MAILBOX

Re: Jim Knipfel's "Big Brother in Aisle One" (1/26): There's a very easy way around the discount-card scam. Just give them false information. Give them the wrong name, wrong address, wrong phone number, wrong age, etc. That's what I do, and they've never given me a problem about it.

If you're really paranoid, get two or three or more cards, all with different false information, and use a different one each time you shop.

Steve Thompson, Alexandria, VA

So They Say

Re: Jim Knipfel's "Big Brother in Aisle One" (1/26): Get a discount card—it is futile to resist.

Dan Williams, Concord, CA

WE'RE NO CONDE NAST

Russ Smith: They probably don't pay well enough here to tolerate these fools. Looking forward to your views of the world; I may not always rabidly agree with them, but they are at least enlightened and not an attempt to delude the reader.

Jack Truman, via email

Rock On, Rock Off

I have been reading many of Matt Taibbi's articles referencing Thomas Friedman and all I can say is Taibbi rocks. Taibbi's articles are so on point, regarding the ridiculousness that is Thomas Friedman, that I don't know which aches more: my hatred for Thomas Friedman's weekly blubbering or my sides from laughing my ass off while reading Taibbi dissect Friedman like the fly that he is.

Rock on, Matt. Rock on.

Carla White, Brooklyn

Rock On, Rock Off

Re: the editorial "Hate Crime Squared" (1/19): I enjoyed the castigation of your daily competitors' write-ups of this incident. I find their spin on it especially stupid given that Satan is one of the gods in the Christian pantheon. Beating up someone for being one is like beating up another Christian for being a Christian.

It's a shame that Jews can be tolerant of their co-religionists, the Black Israelites, yet Christians cannot. I attribute it to mental illness caused by forcing the worship of a desert slave god and his bastard on people for whom they have no cultural relevance. When will we learn that Europeans, Africans and Asians have their own gods and religions, and in worshiping them we honor our cultural heritage?

E. Soencksen, Manhattan

AMOROSI: BANNED AT KIM'S VIDEO

I was disappointed and disgusted with A.D. Amorosi's comments on Peter Lorre in his review of M (DVDs, 1/19). Besides mercilessly deriding Lorre's physical appearance and further perpetuating the ridiculous but all-too-common public view of Lorre as an undesirable, untouchable monster, Amorosi also arrogantly dismissed the impressive and colorful cast of multi-dimensional, well-thought-out characters that populated Lorre's American films as the work of "a hopeless character hack."

Peter Lorre is horribly underrated as an artist, and Amorosi, though ostensibly praising Lorre's performance, has damaged his reputation. I feel that a more enlightened view of Peter Lorre is necessary before he will get the recognition he deserves as one of the most brilliant and versatile stars of the twentieth century.

Lydia Crowe, Donnellson, IA

We Don't Remember That Article

Re: "Searching for Bobby Halpern" (11/27/02): Bobby Halpern was my uncle.

It was interesting to read your article. I remember as a child the Sports Illustrated article you refer to. Thank you.

Roseanne Halpern-Monaco, Bronx

Vladivostok

Matt Taibbi writes: "Don't expect four months of round-the-clock truth coverage" ("WMDuh," 1/19).

Where have you been spending your time the last two and a half years? The New York Times, Washington Post and a sundry of others have been calling this WMD issue a made-up-thing for years.

The real answer to your question is the public, you know the people that pay or subscribe to read about these things. They have realized there was more to it than WMD. So, the money invested, and time to debunk a flawed premise was not a good financial move right now. After Rather Gate and all. Besides having fun in your writings you should read more often and more importantly remember better what you read.

name withheld, Rochester, NY

Tax Massacre

Mugger (aka Russ Smith): Mr. Bush's tax policies favor those who already have over those who work. His reliance on tax cuts, tax benefits and tax savings reflects his own experience of living on gifts and trust funds. Those policies are no help to the majority of Americans who often get by paycheck to paycheck.

The rapturous posts by you and Bush's fervid followers are reminiscent of the Kool-Aid drinkers of Jonestown—followers of another disastrous man of conviction.

We don't have to worry about losing our freedoms to a foreign power. It's the Kool-Aid drinkers (you) right here at home who worry me.

Wil Burns, Manhattan

JUST THE MESSENGER

Russ Smith: Please tell Howard Kaplan to put the clementine where the sun don't shine ("Alms For The Poor," 1/26).

Rob Jones, Manhattan

Another Vote

Dear Christopher X. Brodeur: Your cover story ("The Problem Solver," 1/19) was brilliant, engaging, timely and refreshingly innovative! In my more than 20 years back in NYC from DC, I have not seen one proposal to overhaul government that was well thought out, ambitious in scope and brilliant as this one. It invites embellishment and inspires people to think about the multitude of detailed ways we could have a better life.

Considering that Los Angeles put itself back together in a mere four months after a devastating earthquake, the fact that it takes us 11 years to overhaul the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel is a testament to the continuing ineptitude of our leaders, and the stranglehold that the Mafia continues to have on our city.

Good work for standing up to Rudy Giuliani and Mayor Bloomberg. Their narcissism knows no bounds, along with most other leaders, who don't know what it means for a disabled or elderly person, or heck, just a healthy individual, to wait half an hour for a bus with no place to sit (not to mention most subway stops).

Our city is a huge, screaming announcement for the fact that for the rich only, people will cater to you, your safety and security will matter (try getting a detective to even attempt to solve a crime if you're burglarized in Brooklyn), your neighborhood deserves to be beautiful, and you will be entitled to services. Ever wonder who makes the decisions about funding subway stop beautification, and why only subway stations in wealthy neighborhoods get intricate murals and artwork?

It is time for rich people to be divested of their presumptions of entitlement at the expense of everyone else. Our city is too filthy, ailing, corrupt, decrepit and vulnerable for us to continue living in such a massively dysfunctional manner.

You left out just one thing—stiff sentences for criminal landlords, and sentencing that involves mandatory community service!

Carol Lipton, Brooklyn

Next Week: Outing Vito Fossella

This must be National "Outing Abe Lincoln" week. Besides Michelangelo Signorile's "Gay Abe, Sapphic Susan" (1/19) piece, our sixteenth president's possible homosexuality also came up (excuse me!) this week in Dan Savage's "Savage Love" column in The Village Voice and on tv's The Chris Mathews Show. It all reminds me of a cartoon I saw years ago in Playboy in which one small boy says to another, "Lincoln couldn't have been much of a man if he only scored four times in seven years."

That said, please tell Matt Taibbi that I loved his "WMDuh!" article in the same issue. I also got a big kick out of Christopher X. Brodeur's "The Problem Solver," never mind that I probably wouldn't vote for him for mayor or for anything else. And finally, compliment Judy McGuire ("Viva las Boobies!") for clearly using the homonyms "discussed" and "disgust" in the same sentence.

It was a good week for New York Press!

Richard Fried, Brooklyn

Heartless and Proud

C'mon guys, have a heart. Your "Quality of Life Imitating Art" (The News Hole, 1/12) article did not take into consideration the thousands of actors (union and non-union) in New York who will now have work in this city and state.

I am a performer in show business, I pay my union dues (SAG and AFTRA) and scuffle to pay rent and all the other expenses that you do. It's become very tough (for a "woman of a certain age") to even find extra work in a film or tv, and now that these tax breaks have happened some of our lives may become easier because some of the outsourced work will return to New York. How about an article about that?

Keep on reporting—I love your paper.

Jacqueline Carol, Manhattan

Springtime for Hitler

Dear New York Press: Mr. Michelangelo Signorile and all the rest of the gay press weren't so willing to jump on the "he's-dead-but-he-was-gay" bandwagon a few years ago back when Lothar Machtan came out with his book, The Hidden Hitler ("Gay Abe, Sapphic Susan," 1/19). Mr. Machtan made his case for Hitler's homosexuality while Signorile and the gay press lamented, "Just one minute here..."

My point is this: we can't have it both ways. If we're going to speculate about Abe Lincoln's homosexuality for the sake of identifying with a great man, then we have to do the same for a man that was reviled.

It will be interesting to see what the gay press has to say when HBO comes out with a television movie of Mr. Matchan's book.

John Elari, Manhattan

What If He Just Doesn't Want One?

I would just like to write and say that Jim Knipfel is a bloody idiot ("Big Brother in Aisle One," 1/26).

How does he manage to tie his shoes, much less write an article? Guess what, paranoid technophobe, you can—get this—put a fake name on the form you fill out to get the discount card! Amazing! That was so incredibly difficult that it actually took an oaf like me all of a half second to figure it out, if that long.

Please transfer Mr. Knipfel to the Village Voice staff. Thank You.

Scott Birdseye, Astoria

Jim Hates Turkey Bacon

While I was reading Jim Knipfel's "Big Brother in Aisle One" (1/26), I certainly got the paranoid angle. It was all so incredibly stupid.

Jim, my dear, they don't ask you for ID. Give them a fake name and fake address and save yourself some cash. From then on, all C-Town will know is that "Para Noid" likes turkey bacon and douche.

Jeremy Rosen, Manhattan

Ding, ding, ding!

What? Does C.J. Sullivan really think you can sell a fight between two panty-waists; two who have their baby-pictures in the dictionary next to nepotism ("Kennedy vs. Cuomo: Will The Real O.G. Please Stand Up?" 1/26)?

As for the fat and drunk Irish cops gone crooked on sports betting on the Sweet Sixteen or some other inter-generational Irish problem (Saints Be Praised)—whooo on to the micks! Cuomo gonna whip Irish pasty-pig-ass!

John Piteo, Manhattan

We Got Something?

Many thanks for Matt Zoller Seitz for his insightful comments and observations about Travellers and Magicians ("Two Hands Clapping," 1/26). After all the effort to bring it to screen—especially the planning of the meaning of the camera moves and rack focuses—it is so rewarding when someone gets it.

Alan Kozlowski, Santa Monica