New York Press encourages correspondence. Letters must address past articles ...
THE PASSION OF KERRY
Thank you for pointing out in "Kerry Is a Bad Catholic" the remarkable difference in treatment that the press and the Vatican have taken with regard to Republicans and Democrats. However, I also do not find the Vatican taking similar action in Europe. Abortion is available in Italy, and Silvio Berlusconi has not yet been threatened with excommunication.
RU-486 is manufactured by a French company, but neither the company nor the government has been threatened or judged publicly. Germany now has legal abortion, but the Vatican threatens no Catholic politicians there either. I am sure there are many other majority Catholic countries where abortion is either legal or not aggressively prosecuted as a crime. It is hard to say why the Vatican chooses to single out the United States, where Catholics are a minority, for such moral scolding.
Ben Burrows, Elkins Park, PA
On April 20, eight days after writing the following letter, Richard Viana took his own life. He suffered from schizophrenia for eight years. He is survived by his sister, Julie, his mother, Shirley, and his brother, Louie. They have our sympathies.
THE DOOR CLOSES
My name is Richard Viana, and I am writing to you because I really enjoy reading New York Press. It gives me news and viewpoints that I think are very good. I really enjoy the alternative newspapers because the writing is compelling. It makes you think about topics we don't get to hear enough of.
I recently read the Press and you mentioned Woody from the band Mindswirl. I was like, "Hey, I met him once or twice-the drummer with long red hair who was going with the girl from Seventh St."
I am writing to you because I can no longer get New York Press. I don't live in New York at the moment. I can't just pick up a copy. I live in Huntsville, AL, where for the past eight months I've been in the public library bringing up the website. Now, all of a sudden, this past week, they have banned access to the site. I couldn't believe it. They have ruined my journeys to the library. I was pissed off, so I called them and asked them why they pulled it. They told me I.T. around the way did it. I explained to them that it wasn't porn. They asked if I was chatting on it. I replied no. If you are going to censor reading material, you might as well censor all the periodicals. Come on. They even had the Village Voice in the magazine area, which I happen to read also.
What offends one person doesn't offend another. Who has the right to force their criteria on me? To deny me an opportunity to seek different avenues of knowledge. Just don't block a piece because you don't agree with it. Let's hear it out. I don't agree with everything I hear, see or read, but it's there and it's not banned. What they are doing is denying me the right to pursue what I want.
I just wanted to write the ACLU and make them aware of what happened. I can't truly find the words to articulate how I really feel about the events that took place. I know there are people who can speak more proficiently than I can.
I am saddened, but I do not give up hope because that is what keeps me going. Thank you for your time. I'll try to find how I can get the Press. More likely than not, I'll have to move.
Richard Viana, Huntsville
Partway through John Dolan's frothing denunciation of Huntington's new book-buried among the foam-flecked invective about what an evil, racist, nativist, elitist Ivy League bigot the professor is-appears a line so uncharacteristically sweet and downright naive that it should make any author cringe with embarrassment ("Hispanic Panic," 5/5). Of the Mexican immigrants whose violence prevented the raising of an American flag at a Los Angeles soccer match, Dolan assures us: "The same soccer fans that enjoyed their age-old right to splatter the opposition with beer and piss probably drove home from the game in pickups plastered with the stars and stripes." You've gotta love a guy like that.
Simon Koeppel, Manhattan
CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
Was there really outrage at the humiliating display of naked Iraqi prisoners contorted like a pretzel ("Ilsa, She-Wolf of the National Guard," 5/5)? I recently discovered that we taught the American Indians the despicable practice of taking scalps. Haven't cops tortured and humiliated suspects, such as Abner Louima, who had a broomstick put up his anal cavity years ago? Is this not part and parcel for troops or police (civilian troops)? The biggest disgrace was "the troops involved were stupid enough to photograph themselves doing it." I think we have laws and rules to govern our behavior, and call it civilized, but basically, what is war? "Civilized killing," and being a policeman, also civilized killing. Civilization is civilized savagery.
Norman Singer, Brooklyn
STUDENT UNION
Uh, yeah, about "Look At Me I'm Ever So Underground" ("Page Two," 5/5): Good job crapping on a poor student. I go to NYU, and I know the kid who was living in the library. Since when does living in the library for eight months constitute a publicity stunt? Maybe if you read some of the articles you cited, you would know that neither of this kid's parents help him with tuition, and his uncle reneged on helping him with housing. It takes one hell of a PR manager to pull off synchronization like that. Yeah, he got $15,000 of scholarship, big whoop. I don't know how long it's been since you went to school, but NYU tuition with housing is now $40,000 roughly without expenses, and it's rising again next year. And as far as renting a room in the East Village, you can't even look at a place in the area under $1200 to $1300 a month. If you don't have a bachelor's degree yet, there is very little hope of finding a legalÊjob that will pay that much a month and allow you to still attend classes (and Stanzac had four).
Good job taking one kid's desperate resourcefulness and turning it into a hate-spewingÊtirade towardÊNYU's kids. You clearly have no fucking clue about the logistics of college-living in the city.ÊHey, I've got a suggestion about another group of struggling people you can hate. How about for your next article, "Chinese women and their shameless promotion of materialism by sellingÊdouble A batteries on the 6 train." You're an ass.
Jamese Lamb, Bronx
LOVE IS A DRUG
Regarding Daniel Forbes' article: Student involvement in after-school activities has been shown to reduce drug use ("Testing, Testing," 5/5). They keep kids busy during the hours they are most likely to get into trouble. Forcing students to undergo degrading urine tests as a prerequisite will only discourage participation in extracurricular activities.
Drug testing may also compel marijuana users to switch to harder synthetic drugs to avoid testing positive. Despite a short-lived high, organic marijuana is the only illegal drug that stays in the human body long enough to make urinalysis a deterrent. If you think students don't know this, think again. Anyone capable of running an internet search can find out how to thwart a drug test.
Just out of curiosity, was this supposed to be a movie review or a political editorial ("Preview Review," 5/5)? Seems that on either subject your writer is missing the mark. Although unique in its oddity, still neither satisfying in information nor appropriate for the title of the "article." Perhaps Mark Ames should try again.
Susan Hiland, Hartington, NE
EXILE ON MAIN STREET
I kind of enjoyed Mark Ames' practiced, fashionable omni-cynicism when I used to read the eXile, even though he was clearly a weenie. But he's become (or revealed himself to be) simply a leftist stooge-weenie with an ever-present, pandering, unoriginal, hopefully pessimistic America as empire/bully/paper tiger theme. He clearly gleans most of his ideas from the DPRK newswire.
But when he writes bullshit like, "America has never entered a military campaign it wasn't 101 percent assured of winning," several questions arise ("Preview Review," 5/5).
What campaigns did we avoid that he wishes we hadn't? What "assurance" did we have of victory in the World Wars and Vietnam, or even in the Gulf Wars, when we were warned by chicken-doves about Hussein's "largest standing army in the world?" And is he not perhaps misunderstanding or undervaluing the notions of "confidence" and "determination" (a little bit more of which would have spared South Vietnam and Cambodia their dystopian fates)?
But even all that would be totally acceptable if clowns like Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore weren't fully shielded from his blunt, limp pen-sword, and if he would occasionally exercise some of his meager talents to scrutinize the eminently satirizable left.
Trevy Organ, New Orleans
WHEN IN ROME
Thank you for pointing out the remarkable difference in treatment that the press and the Vatican have taken with regard to Republicans and Democrats ("Kerry is a Bad Catholic," 4/28). However, I also do not find the Vatican taking similar action in Europe. Abortion is available in Italy, and Silvio Berlusconi has not yet been threatened with excommunication.
RU-486 is manufactured by a French company, but neither the company nor the government has been threatened or judged publicly. Germany now has legal abortion, but the Vatican threatens no Catholic politicians there either. I am sure there are many other majority-Catholic countries where abortion is either legal or not aggressively prosecuted as a crime. It is hard to say why the Vatican chooses to single out the United States, where Catholics are a minority, for such moral scolding.
Ben Burrows, Elkins Park, PA
DIRTY OLD BASTARD
Thank you, Mr. Signorile, for this article, which discussed two matters that have bewildered me for years ("Kerry's a Bad Catholic," 4/28).
1. The prurient commercial behavior of Bob Dole. I suppose this started long before he retired from the Senate, because he supposedly grew up in a cellar apartment in rural Kansas, worked only in the public sector all his life and became a millionaire. Still, garnering millions of dollars for portraying (and I hope not being) the prototypical dirty old man should have drawn sharp reprimands from our self-designated moral guardians, such as Bill Bennett.
When calculating the total number of Iraqi casualties caused by America's most recent devastation following the ousting of Saddam Hussein, it is important that we don't forget what was going on in Iraq over the course of the past decade ("The Numbers Game," 4/14). The economic sanctions and myriad other related hardships imposed on Iraq following the first Gulf War killed, by conservative estimate, several hundred thousand Iraqis. Perhaps these deaths weren't as obviously attributable to U.S. actions as the deaths that are accompanied by thundering explosions and buildings turned to rubble, but they were the effective result of U.S. foreign policy. Anyone who doesn't believe the American government bears any responsibility for all those years of misery is living not only in a social and political vacuum, but a moral one as well.
Ned Kelly, St. Paul
YES, YES, Y'ALL
Hey, y'all. Just discovered New York Press recently, and now I read it religiously. Love your stuff; ever since I moved out of the city I have pined regularly for some of that meat and potatoes New York attitude. That, and coffee, and you're good to go.
Speaking of which, why the fuck is a dickless no-talent like Russ Smith getting inches? Fer Christ's sake, find a conservative who does more than recycle Limbaugh email alerts and puke up RNC shut-'em-down hackjobs. It's embarrassing to read. Which may be your point; I guess I just expected more from the streets of Metropolis. Thanks for all that you do.
Steven Blaisdell, Austin
IN HER IMPERSONAL OPINION
Not everyone understands your brand of English, Mark Ames. If you are going to pretend in any capacity to be a writer, and to review movies, know your shit, be objective and don't make it so personal. I believe Vin Diesel is a great actor ("Preview Review," 5/5).
Marlene Jones, Toronto
RALL AGAINST THE MACHINE
Reading Matt Taibbi's recent column, I'm reminded of the cartoon by Ted Rall that was pulled by MSNBC but appears on the web courtesy of a number of hosts ("Out of Bounds," 5/5). In this cartoon, Rall commits the journalistic heresy of portraying Tillman as less than heroic, asserting that he was motivated by a desire to kill Arabs, which he wrapped in patriotic rhetoric. I didn't know Tillman and can't say that Rall was right or wrong in his assessment. But I can say that the cartoon ran against the grain, so to speak, and was pulled for that reason.
I'm also thinking of the recent brouhaha over Michael Eisner's refusal to distribute Michael Moore's latest film. The movie has been characterized as critical of George W. Bush's relationship with the Saudi royal family. Not that this is news-Craig Unger's book House of Bush, House of Saud, has the same topic and no doubt does a much better, more solid job of it. Eisner allegedly fears that Jeb Bush will take away Disney's tax breaks in Florida in retaliation for criticism of his brother W.
We can add to this roll call of corporate media suppression the recent decision of Sinclair Broadcasting Group to forbid its affiliates to broadcast the Nightline program "The Fallen." I'm sure that in the history of American media-going back to the good old days of William Randolph Hearst and even the American Revolution-we can find countless examples of media barons deciding what they will share with the American public.
Does anybody really get worked up over this stuff? We all know the old saying, "don't get into an argument with a man who buys ink by the barrel." Media bullying and suppression is a time-honored American tradition, and from what I'm reading about Italy (Berlusconi) and the Middle East (Al Jazeera) it remains popular abroad, too. Even China (gasp!) censors its media, and Rupert Murdoch is all too happy to oblige. Before him, though, there was the late Sir Lew Grade, and others, too, hard at work in the U.K., grinding their axes for or against whatever government happened to be in power.
We haven't even scratched the surface. How about the routine, day-to-day censorship that is practiced by the corporate owners of television networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox? You don't hear much about General Electric on NBC, and I doubt you ever will. Likewise, the recent reports on ABC about Disney (its corporate owner) were somewhat surprising in their candor, given that a lot of things that are reported about Disney-its employee relations at Epcot and Disney World, for example-may not make it to the evening news with Peter Jennings.
Somebody should take a hard look at suppression of stories-like the incident involving a former reporter for Hard Copy who lost his job for refusing to knuckle under-and publish a series.
Of course, it is more dangerous when the government, or a particular administration, is involved in media censorship, self- or otherwise, because this censorship (or editorial pressure) can be brought to bear on all networks. When one network is intimidated, they all know it.
But what, if anything, can the ordinary person do about it? I'd like to know.
Jon R. Koppenhoefer, Springfield, OH