinkpistols.org. Not all fags are pussies.
J.P. Lund, Austin, TX
Army-Trained
Mike Signorile: Your reference to NRA types "heading to galleries to shoot at targets" would have been a little better as "human-shaped targets" ("The Gist," 10/16). Good luck in persuading Ashcroft & Co. that "true blue Americans" can't be trusted with assault weapons. It will be very interesting to see what happens if it turns out that the DC sniper is a member of the NRA.
L. Craig Schoonmaker, Newark
Here We Go Again
Zionist crackpots like Stephanie Gutmann have been harping for years about the American media's supposed bias toward Palestine. This week's New York Press episode, "A New Yorker in Israel" ("New York City, 10/23), was only slightly less offensive than her Weekly Standard article "Lights, Camera, Intifada," in which she explained that Palestinian children are actually "militia who have been groomed Hitler Youth-style to kill Jews or die trying." Presumably we should not then be alarmed by UNICEF's report that more than 7000 Palestinian children have been injured by Israeli troops in the last two years. They're all a bunch of anti-Semitic Nazis anyway, those kids.
Gutmann also explained that journalists are terrified of showing accurate images of Palestinians (presumably she is disappointed that the media has been unable to locate those vast legions of swastika-clad children). She attributes the world's "unbalanced, fervently anti-Israeli reporting" to a mental illness: it's "a kind of Stockholm syndrome, an identification with those you are threatened by." In Gutmann's inverted fantasy world, where the media "offer a steady diet of...anti-Israel propaganda," it is the threat of Palestinian violence that is squarely to blame for this and everything else.
In reality, it is Israeli occupation soldiers who repeatedly and consistently target journalists, earning the Occupied Territories the dubious distinction of being the "most dangerous place in the world for journalists," as copiously documented on the website of the International Committee to Protect Journalists. They documented dozens of incidents in which Israeli soldiers shot journalists.
This week, Gutmann's indignation is all inflamed because she has seen some depictions of the extent of damages caused by the catastrophic violence of Israel's latest wave of aggression against the civilian population of the Occupied Territories. How dare the media show what Israel has done without allowing Israel itself to narrate and justify its actions? Balance, to Gutmann, would require equating Israel's anxieties with the 35-year-old panoply of real horrors called The Occupation. That nearly 100,000 Palestinians have had their homes shelled, bulldozed, or otherwise damaged in the last two years, or that more than 40,000 Palestinians have been wounded in attacks by soldiers and settlers, or that settlers (many of whom are, like Gutmann, "New Yorkers in Israel") now have exclusive control over more than 40 percent of the entire West Bank?these facts, which of course would be challenged by Gutmann, should all be "balanced" by equivalent airtime and reference to the dire state of the Israeli economy ("economy" is a somewhat dubious category considering the extent to which the state is virtually subsidized by massive annual influx of American aid).
Gutmann's ridiculous insistence on the Zionist myth of "The Benign Occupation" is a perfect example of the "one-dimensional (and condescending)" coverage that has her so peeved. If the disintegration of the Israeli economy is so offensive to her, perhaps her time might be better spent protesting Israel's decision to pursue intransigence and militarization over the just resolutions that have been demanded for decades by the entire international community. Much as Gutmann would like to blame Arafat for the current crisis in Israel, this is one mess whose cause and resolution are both quite clear: until Israel takes responsibility for the ethnic cleansing that accompanied its own creation, and provides a just solution in accordance with international law to the millions of non-Jews it has subjugated for decades, the Jewish state and its advocates have no right to whine about its declining economic revenues. No amount of posturing about the Holocaust or the pervasiveness of Arab anti-Semitism can erase the fact that millions of Palestinians, driven from their homes by Jewish terrorist gangs and militias from Europe and America, have been waiting in misery and poverty for decades to be allowed the right to live in their own homes, in their own land, without the constant threat of daily Zionist violence.
Thomas Olson, Manhattan
Sniper Trumps AIDS
Mike Signorile: I've read your various columns for the past few years and have just come across Signorile.com, after being bored and incredibly uninspired at AndrewSullivan.com. I wish I had more time to really catch up on everything you've written, because it's all good. And it's truly nice to have someone smart, media-savvy and in the know about what's going on. It seems that very few do. Your take on the whole spectrum of HIV/AIDS issues is especially poignant. Why hasn't anyone reported on super-infection? Why have HIV/AIDS-related stories become an asterisk to local newscasts? I mean, it's very disheartening. Where did the outrage go? It's just mind-blowing.
Anyway, that's my rant and rave for the day. Again, I really appreciate your work and can't wait to dig in a lot more! Thank you for it!
Benjamin Pinelli, Los Angeles
Depends
MUGGER: Thanks for providing material to illustrate the emotions of laughter, and sadness. These "compassionate" liberals make me laugh. Other than the ego-driven power trip, why do you think they run for office? Their policies don't advance a better standard of living for their constituents, or promote prosperity. The (D)ependency Party is all about redistribution of wealth, other people's, from taxpayers, who may support the (D)ependency Party, although I can't understand why, to tax receivers, which I can understand.
Looking at the roster of millionaires in the U.S. Senate, I find it amazing so many are liberal Democrat socialists. Capitalist socialists? Is that an oxymoron? They don't give away their own personal wealth, to the tune of billions of dollars, but relish giving away billions of taxpayer dollars. Now that's real compassion.
Some of their issues are truly contradictory, but hey, ain't that what politics is all about? The libs support abortion choice, but deny school choice, and Socialist Insecurity choice. Isn't it obvious that all those aborted fetuses, in a short 18 years, could become good little libs voting for the first time?
And the libs constantly praise the importance of getting a good education, a good-paying job, prosperity, good standard of living and then voila...one day they realize they no longer want to subsidize schemes of the (D)ependency Party, with higher taxes. Calling the NAACP nonpartisan is like calling AARP nonpartisan. Who are these guys kidding? Why do you think the NAACP crowd keeps embracing the (D)ependency Party? Oops, I guess I just answered my own question.
And finally, here's the height of dedication of the Kennedys, to their socialist causes. Recall the tragic plane crash of JFK Jr. and the Bessette sisters a few years ago. Not having any eligible survivors, they all became victims of the FICA death tax, forfeiting their cumulative FICA contributions to the U.S. Treasury. Now that's loyal commitment...politics over family...fraud over family. Ain't politics sad?
Harry Thompson, Tucson, AZ
So You'll Be Voting McBride?
I agree even though I voted for him. George Bush is an embarrassment to the office and to our country. Colin Powell has so much more intelligence and maturity?as do Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan among many other Americans. Ariel Sharon recently called Bush the "best friend Israel ever had." I just wish he could be a friend to America! Elimination of the hated death tax and the naming of rogue nations such as Libya and Syria, who might receive a nuke or two (preemptively?) are examples of his screwy leadership.
R.T. Carpenter, Panama City, FL
Thanky Kindly
MUGGER: I'm a working professional in Orlando and just a note to say I really appreciate your thoughts. Long life to you, my friend.
Jim Gagnon, Orlando, FL
You Didn't Look Very Hard
MUGGER: I couldn't believe the article by Maureen Dowd. Jeez, the whole thing was an inconsistent mess. I love when liberals have no idea what to say and they just babble on. It's stunning to actually see it in print by a Pulitzer Prize-winning (as if that means a damn thing) writer.
I find it interesting that the screeds against President Bush are so venomous and hate-filled. I did a bit of research concerning the articles written that were anti-Clinton during the impeachment era. With the exception of Ann Coulter and Lucianne Goldberg, I couldn't find anything remotely as egregious as what the Times is spewing on a daily basis.
The political left is desperately afraid of two things: a Republican Senate and the total irrelevance they have become in this post-Sept. 11 world. Howell Raines is leading an entity that people view as inconsequential and not worthy of anything more than a guffaw.
Scott Welsh, Marlton, NJ
Aww, Shoot
We are all angered and saddened by the recent sniper murders. However, Michelangelo Signorile's attempt to use them to punish the shooting community is misguided and insulting ("The Gist," 10/16).
First, he proposes "mild inconveniences for relatively few people," failing to recognize that millions of Americans hunt and shoot. Why, some of us even live in New York City! The first of the "mild inconveniences" is a ban on "sniper rifles and 'military style' assault rifles like the one the Beltway sniper is suspected of using." Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But what exactly is a "sniper rifle"? It's whatever a sniper chooses to use, including any rifle made for hunting or target shooting. So Signorile would ban all hunting rifles, and all highly accurate target rifles. And "assault rifles"? In fact, Americans have not been able to purchase "assault rifles," which are fully automatic, since the 1930s. The versions of the military rifles that we can buy are semiautomatic (not an issue for the sniper; he's taking only one shot). And they are widely used for hunting and target shooting. In fact, there are national service-rifle championships held every year, but I wouldn't expect Signorile to know (or care about) this. He'll ban these rifles too.
Along with these firearms bans would come a ban on .223 ammunition. Never mind its hunting and target-shooting uses, it just has to go! Of course our military and our allies won't give it up (it's a NATO standard), so we're faced with a custom-made black-market situation. And what happens when someone is shot with a different round? Ban that one too? Where does it end? Do we have to live in a society in which everything we can own and do is determined by the deviates among us?
But wait, there's more! Did you know that "tens of thousands more people have died at the hands of the domestic-assault-weapons terrorists [than at the WTC]"? What purpose can this irresponsible, unsupported allegation possibly have other than to inflame? Our high schools are not, as Signorile writes, "shooting ranges." It is the very uniqueness of school shootings such as Columbine that make them so horrific. Let me be clear: responsible, law-abiding gun owners are not to blame for these tragedies any more than responsible, law-abiding drivers are to blame for the continuing carnage on our highways. (Tot up those deaths, Signorile, and then tell me again how dangerous guns are.)
Finally, there is the gratuitous reference to "individuals who get their kicks from purchasing assault rifles meant to murder people and heading to galleries to shoot at targets [and who] will have to sacrifice and get their rocks off through some other macho hobby." As I've pointed out, we cannot purchase assault rifles, and the military-style firearms that we can purchase have other legitimate purposes. I wonder if Signorile has ever met anyone in the NYC shooting community. Shooting is not a "macho" hobby. We are not militiamen in camo. We have been thoroughly investigated by the NYPD and found to be sane, sober and responsible. In fact, except for our hobby, we are just like everyone else. We go to work. We raise our families. We're not the enemy, we're the neighbors. And we don't deserve Signorile's venom.
The loss of our constitutional rights is never a good thing. And neither is the demonization of thousands of New Yorkers and millions of Americans.
Barry Cohen, Brooklyn
You Mean Not Grandpa Munster
I think that it is not too early to discuss prospects for the 2004 elections. George W. Bush will not be reelected. Everything has been bad since Bush became president, from the attack on the World Trade Center to the general downturn in the economy. No president can be reelected in the face of such uniformly bad news. It seems unlikely that things will get better in the next two years. The Republicans might even decide to jettison Bush and nominate somebody else for president.
The only chance Bush will have to be reelected will be to start a major war. Americans have always reelected their incumbent presidents in time of war. This is an option that Bush is obviously considering.
Whoever is nominated by the Democrats will be the next president. Whom will they nominate? I do not believe that the Democrats will return to Al Gore. He is perceived as being a weak man who squandered the tremendous advantages he had during the last election.
I am convinced that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic candidate for president in 2004. You read that right. If you disagree, try to think of somebody else. You will not be able to think of anyone.
Hillary will not pass up this chance. She will know that George W. Bush is dead in the water, politically. If she waits longer, she may not get another clear chance.
This situation with Bush Junior running against the former president's wife will create tremendous opportunities for Third Party candidates. Many Americans will not be willing to vote for either George or Hillary and will be searching for another candidate.
This situation could easily propel the Libertarian Party or some other third party into becoming a major party. In order to achieve that, we have to take seriously the task of selecting a candidate. Third parties have a reputation for selecting candidates who turn about to be some flako or nut. This time, we need to look for a serious person who can be taken seriously by the American people as a candidate, who could actually be elected and would be capable of holding the reins of power in his hands.
Sam Sloan, Woodside, NY
Great Minds
MUGGER: Like your articles. Good takes on everything. Besides, I agree with you a lot. So obviously you're good. Wonderful stuff.
Ned Wynn, Healdsburg, CA
Michael's Plan
MUGGER: Before you start reading this, I get the impression that you think I'm an asshole. Cool and not entirely unsurprising nor perhaps utterly without merit. But just to ward off an early dismissal, I think you're going to like parts of this letter, especially toward the end where I suggest we forget about Saddam and start making some threats where it'll do the most good. That oughtta warm your heart. And now my letter:
My general rule of thumb when trying to figure out who to side with in a political controversy is to figure out which one is guilty of the most egregious distortions and go with the other. (This formula, incidentally, does not count the loony element but goes with mainstream thinkers unless, of course, the loonies are in power.) It's somewhat close but I'm currently more disgusted with the Let's-Attack-Iraq crowd. Boy, have they ever been all over the place.
Case in point: Christopher Caldwell regarding the issue of deterrence. One of the strongest arguments of the antiwar crowd is that no one in the Bush administration has explained why simply threatening Saddam isn't supposed to work, considering that we've made good on previous threats. According to Caldwell ("Hill of Beans," 10/16), "[E]ven if [Saddam] gets nuclear weapons [it is assumed] he is, like Stalin, sane enough to be deterrable. Even if they're right (and I don't think they are) there's something else that comes with the Stalin role?proprietorship over all the countries in your 'sphere of influence.' So, Saddam will march into Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait, and control most of the world's oil."
Uh, how did Caldwell come up with that? Stalin was able to occupy Eastern Europe because he already had control of it as a consequence of helping us beat Hitler during WW II. No one on our side was going to complain while he was getting himself entrenched and we hardly had the stomach for another war following the single most disastrous event in human history (note: records were made to be broken). Saddam doesn't occupy anything but Iraq. Heck, he couldn't beat Iran in a war with all the arms, germs and chemicals we gave him, even though its government was in a state of anarchy. Now he's at about one-fifth the strength he was then. Who's he going to invade, Kuwait? Didn't work out too well last time and it would completely blow whatever political cover he has left. The idea that by assuming Saddam is deterrable we automatically cede him pretty much the whole Arabian Peninsula is but another in a long line of wild, unsubstantiated, almost crackpot assertions by the pro-war crowd.
And consider the scenario that war hawks are proposing: Saddam, after enduring years of harassment and plenty of setbacks and after spending millions of dollars to get a bomb or two, is supposed to gladly hand it or one of them over to an organization whose leadership hates him so that this organization can bomb the living crap out of us, thus giving us the moral right and imperative to turn around and wipe him and his stupid country off the face of the Earth? I don't think so. In view of the fact that I'm an obnoxious gadfly, you undoubtedly won't be able to eat another lunch until I deliver my master plan for settling the region and, not incidentally, preventing us New Yorkers from being flame-broiled under the spreading shade of a mushroom cloud. Here is my eight-point program.
1. Buy up the black-market plutonium and uranium first, before our enemies do, by massively outbidding them.
2. Announce that we are putting a $10 million price on the head of anyone who sells either of the above to declared enemies or terrorist organizations (a combined strategy, the effectiveness of which would be immediately recognized by any successful corporate executive).
3. Have a "war" on oil dependency like we have a war on cancer. How nice it would be if only we could tell the oil countries to go take a flying leap at a rolling Koran.
4. Let us explain to Saddam, on the rather doubtful chance that he doesn't already know, what the grisly consequences of any unaccounted-for A-bombs going off in the U.S. or Israel are likely to be for him and his country.
5. Set up offshore customs stations where at the very least 75 percent of all containers can be searched for operatives and fissile materials with minimum delay and at no cost to shippers.
6. Tell the Palestinians that they can permanently forget the right of return if they want to regain any kind of support in future negotiations with Israel for a homeland. Mention with impolite frequency that relying on Israel to exercise moral restraint while they're clearly trying to destroy it is an intrinsically flawed strategy and that much evidence of this is available in the daily papers from the last two years.
7. Tell the Israelis they can forget about keeping those frigging West Bank settlements if they want to maintain our unstinting support. A homeland with unwanted intruders hogging farmland they have taken upon themselves to annex can hardly be said to be sovereign, eh?
8. Explain to Muslims that the consequences of an atomically expressed jihad on the U.S. will be catastrophic for Islam in general and permanently so for Mecca and Medina in particular. Further explain that we do not want any such thing to happen but that's how the cookie tends to crumble for the losing side in religious wars, and if they allow people in their midst to attack us in their name, well, what else can they expect, seeing how evil we are and everything?
This last is bound to be the most controversial but it's also the most necessary. The problem with Muslim terrorists is that they come from everywhere so there's no one place for us to hit or militarily conquer. And the faction of the Muslim world that supports them generally regards itself as secure for that reason, especially our?ahem?Saudi allies. Therefore, they feel that they can support the terrorists without suffering from any real vulnerability. On the other hand all Muslims have to go to Mecca or they go to hell. But what happens if Mecca goes kaboom and isn't there anymore? The Koran doesn't even acknowledge the possibility. We should let them know that not only is it a possibility, it is a far realer one than they're likely to be comfortable with. This is known as concentrating their attention.
My program would have two salutary effects. 1) It would eliminate the necessity of us launching the most expensive recruitment campaign in Al Qaeda's history and 2) would throw the ball in their court, thus forcing them to set limits on how far they want to go (a consideration that, according to The Guardian, restrained them from going after nuclear power plants on Sept. 11) while at the same time severely hurting the popularity of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, especially among our Saudi allies.
Saddam Hussein is, distressingly, a tiny, comparatively irrelevant, part of the problem, especially if you compare him to the Saudis and the Pakistanis (the latter of whom were the source of North Korea's nuclear materials, a fact that seems to have slipped the minds of conservative commentators now lambasting former Presidents Carter and Clinton over their 1994 agreement). How I wish overthrowing the violent son of a bee were the magic bullet the Bush administration seems to think it is. And how I wish the Muslim world weren't so stupidly gripped by identity politics as to support such an enthusiastic homicidal shit.
The trouble here, as is so often the case, is that we have a bunch of people trying to solve the problem they feel capable of and take pleasure in solving rather than the really important one staring them in the face. If things go as badly as I fear, I hope to be standing right in epicenter. Ignorance is bliss, you know.
Michael Fonda, Astoria
Have You Considered a Hobby?
You guys really do have some of the most ignorant readers around. Mark Duffy (who thankfully comes from Manhattan instead of your usual Backwater Bluff, AK, fans) wrote some exceptionally stupid things in your last issue ("The Mail," 10/16)?such as criticizing a tobacco ban and demanding added security to prevent another terrorist attack.
First, he seems confused about the commuter tax, which was one of the dumbest and most unfair taxes out there, supported by every hack from Dinkins to Giuliani to Cuomo. (Giuliani's argument was incredible: commuters who work in our city use our ambulances and fire department and so they should pay taxes for those services! I'd love to see his phony stats on this one. Yeah, right...the two million people who come into the city to work each day (but live outside of the five boroughs) use a lot of ambulance and fire services!) (Fucking idiot.)
That said, bringing back this tax would obviously do our city a lot of good right now. (It would certainly be a zillion times smarter than moronic tolls on the East River bridges.)
Duffy appears to be upset about the talk of the commuter tax being reinstated, while he's criticizing Bloomberg, yet?ironically?Bloomie has opposed the tax all along. (He may be forced to support its reinstatement, however, due to the superhuman fiscal mismanagement of the Giuliani administration.) Doh!
It seems as if the clumsy Duffy subscribes to the right-wing lie that tax hikes hurt our economy (as seen by Clinton's campaign promise to raise taxes?which he did, resulting in an economic explosion?versus W's promise to lower taxes?which he did, resulting in one of our worst recessions ever).
Next, Duffy equates eliminating public smoking with eliminating meat and automobiles, which is typical and simply retarded. If he eats Burger King every day, only he will get heart disease. Smoking is more akin to meat eaters forcefully stuffing half their burgers into the mouths of their neighbors! Smoking is the most idiotic, fascistic, psychotic thing the human race does. And while autos do pollute our air (and kill more Americans in car crashes than tobacco does), they are extremely functional and purposeful. By contrast, every smoker I know admits they started exclusively to "be cool"?not the best justification for a life of (regretted) slavery. (Fucking idiots.)
Duffy's last comments are the best ones, however, and prove it is he who is a "clueless dickwad": he demands more security at high-traffic locales despite all the evidence demonstrating that our "security" is a dangerous and stupid placebo that only hinders law-abiding citizens. We civil-liberty lovers said this before Sept. 11, and that day completely proved us right (again). Not only will our police and military fail to protect us nine out of 10 times (as they have for hundreds of years) (duh, why do you think we all have locks on our windows and doors?)...they're actually a TARGET for terrorists! Duh: two guys in a fucking rowboat took out the USS Cole! And they bombed our military bases in Africa! Yeah right...our military frightens them! Even the World Trade Center housed our inept FBI, Secret Service, CIA, etc.! Yessir, maybe we need a military base right in the heart of Manhattan to keep us safe! Good idea, you fucking idiot.
If only we could get the terrorists and the FBI/CIA/NSA/Air Force, etc., to exclusively bomb each other into oblivion then the rest of us would be much better off.
Tom Bachar, Manhattan