MAILBOX

This week: Mugger is called a “Giuliani sycophant,” we hear more about those pesky porn ads and standing up for the real working girls out there.

I am not surprised that Giuliani sycophant Russ Smith would like Peter Boyer’s puff piece about Giuliani in the New Yorker (“There’s No Shame in Tracking Political Candidates,” Aug. 21-28). The article was filled with so many inaccuracies that I wanted to scream. Like true Giuliani zealots, Boyer refers to Giuliani’s so-called herorism on 9/11 and that he is an expert on terrorism. But the record shows that Giuliani was the bungler of 9/11 who did not care if the firemen had inter-operable radios which caused the deaths of 121 firemen on 9/11 because they did not evacuate 2 World Trade Center as it was about to collapse. And that Giuliani put his emergency control center at the site of a likely terrorist attack. Therefore, because of Giuliani’s poor judgment, NYC did not have a functioning emergency control center on 9/11.

Boyer questions the fact that Giuliani had an affair with Cristyne Lategano, yet Wayne Barrett reported that one of the factors that led to Donna Hanover’s estrangement from Giuliani is that she witnessed Lategano and Giuliani in fellatio.
Contrary to what Boyer writes, New Yorkers were not grateful to Giuliani. He was an awful mayor whose only legacy was exacerbating racial tensions. We should never forget that the crime rate started going down during the Dinkins administration and NY, as elsewhere in the country, benefited from the Clinton economy, which had nothing to do with actions taken by Giuliani.

Mr. Boyer concludes his article quoting someone saying what an asset Judy Nathan is—which is mind boggling. The fact is, Judy Nathan is a hooker who rented by the hour. She is not fit to carry Donna Hanover’s handbag. No matter how much Boyer [tries, he] cannot turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse. It would be an outrage if a woman of her ilk ever becomes first lady.
—Reba Shimansky, NYC

Smut Sacrifice
OK, so maybe the merging of the Press with Our Town will take away the “alternative” element from the Press. Sure, porn ads helped make the Press the kind of paper it was, but on a superficial level. Still the editor’s words (August 8-14) sounded disingenuous. You don’t want to admit you “sold out” to the mainstream. You feel you did. From what I understand, it was stated, “Let’s get to the real issues.” After all, the comments about the merger are over. Yes, do as your own words tell others to do.

In reality, there is no need to be apologetic, not that you actually were. You being a paper without any, or without a lot of porn ads is not self-defeating. There is plenty of smut to go around and you were sacrificing intellectual content to appeal to people who don’t have intellect. There is a greater need to touch on more important and less-championed issues than the so-called “fight for artistic expression” done through racy ads.

By the way, the article “Hilary’s Cleavage Problem” (Aug. 8-14) disappointed me in a way that I think I should always be disappointed. I thought it would be another completely useless, completely one-sided, anti-feminist piece, all out rightly toward the idea that women in public or private or wherever have to be traditional and worry about how they look so as to sell themselves through “sex.” It was a good discourse on an old topic regarding how women, no matter what they do, are criticized and judged for their looks or supposed lack of it and it should not be.
—Lucy Martinez

Real Working Girls
Regarding “Who Needs Work?” by Gaije Kushner (Aug 22-28): The problem is her point of reference. She does not speak for a general populace of people who work, and it is as if Ms. Kushner assumes most people have the luxury of a different career path. Ms. Kushner talks about people she knows whom prefer the office to a life “working from home.” She talks about women working in white-collar jobs or in cubicles. Society is not exponentially made up of people who sit behind a desk with paperwork to do and phone calls to make and meetings to attend. Most people can’t identify with a ready choice to pick working at home. Few can afford to start their own businesses. Even more, a home-based biz is just as much a job that a person has to be the type for as with any other job. Kushner doesn’t like anything but writing. What if you don’t like working with people, or having to talk to them, or do business with them: How can you have your own enterprise at home and be your own boss?

Promoting yourself is essential to a business and what if you don’t like doing that? Also, if you are a common walking courier who delivers packages building to building, or a flier distributor who stands on street corners giving out advertisements for grand openings of restaurants, or sample sales of women’s shoes, or for any store that has nothing that most passersby are looking for or would want, or if you are a construction worker welding steel, or operating a crane or maybe if you work, literally, operating on people in a hospital how can you take your work home?
—Martin Ru