RIP, Gilbert; Charlie Glass Zings Taki; Down Memory Lane with MUGGER; Hold Fast on 9/11, NYP; You Have Pleased Us Muchly, Mr. Strausbaugh; More

In 1989 I briefly worked for Don Gilbert and Michael Gentile in the production department at New York Press, and I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was to hear about Don's passing ("New York City," 8/14). He was an inspiration to me in two significant ways?he turned me on to Jane's Addiction (Triple X), and, more significantly, it was he who first convinced me of "the possibility of life after music." Without the benefit of his influence, I would probably be one of those bitter, aging rockers still trying to make it long after their prime. Thanks, Don.

Zach Siegel, Manhattan

A Couple of International Pissers While I yield to no one in my fondness for my old friend Taki, I should point out, in fairness to your readers, that not one word in the paragraph about me in his column ("Top Drawer," 8/7) was true. I've never been on his boat in my life. Why doesn't he invite me? I suspect he doesn't really have a boat. I am, as Taki obviously was in his column, joking.

Charles Glass, Paris

Fewer than Six Degrees

MUGGER: Small world! I perked up when I read the first few lines of your 8/14 column. I grew up a few blocks from Pine Knoll Dr. (Clementon Way) and graduated from Lawrence HS in 1970. My sister, Martha, graduated in '74, which would put her about a year behind you. Another brother graduated in '71 and two more in '78. We've all moved away, I haven't been back in more than 20 years. That 28-2 for Nixon in '72 sounds high. The mock election in '68 went narrowly to Nixon over Humphrey (with a large vote for Wallace). I cast my first presidential ballot for McGovern. It took Jimmy Carter's imbecility (specifically the "malaise" speech) to turn me around. I look back with fondness on my friends and social activities from my high school years. In hindsight, school itself was a huge waste of time. Didn't think much about it at the time because I didn't really know any better. I suspect it's that way for most people and I believe it's that way for most people who think their public schools are good now. The cost in wasted human potential is astronomical. Maybe someday we'll wise up, but it'll be tough as long as suburbanites in places like Lawrence think they're getting good schools for their extortionate property taxes. Thanks for the connection! Jay Van Nostrand, Winston-Salem, NC

Sucks What?

Mike Signorile: Thanks for the best article so far about the smoke-and-mirror act coming out of the White House ("The Gist," 8/14). The American people are just so happy that no one's having sex in the Oval Office, they can't see the corporate-crook Bushies for what they are?crooks. And that sucks.

Henry Reeves, Manhattan

Dashed Hopes

My Dear Mr. Strausbaugh: As you have found us so endearingly antique, we should not hope to disappoint you with a lack of suitably old-fashioned manners, and fail to send off a courtesy call ("Publishing," 8/7). We have all by now read your admirable effort on our behalf, and wish to send our gratitude for the kind article and the trouble of knowing us. Only Mr. Swartwout has taken any exception to your column, and that for your description of him as "normal-looking." Mr. Swartwout had hoped to be described as dashing, if at all. In any case, we are pleased with the result, and hope our inclusion has not rained down too much vitriol against your paper.

Henry William Brownejohns, Editor, Three Weeks No Sneak Peeks, Sorry

On the dawn of the onslaught of a godforsaken slut house of media regarding the anniversary of Sept. 11, I have but one request: Please, for the love of God, give us New Yorkers your spicy little rag called New York Press?free of everything we've been trying to forget all fucking year.

Dianne Spoto Shattuck, Manhattan

Make the Head Extra-Big

Re Taki's waste of ink trashing the John Lennon airport in England ("Top Drawer," 8/14). I don't give a fuck about John Lennon's politics, his violence or his hypocrisy. I, like a few million others, love "It Won't Be Long," "A Day in the Life," "I Am the Walrus," "A Hard Day's Night" and "Across the Universe." If Taki wants, I'll start a campaign for an "Armchair Blowhard" monument at the Gowanus Canal so he'll feel better.

O. Stein, Brooklyn

MUGGER's Obsessed With Polls MUGGER: I was reading your column while leaning against a pole, wondering how a KKK poster gets plastered onto a telephone poll?subliminal message while asking the questions? Oh, well, I'll just file that with the "grizzly" instead of "grisly" I saw in The Wall Street Journal recently. Guess copy editors have gone the way of the passenger pigeon. But, I enjoyed the piece, as I almost always do. Keep it up.

Gordon Daugherty, Austin, TX

Blind Faith

Can someone over at New York Press talk to Armond White and tell him that his tiresome glorification of every frame that Steven Spielberg ever shot is beginning to border on insanity. It's as if he is attempting to make the man and his movies into a religion. And frankly, it seriously hampers his otherwise astute film criticism.

Matt Langdon, Los Angeles

Oh No!

Taki's probably right about the John Lennon airport ("Top Drawer," 8/14). But it is not the case, as he suggests, that Louis Armstrong was a stranger to dope. He apparently smoked reefer most days, which to be sure is much more sensible that addicting yourself to heroin, though being married to Yoko might have driven even Taki to the needle.

Dave Shiflett, Richmond, VA

If You've Been There, It Doesn't Seem Ironic at All I grew up in Mississippi in the 30s, and never saw a KKK poster, nor did I ever see anyone wearing sheets ("MUGGER," 8/14). I find it ironic that one has to go to New Jersey to see that poster. Bob Woodward's "enterprising" reporting on Watergate was because he was a player himself, a Navy briefer intimately associated with Alexander Haig. My reference is Silent Coup. Don't mean to give you the needle, it was a great article!

G.B. Hall, Montgomery, AL

No Self-Esteem Problems For Dick MUGGER: William Bryk has been writing on the draft riots of the Civil War ("Old Smoke," 7/17 & 8/7). The stalwarts of Yale and Harvard ducked that war. They have lied about their cowardice ever since. The deceitful, self-serving recall of the Civil War has long been a cancer in American history. It continues to this day. Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison maliciously distorted his institution's role in that war. Present-day academic Prof. James McPherson of Princeton has long assumed the role of chief apologist and liar for the American establishment and what he perceives as the necessary recall of blacks, even if most is untrue. He has maligned Irish and German Catholics and baldly lied about the draft and buying deferments.

I have written about this in the Summer 2002, Vol 2, No 2 issue of The Occidental Quarterly, "Remembering American Wars." I am sure Bryk will find what I wrote interesting and stimulating. I am equally certain you and Taki would enjoy it.

Richard Earley, Springfield, PA

Like NYC Without Times Square John Strausbaugh: Bravo to you and Jim Knipfel for standing up against the idiocy of the proposed NYC smoking ban ("Daily Billboard," 8/13)! As a transplanted New Yorker, I can personally attest to the fact that many smokers in California I know are longing to move back to NYC just because smoking is still allowed in bars there. Now, this might change. The drinks are a lot cheaper on average in Los Angeles and San Francisco than in NYC. But it's not easy finding smoke-friendly bars here. NYC with a smoking ban seems like a less desirable place to me and most of my smoking friends.

Nicholas Yulico, Los Angeles

Show Some Respect, MUGGER

MUGGER: I agree wholeheartedly about profiling (8/14). The p.c.'ers have ruined us. We didn't win WWII by treating our enemies with kindness and political correctness. Now, for the criticism. You show your baby-boomer disdain for your elders and your lack of insight into older people by your remarks about the elderly. I wish I could live long enough to see all you boomers reach your 70s or 80s. You wouldn't feel so kindly about younger people wanting to write you off. I "ain't" dead yet and neither is my brain!

Eleanor Sikes, Sanford, NC

Kitchen's Ink

While scanning Armond White's review of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs ("Film," 8/7), a horrible realization crept over me: Armond White is not a person! More likely, you have constructed a Brobdingnagian contraption consisting of Eva Braun's eyes, a monkey brain hooked up to an AA battery and a domino-powered typewriter. To force this abomination to watch movies is a sin against nature. We beg you: destroy your monster, Frankenstein!

On a different note, it's good to see Christopher Caldwell back in black. Now, if you could only bust Szamuely out of Camp X-Ray, you'd have something close to a paper again.

Jarod Kitchen, Brooklyn

Southern Comfort

MUGGER: Just wanted you to know that, at least in Georgia, we are still 100 percent behind New York (8/7). All the old jokes making fun of New York are out, no longer socially acceptable. Even here, where the boomers grew up being told in school that the proper name for the Civil War was the War of Northern Aggression, where a rousing chorus of "Dixie" preceded every public gathering and New York was the symbol of the hated North and Reconstruction. That is all so Sept. 10, as we say. Our only complaint is that you haven't announced plans to rebuild the WTC even taller and prouder. Down here we are not ashamed of America or its premier city, New York.

Ben Zipperer, Duluth, GA

It Was 1989, Our Dyslexic Little Friend TAKI: George W. Bush was governor of Texas in 1998, and the Texas Rangers deal was lucrative partly because the taxpaying citizens of Longview, TX, were blackmailed into building a stadium on a lot of "eminent-domain" land ("Top Drawer," 8/14). Who's got their facts wrong? Also, I find it comical that you could put down John Lennon for spending a lot of time being high, after your history. I do agree with you on one thing though: Yoko Ono is ghastly. N. Wiebe, Ferndale, WA

Say Pretty Please

Matt Zoller Seitz: Your review of Spy Kids 2 was the second I read that referenced Attack of the Clones ("Film," 8/7). The first promised your thoughts on that film at a later date, which I never saw. Did I just miss them or have they never appeared in print? Armond White is fun to read but I consider him to be something of a crackpot; his review of the film was, like most of his reviews, a bizarre spectacle. Your comment in the Spy Kids review piqued my interest, so please give me the info I am missing. Thanks.

Allen Trimpe, Brooklyn

Moral Relativism

MUGGER: I am confused by your confusion (8/14). You wrote, "If Bush's 'dealings' with Harken were so nefarious, how is it that the mainstream media didn't pummel him with these charges during the 2000 presidential campaign?" Which suggests that only the popular press can determine wrongdoing, and that convenient fallacies born of glowing current conditions should be accepted as truth in later years. Then you assert that it would be okay if "creeps like Skilling and Fastow spend years in the pokey." If you have incontrovertible proof that Bush's and Cheney's stewardship of their respective corporations was entirely aboveboard, why not just run with that? Why cloud the issue by arguing that one level of dishonesty (profiting by guile, as in the CEO model) is better than another (profiting by fear, as in the Mafia model)? Pete Hamill may not work from the strongest rhetorical position, but you apologize for others you favor while the jury is still out.

John Atkins, Manhattan

Couldn't Read the Signs

Armond White: Like most individuals unable to perceive the profound within the simple ("Film," 8/7) you missed the point that Shyamalan was attempting to put across.

Tomas-Aquino Garcia, Bronx

Fur Cryin' Out Loud

A quick, annual note to your readers: Early squirrel hunting season begins on Sept. 1 and will continue until the end of February. Yet most people are unaware that squirrels give birth twice, in the spring and in the late summer extending into August, September and October. The babies are born tiny, blind, deaf and without fur. The infants are not visible to observers from the ground. They are completely helpless and depend upon the mother squirrel for at least nine weeks before they can even begin to survive without her. When Mom is killed before this time, the orphaned babies in the nest slowly starve to death. While there is no scientific necessity to kill adult squirrels, we ask that special consideration be made to delay killing them due to ethical and humanitarian reasons. Tracey McIntire, Silver Spring, MD

Would You Like Milk With Your MUGGER? MUGGER: Good column (8/7). I always get a kick out of some of your descriptions?Begala-like hack, pea-brained duo of Matt and Katie, etc. Portions of your most recent column were like a pleasant boost to my second cup of coffee this morning, and I appreciate that.

Gary Chapline, Kemah, TX

Awww, Shucks

Face it, George McGovern hasn't changed ("MUGGER," 8/14). You are the one who has changed. And, I might add, for the better.

R.E. Bement, Longview, TX

Ohwellian

Christopher Caldwell: Thank you for expressing something I've felt for a long time, but couldn't quite put my finger on, regarding the licensing of politically or spiritually oriented rock songs for commercial purposes ("Hill of Beans," 8/7). An example is the Who's "Bargain," which is currently being used to sell a car. Here is a song that says, essentially, that it would be a "bargain" to give up any and all worldly possessions in exchange for spiritual wisdom and peace of mind, but the advertisers have picked up on the one phrase, "I call that a bargain, the best I ever had," and turned it upside down to sell us more of those very same worldly possessions the writer of the song was so eager to eschew. Another is the use of Bob Seger's "Like A Rock"?a song that is nothing if not a wistful look back at how things used to be (presumably to contrast the fact that they're no longer quite as good)?but the advertiser has, again, picked up one line and made a jingle out of it. Like you, I don't begrudge anyone the right to sell his work. But to pretend something was meant to say the exact opposite of what it actually does is downright Orwellian.

Jerry Jodice, Staten Island

You Can't Handle the Truth

Doesn't this Taki idiot know that his idol, Louis Armstrong, smoked way more pot than Lennon ever did ("Top Drawer," 8/14)? Please dump this man. I love controversy. But not at the expense of truth.

Jim Dempsey, Hopkinton, MA

Thanks, Buddy

MUGGER: Next to Krauthammer you rank as the best. Michael Kelly is excellent, as is Jonah Goldberg. I live in South Jersey but do quite a bit of business in New York. I was sitting on the Verrazano Bridge when the Twin Towers fell. We still feel it here, Bro. I'm glad InstaPundit linked to you after that punk Matt Drudge took you off. I'm a Phillies fan but in the AL it's the Sox. They have to get the wildcard and make a show.

Scott Welsh, Marlton, NJ

Bazooka Must Fit in Overhead Compartment MUGGER: If these ridiculous measures actually contributed to safety by so much as a single molecule, that argument would hold some water (8/14). They don't, and it doesn't. Have you already forgotten that, even as innocent American citizens were being subjected to ever more humiliating violations of unlawful search and seizure, a man walked on board a plane with a bomb in his shoe?right past all the now-federalized Junior Geniuses conducting airport screening? Or all the thousands of reports of mock guns and bombs being brought aboard by testers?

These measures are not only humiliating, degrading and in blatant violation of the constitutional provisions that people are to be secure in their persons and property?they are counterproductive to the efforts for increased airline safety. Consider that the ban against firearms on planes was supposed to make the airlines safer prior to Sept. 11. The result? Nineteen violent and evil men armed with nothing but box cutters managed to overpower four airliners full of supposedly free and self-determinant American citizens. The only thing that saved the White House from the same fate as the WTC and the Pentagon was when a handful of Americans?stripped of any means of self-defense by their own government?threw themselves at the terrorists and overpowered them with their bare hands.

You will never make Americans safe by turning them into helpless sheep, and that is precisely what these useless "safety measures" do. It has been requoted often?those who sacrifice vital freedoms for some temporary security shall soon have neither.

If America truly wished to stop the threat, they'd drop the firearms ban completely. Yes, completely. Every bubba redneck and blue-haired pistol-packing granny would be allowed to exercise the Second Amendment, and carry the weapon of their choice onto the plane of their choice. After a few towelheaded lunatics got perforated by civilian gunfire, they might consider it counterproductive to try to hijack planes full of free and armed people.

Radical? Hell yes. Dangerous? Hell yes. But not one tenth as dangerous to life and limb as leaving American safety up to the retards working airline security, or providing Al Qaeda killers with readymade planeloads of helpless, weaponless hostages.

Ralph Hayes, South Charleston, WV

The Peyton Algorithm

MUGGER: At this point in time, Shrub might consider directing some of his attention toward the governor's race in his home state. Hey, but all that fundraising hasn't hurt (as always, insert Clinton's name into the Bush fundraising numbers, and think of a fun mean remark you'd never make as it stands).

Harley Peyton, Los Angeles

Is There Nothing

Going on in Boston?

Well, they're about to ban smoking in New York bars. When California did it a few years ago, I figured it was only a matter of time until the rest of the country caught up. Although I'm appalled at the abridgement of civil liberties, I can't help feeling a little smug. At least the policy is consistent. After all, if I can't walk down the street and drink a beer, why do I have to put up with clouds of cigarette smoke every time I walk into a bar? I'd say this, along with the new taxes, levels the playing field pretty nicely. So long, suckers, I'll see you this winter when you're freezing your ass off while getting your nicotine fix.

Jabairu S. Tork, Boston

Left Coast Support

MUGGER: Greetings from California, where many of us still spend part of every day in mourning for those we lost on Sept. 11 (8/7). There are undoubtedly many, many insensitive souls in California and elsewhere who didn't have their hearts and souls shaken on that day, and they deserve to be scorned. On the other side of the ledger are the millions of Americans who saw the nobility and selflessness of New York that day as the purest expression of communal and individual heroism. I still get teary when I remember the images of people helping each other, or read stories about our fellow citizens who were killed. Your answer of "never" to questions about "getting over it" is not only appropriate, but is the only answer to put that day into the correct context.

We seldom stray far from our beautiful, bucolic area, but our minds and hearts are often with New York, a city whose bravery will never be forgotten.

Dave Roberts, Guerneville, CA

Like Bloomberg

I know the conventional wisdom is that Bill Simon has "imploded" ("MUGGER," 8/14). However, he has taken heaps of abuse from the Gray Davis machine and its handmaiden press and still leads in all polls of "likely" voters. (In fact, the only poll that has ever shown Davis ahead is the Field poll, which doesn't qualify for "likely" voters.) The latest polls I've seen all had Simon ahead by at least two points. Survey USA had it at 46-45 Simon. Davis is still polling negatives that are in Nixon-heading-to-the-chopper territory.

I'm not saying that Simon will win. The Davis machine is as nasty as anything I've ever seen and I used to live in Chicago. But, it ain't over in August. True, Simon has to hang back on his money until the last 30 days and is in danger of being washed away by the huge war chest Davis amassed when he was supposed to be governing the state, but it's a bit early to count out a challenger who is ahead in the polls. I know the national press likes to believe this state is as liberal as the Northeast but I live here and beg to differ. Very conservative propositions pass here quite often. Republicans have, since Pete Wilson was term-limited out, run a series of poor candidates for governor and Senate seats. The state isn't all West L.A. and SF peninsula liberals. It's telling that when the R's finally reject another liberal candidate, Riordan, they end up with a guy who is ahead in the polls over a sitting governor. Imagine that. There are a lot of conservatives in California and they don't come out and vote for a liberal just because he has an "R" after his name.

Terry Sautter, Simi Valley, CA

By George

MUGGER: Thanks for commenting on the McGovern op-ed (8/14). I agree with your comments wholeheartedly. I also believe his "police state" remarks about the new airport requirements stemmed as much from the fact that his former senator status did not enable him to skirt the rules. He expected special treatment and was pissed off when denied it.

Ernest Wood, Morgantown, WV

Britney's Way Too Skanky

Taki's characterization of John Lennon in last issue's "No-Class Hero" confirms for me my long-held suspicion that he is the biggest asshole in the world ("Top Drawer," 8/14). His comments about Yoko Ono make clear that he is either sexist, ageist, xenophobic or all of the above. While Sam Waksal may be guilty of white-collar crimes, at least he aspires to socialize with people whose continued success and popularity have long since had anything to do with their looks or their age. If Taki is willing to commit fraud to sleep with young, superficially attractive sex symbols, why doesn't he just go for Britney Spears or the Olsen twins?

The late John Lennon is loved by millions of people around the world because they still get something from his music. We name airports after great artists like Lennon because they touch us, make us think and excite us, providing us with brief moments of joy in our short, miserable lives. Warmongers and members of Parliament are self-centered opportunists advertising themselves as patriots and public servants, and do not deserve the level of praise regularly given to artists. The ancient Roman historian Pliny the Elder argued how valuable artists are to civilized cultures and how the best ones deserve all the praise they get. In fact, artists like John Lennon are more important now than they were in Pliny's time because, then, the world was not in danger of being completely destroyed by men like Wellington and Disraeli. Is Taki out of his mind when says he would rather see a statue dedicated to an imperialist like Disraeli, who made Queen Victoria empress of India, than a man who sat down to a piano and penned what is perhaps the most popular anthem for world peace ever written?

Finally, how dare Taki criticize Lennon's drug use after his own widely publicized cocaine bust and imprisonment. Furthermore, his coke use must have made him forget what just about everyone else knows, that Louis Armstrong was a lifelong pot-smoker.

Perhaps Taki is right by saying that only heroes should have buildings, streets and public spaces named after them. That he fails to see why John Lennon was a hero goes to show that he is completely devoid of, well, imagination.

Michael McAuliffe, Manhattan

Baby Boom

MUGGER: You are so right. I forgive you for your youthful indiscretions (8/14). The 1960s and 1970s were hard times for young people. I know, my daughter started at Barnard in 1968, one son started at Harvard in 1971, another started at Vanderbilt in 1973 (it was not nearly as bad, but he found it too conservative and peopled by a bunch of overachievers, so he dropped out to go to the counterculture?he later got three degrees at U. Mass), and a third son went to Oberlin in 1976. I think they all voted for Clinton in 1992. If ever there was a need for racial profiling, it is now at the airports. Most of the terrorist acts by foreigners have been carried out by Arab men between 17 and 40 years of age. Why don't we use Sutton's Law? I don't have any reason or intention to fly, but if I did, I would put it off until Mineta is gone and this asinine, insane, inefficient, wasteful and dangerous nonsense at the airport security stations is no more.

Donald W. Bales, Kingsport, TN

Van Nice

Great work! Taki's take on Sam Waksal was the bait, but once I was knee deep in the article I got a nice surprise for my efforts ("Top Drawer," 8/14). One of the best descriptions regarding the great John Lennon ever written. A masterpiece! Promote this guy. He's genius. Thank you very much.

Van Cleve, Lewisville, TX

Stranger in Good Company

MUGGER: I must be prescient! I no sooner read a couple of lines in your piece on Jewish World Review than I knew exactly (well, almost exactly) what you were going to say. I say that with confidence because you sound like me (only a lot smarter because you probably have a staff). I have to find my own material and it takes a long time for someone like me to glean what I can from the media. Ninety-five percent of which is from Fox tv.

I have given up reading anything else that is on paper. I am trying to catch up on my reading, though. I'm slightly behind in my conservative book club treasures. I've read a half-dozen or so, but I'm still about a dozen behind. If I ever run away from my wife, it will be with Ann Coulter. With her brains and looks and my looks, we'll shock the intelligentsia. I can ask the stupid questions and she will give the RIGHT answers.

Questions like: How do so many nincompoops get elected to Congress? Why do the Democrats remind me of lemmings? Why don't we (the US of A) get out of the UN? Why do people with college educations know so little about reality? It's funny. Many, many years ago I had a subscription to Time. After reading it and thinking myself a real smart guy for keeping up with the news, I was shocked to learn that they slanted everything. Every editorial page knocked the American way of life one way or another. In other words, I started thinking for myself. I found that almost everybody in that particular magazine never got their hands dirty. (I used to do that a lot. I was an NYC fireman, I was constantly in deep shit.)

Anyway, I love what you wrote and find that too many people like you don't seem to get the same attention as the Baldwins, the traitorous Jane Fonda, her erstwhile husbands (boy can she pick 'em) and the ever-present honker Babs. Keep the faith and don't get snake bit.

Don Canham, Citrus Springs, FL

So We've Heard

The article by Taki is priceless ("Top Drawer," 8/14). Thank you.

O.J. Casas, Coral Gables, FL

Dag-Blasted Furriners

MUGGER: Interesting (8/14). I am 53, did not support McGovern but certainly agree with him on the airport situation. I am tired of being searched every leg of an airline journey (I am searched before going into the boarding area, searched before getting on the plane, get off in a secure area in another airport and am still searched before getting on my connecting flight) while watching foreigners get a free pass. I check my luggage so I don't have to be inconvenienced yet I still get pulled over and subjected to a body scan before boarding the plan. However, these foreigners have a ton of carry-on luggage that is not searched at all. How do I know they are foreigners? They can't speak English and they whip out their passports for ID. But I guess we should all be good little soldiers? I have instructed my relatives to sue the government if my plane is hijacked or destroyed in flight because the government is obviously more concerned about political correctness than finding terrorists.

Sue Blum, Boca Raton, FL

There's That Word Again

MUGGER: Priceless, thanks, in a world which has horribly outgrown the speaker of those words.

V.M. Straus, Baltimore

Irony's Dead, Helen

On this I can agree with you, MUGGER. Those who use the term "getting over it" should be relegated to the dustbin (8/7). Why? Because they just don't get it.

Helen Weber, Oklahoma City

Crusader

A note to certain "Mail" correspondents who hatefully and rabidly attack Christians, traditionalists and so on: the traditions that you yourself cling to (the so-called Enlightenment and such) were made possible in the first place by institutions of study that were originally religiously influenced and Christian in nature. Too bad your "Enlightenment" types didn't stick to the path of temperance taught by Christianity, because the non-Christian world "leadership" of people like them gave us the bloodiest century imaginable in human history (the last one). Anyway, the atmosphere of Christian-founded pre-"Enlightenment" Europe must have been fairly tolerant to have allowed the skeptics you admire to speak so freely, even if their spurious arguments couldn't and still can't stand up to the Christian logic of the Aquinases and Pascals of the world, or to the longstanding many and convincing evidential and intellectual assertions of Christianity in support of Christ's gospels. Also, slavery in the West would have gone on and on were it not for the fact that so many religious Christians, basing their views on the Bible, were so absolutely opposed to slavery. You may want to read about people like William Wilburforce, Bartolome de Las Casas, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe and at least five dozen other prominent Christians who were instrumental in fighting the enslavement of both blacks and Indians. And later on there was this guy named Martin Luther King Jr. He was a Christian, too. One more thing: Turn to God and have your eternal soul saved by praying to the Lord Jesus Christ, and start reading the gospels by reading the gospel of John. You'll feel better.

Jack Seney, Queens

He'll Be a Wobbly

MUGGER: I agree with your disagreement?as to George McGovern's attitude toward airport security. However, I vehemently disagree as to relegating to the dustbin ideas from those who have reached 75 years of age (perhaps because I am closer to it than you?).

I recently listened to Nobel laureate Milton Friedman discuss the economy?at the age of 90 (no sign of dementia, I can assure you). Moreover, you equate Mr. McGovern's commentary today with that of Al Sharpton, Cynthia McKinney and Jesse Jackson (all under 75). And how about your own views? As a marijuana-smoking teen, you disclose your then leftist position. Now at middle-age, you are a conservative. Methinks at 75 or 90, God willing, you will remain true to your current philosophy.

Many of us grow up later, rather than sooner; but foolish rhetoric from the elderly does not at all coalesce with senility.

Nancy Joyce Jancourtz, Brooklyn

Tracy's List

MUGGER: I like the "Moron of the Week" idea (8/14). It has great promise, and I think it would make a great feature for the online edition. No elaborate column, just a picture in a gilded frame with a qualifying quote or reference. I have a list of candidates for the first recipient:

Bill Clinton

Terry McAuliffe

Bob Torricelli

Joe Lieberman

Al Gore

Michael Moore

Bill Press

Tom Daschle

Christopher Dodd

Hillary Clinton

Katrina vanden Heuvel

Jose Canseco

Jesse Jackson

Maureen Dowd

Phil Donahue

Bud Selig

I think this is a very impressive list of possible choices. Let me know if you need more.

Tracy Meadows, Brenham, TX

Time and Newsweek = Fringe?

Why is it people such as Mike Signorile cannot refer to Vice President Cheney with any detail regarding the Halliburton "mess" ("The Gist," 8/14)? Everything is innuendo and perception, yet no facts are provided. It's not because the facts aren't out there, they are.

Basically Halliburton counted cost overruns they hadn't received as income on their accounting statement. Big deal. Is this so bad?it seems like a reasonable interpretation of accrual accounting. Signorile and his ideological partners at The New York Times and other publications are having a field day creating a perception rather than doing the job of journalists and cutting through the perceptions to find objective truth. It then becomes a self-perpetuating feedback loop, where references are made to the "scandal" from other publications, when in fact, using The New York Times as an example, the references they make were probably inspired by the stories the Times originally wrote. Signorile also complains that "if this were the Clinton administration...the blaring attack headlines would be nonstop." Well maybe so, but has he read the Times lately, or Time, or Newsweek or any fringe lefty magazine? I could go on: MSNBC, etc. Talk about nonstop attacks. Again, the "Harken Energy scams" are used as innuendo. No details, nothing, just hysterical partisan blather. These people live in a world of their own utopian reality.

Signorile is just like all the others who rant and rave about Ashcroftian censorship, etc., through their op-ed pieces in well-known publications. The contradictions between reality and their complaints are mind-numbing. While most people who support Signorile's politics may be stupid, I'm not. Poor Russ Smith, he must be very patient. I wouldn't be. Fire Signorile, let him go to the Nation or the Progressive or some other lowlife left-wing rag. Does Russ Smith think Signorile or the Times would tolerate his views?

Scott Osterhaus, Chicago

Russ Smith replies: I am patient. When the predominant daily in your city is the New York Times, a lack of patience would surely drive anyone over the edge. Comrades in CO Those of us who live in the neighborhood near Columbine High School still sometimes startle if a helicopter flies over our house or office, because that is the sound that was heard for days after the shootings at the high school. Many cars still carry bumper stickers that say "We Are Columbine." If a comparatively "small" event such as the CHS shootings could become such an indelible part of a suburban neighborhood, then the events of Sept. 11 will be an unremovable stain on those in NYC. It sounds trite, but still, my thoughts and prayers and those of thousands of other Americans have never strayed far from NYC since the terrorist attacks. We still have "God Bless America" bumper stickers on our car, and our lawns and houses will soon be sporting flags again at the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11.

Elizabeth Humphrey-Robison, Littleton, CO

Support from the Plastic City

MUGGER: I live in L.A. and I'll never get over it. Great column (8/7).

Daniel Truly, Los Angeles

Never Forget

MUGGER: I live in the town of Silverdale, WA, about 40 miles west of Seattle. I was a little late for work on Sept. 11, and so I was home when it all began. I got a phone call from my mom. She said (predictably), "Are you watching tv?"

That was after the first hit. But I got the creepy feeling anyway. You must know what I mean, even if you only got it after the second hit. Perhaps I'm not a perfect example. I'm a DOD worker who's based in a building adjacent to a public alley at the edge of a naval installation (truck bomb fodder). I fly frequently to points around the globe in pursuit of my work, so I feel more exposed than the majority of Americans. But, even considering that, I think I'd get it anyway. Hell, I have a Canadian friend who still gets it.

I haven't forgotten. My kids and I still talk about it, thinking about the future of it. They know what I do. They're scared. We all remember. It remains a real event for us.

So, please understand (and spread that understanding to your fellow New Yorkers) that most of us are still horrified. We still remember, and still rage.

Ken Nichols, Silverdale, WA

Ever Vigilant

MUGGER: I was in the WTC on the Sunday before the attacks (as I usually am several times a year) taking the PATH to the local subways. I liked the wide-open spaces of the WTC and the quietness on a weekend. It is so hard to believe they're gone, along with thousands of people, some who will never be found. Those people deserved better. I'm a calm guy, but I have a slow boil below the surface about this incident. George Bush and whoever follows him as president have their hands full. The threat of attack will be with our children for their entire lives. Politicians who do not support national defense are (on a smaller scale) also a threat to our country. I am disappointed in people who vote for such people. They include nearly always liberal Democrats, but disappointingly some Republicans.

Frank Higbie, Bound Brook, NJ