SICK-PUPPY LOVE Alexander Zaitchik's piece, "I Dream of Jenna," has managed ...

-PUPPY LOVE

Alexander Zaitchik's piece, "I Dream of Jenna," has managed to accomplish something I would have sworn was impossible: bringing me to the defense of the Bush family (9/8). I loathe the Bush administration and everyone connected to it with every fiber of my being, and I'd love to see them chucked out of office and prosecuted for their wide array of crimes against the American people. But this kind of thing is just way over the top.

I clearly recall the left howling in outrage when Rush Limbaugh announced that the Clinton family had a dog as well as a cat and held up a photo of Chelsea. And rightly so. But this sick puppy Zaitchik has gone into the realm of pre-pubescent porn with this waste of column space. It's disgusting, badly written and not the least bit funny. It also reflects very, very badly on New York Press, and I really hope the editorial staff will wake up and make some better decisions about what constitutes humor and what is simply the revolting ramblings of a pretentious little brat who couldn't write a reasonable grade-six school essay.

I truly hope Jenna Bush never sees this piece. Whatever one may think of the young woman, she does not deserve this.

Joanne Giza, Calgary, Alberta

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

You seemed to have missed the point with your "Guantanamo on the Hudson Reconsidered" (Page Two, 9/8). The problem here is not whining protestors who mistook the holding cells at Pier 57 for a Hyatt hotel. It's about basic rights that all New Yorkers have. This includes people who were inadvertently in the march as well as bystanders. If you're arrested and not charged with a crime within 24 hours, you must be released. That's the law. Maybe if the NYPD and the city's Justice Dept. did their jobs as required, the people detained wouldn't have complained about oily "stains on the floors" and a lack of "vegan snacks" because they wouldn't have been there at all.

James L. Simon, Manhattan

AHEAD OF THE TIMES

Russ Smith asserts that the stockholders of the New York Times ought to fire Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. from his position as publisher because he is too liberal, and replace him with someone more politically moderate ("What If Bush Wins?" 9/1). I would like to inform Smith that, last I heard, the Ochs Family trust owns about 82 percent of the class-b stock, which has unlimited voting rights. The New York Times is not owned by independent stockholders; it remains under the solid control of the Ochs family, who will all support Adolph Ochs' great-grandson no matter how reprehensible you may regard his politics to be.

I hate the New York Times, but for very different reasons than Smith. Smith hates the owners of the New York Times because they have criticized President Bush. I hate the Times people because, while they do criticize Bush, they do so in a very half-hearted manner, and pull their punches in a spineless way.

For example: There are first-rate investigative journalists like Pete Brewton, Kevin Phillips, Daniel Hopsicker and Toby Rogers who have all spent a lot of time probing the Houston underworld that spawned the Bushes. I have written to the top people at the Times and begged them: Do you want to help Kerry defeat Bush this November? If you do, hire these first-rate thinkers and publish what they have to say above the fold on the front page of your newspaper, and not on the bottom of page 37. The Times people do sometimes respond to me, "Thank you for your idea, we will consider this," and then do absolutely nothing. No follow up, nothing at all.

As a college student, I used to read the Times every single day. No longer! I hate the New York Times and refuse to even look at it. If the Ochs Sulzberger family wants me to return as a reader, let them follow my suggestion and hire some of the world's greatest journalists that I have recommended, rather than the spineless mediocrities that currently work for them.

Clifton Wellman, Queens

HE LIVES!

I enjoyed reading Matt Taibbi's "In Memoriam" (6/16). However, a factual error needs to be corrected. Daniel Berrigan is still alive. His brother Phil did pass away in December of 2002, having been out of prison for only a year when he died, after serving a 30-month sentence for a Plowshares action in Maryland in 1999. And a point of clarification: Daniel is still a Catholic priest, and Phil was a priest until 1973; "Catholic brother" will have two meanings to some readers.

Edward Bordas, Manhattan

IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID

What economy is improving? I keep reading in different local newspapers that the economy is improving. What economy? I am a member of the Screen Actors Guild, and as an actor I'm out there every day hitting the pavement. There are no jobs around, and in fact, under the Bush Administration, it's not getting better, but getting worse, day by day.

If you work as an actor doing background acting just one day per month, you're lucky. That is how bad the job situation is. In commercials, they only offer principal roles to famous and established actors who come from big-name agencies, by appointment only. I see in my rounds a hundred actors sitting around for one role in a commercial audition. I see this when I drop off a headshot in the baskets some casting director's offices set up for commercial background work. Speaking of commercial background work, I have only done one day this year so far. That's the real economy, not what an economist who is sitting behind a shiny desk in Washington, DC, would like you to believe.

Hank Eulau, Manhattan

FUZZY MATH

"Well, That Was Fun" by Matt Taibbi missed part of the story (9/8). Sunday's mass demonstrations and others later in the week against President Bush and the Republican National Convention in New York City revealed the hypocrisy of liberal Democrats who support the Kerry-Edwards ticket. Between the signs, chants and dress, the crowd reminded me of the creatures in the bar scene in the Star Wars movie. Did anyone notice how almost all liberal Democratic public officials on the city, state and federal level passed on participating? Even Al Sharpton appeared to be missing in action. They had to bring in the tired old retread-Jesse Jackson, based in Chicago, as a substitute!

They have historically attacked Republicans for being against New York City and shortchanging us of federal assistance. After the horrible events of 9/11, a Republican president and GOP-controlled Congress sent us $20 billion dollars in assistance on top of the billions we already receive yearly. Unlike the Democrats, Republicans picked the Big Apple for their 2004 National Convention. How ironic that liberal Democrats are demonstrating and shouting that Republicans have no right to come to New York and hold their convention here! When someone does something nice for you, most people would say thank you. I didn't see any protest signs thanking Washington for the $20 billion dollars on top of the billions in other federal assistance we receive each year. Is it any wonder New Yorkers have an image problem in the other 49 states?

Larry Penner, Great Neck, NY

ROUND UP

While I agree with Matt Taibbi that today's political activists need to learn a lesson or three from what didn't work with 60s protesting and political organizing ("Well, That Was Fun," 9/8), I must stridently disagree with the grossly oversimplified Page Two ("Guantanamo on the Hudson Reconsidered") notion that those incarcerated at Pier 57 during the Republican Convention were just a bunch of fussy, white, yuppie crybabies with a low tolerance for inconvenience.

My fiance was unfortunate enough to be walking down 42nd St.-just walking, dressed in a funny t-shirt but nonetheless not participating in any civil disobedience-and suddenly found herself among those swept up in nets like so much human tuna and chattel, next to Bryant Park, on Tuesday, August 31, along with several confused foreign tourists, some grandmothers and a young mother who had made the mistake of stepping out for some groceries at the wrong time and place. What she and many others went through in the 48 hours following her arrest can only be described as torture, and her treatment was such that the average perp picked up for robbery or assault would be, I think, shocked.

After having her hands tied behind her with plastic straps that left her wrists bruised and bleeding for two and a half hours, she was led into a 20-by-40-foot enclosure at Pier 57 that she had to share with 100 other women. There were indeed no seats, a full Port-A-Potty and a floor slick with a mixture of motor oil and other presently unknown substances (the National Lawyers Guild and others are now looking into just what those substances might have been). Whatever it was, anyone who sat in it, lay down in it or got it on their skin developed rashes and chemical burns. It was not just cutely uncomfortable in an "eww, dirt!" way.

She had to stand in this pen for 19 hours, without sleep, during which time her absolutely necessary emergency medication was taken from her (despite a doctor's note and the detention center nurse's insistence), she was denied edible food or clean water (what was given to her was literally rancid bologna sandwiches and cups of water full of black specks), the guards taunted her about her medical condition and whether she would have access to her medication, and numerous other spookily Orwellian incidents occurred as she was shuffled slowly through the system until she was finally let out, 48 hours after she was first arrested.

My point is that what she was forced to go through shouldn't happen to anybody, least of all any non-violent citizen practicing their First Amendment rights. In the interest of keeping things calm, the police helped to create incidents that provided an excuse to characterize protestors as unreasonable, violent and just this side of terrorists. What worries me is that the "powers that be" felt it necessary to waste so much money and energy locking up grandmas, yuppie twentysomethings and European tourists in such an organized, cruel fashion. Aren't these resources that could be better spent fighting a real threat and protecting our city in the long run?

Commissioner Kelly either was grossly misinformed or lied outright when he claimed that nobody was kept in "Guantanamo on the Hudson" for more than eight hours. You'll note that it was shut down only shortly before Bush left town, and you can bet there are dozens, if not hundreds, of lawyers who are now looking into this. If the city isn't frantically cleaning it up as we speak, the denials about the appalling health risks and more that these arrestees were forced through still won't be able to come as quickly as the hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits that are sure to hit this besieged city as a result of this gross example of indifference, cruelty, and worst and saddest of all, over-reaction.

There's a lot more to this story that is sure to emerge over the ensuing weeks and months. The agony these human beings had to endure at the expense of keeping Bush and his friends "safe" certainly does not befit characterizing them simply as "crybabies."

Name Withheld, Manhattan

ORTHODOX WORKER

Although I am an Orthodox Christian, I commend the work of your paper and especially that of Matt Taibbi ("Well, That Was Fun," 9/8). Not all Christians are shills for Republican fascism. We can work together to pull the current imperialist regime down and, once accomplished, go after each other. The enemy of my enemy is my friend-at least until our common enemy is destroyed.

Michael Butler, Lynchburg, VA

PARALLEL ECONOMIES

Interesting idea Matt Taibbi offers in this week's "Well, That Was Fun" (9/8). Only a few minor logistical points to work out: Who do you boycott? Where do you get the requirements of life during the boycott? What do you eat when you're on strike? I think one essential missing is an alternate means of production/consumption. As long as the state controls the means of production (zoning, licensing, regulation, taxes) disrupting the profit stream means serious disruption of many of our lives.

Any thoughts?

Personally, I have some individual boycotts going: I won't buy Stanley tools or other products because many of them are made in Israel. How many companies are involved in that, I don't know. I buy French wine because France opposed the Iraq invasion, but American distributors and others in the supply chain still get a slice.

Most people simply want to live their lives and provide for their families, which is generally a full-time job due, in part, to the fact that the Leviathan demands the first half of our production, then we get to provide for ourselves.

It's easy to say boycott and strike, but implementation will require something more. Let's figure out what!

Carter Mitchell, Gurnee, IL

ELECT THIS

The letter-writer, Terry Benoit, hoped that New York Press would offer "a brilliant, nuanced defense of the Electoral College" as an alternative to a majority vote (The Mail, 9/8). May I offer my humble efforts?

Some people want to dumb down democracy by reducing it to the easy mantra of "majority rules." But democracy has to be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. The majority must respect the rights of the minority. "Majority rules" is often an easy cover for tyranny. Hitler's policies during the Third Reich were supported by the majority vote of the German people.

The Electoral College endures, and continues to endure (and rightly so), because the majority of the people in the U.S.A. do not want the national elections to be decided by New York and California and a couple of whomp-ass states.

Some people in New York and California pretend not to understand this, because they want to smugly dismiss the rest of America as "flyover country" inhabited only by hee-haw stereotypes in bib overalls, rather than real people with valid opinions who deserve real rights.

Also, the Constitution (12th Amendment, first paragraph) makes it undesirable for any political party to nominate two candidates from the same state, because Electors from that state are forbidden to cast votes for that ticket. The Electoral College is the only thing that saves America from a scenario such as Hillary Clinton for president and her husband for vice president.

F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, Manhattan

LET'S START A WAR

Matt Taibbi is obviously out of touch with the mood in the United States ("Well, That Was Fun," 9/8). The demonstrators on the streets of New York were not just young punks or anti-conformists, and they were not just imitating the 60s. Does Taibbi read history or newspapers from other countries? Protesting and marching in the streets were not invented by the hippies of the 60s. I challenge him to do some research.

He writes, "It was a colossal waste of political energy by a group of people with no sense of history, mission or tactics, a group of people so atomized and inured to its own powerlessness that it no longer even considers seeking anything beyond a fleeting helping of that worthless and disgusting media currency known as play." I suggest that people (senior citizens, underemployed whites and people of color, college graduates, doctors, lawyers etc.) are angry. They want things to be better. Thank God, they are marching peacefully. My fear is that the polarization will continue-what then, civil war?

Ami Ghazala, Staten Island