Taki's a Fascist, Cockburn's Venal, Clifford's Gross, MUGGER's a Shill... And More

So where’d you guys dig this chickie Christen Clifford up ("First Person," 6/14)? She makes Amy Sohn seem almost talented by comparison. I’m just wondering, was there any point at all to her story? Was it supposed to be funny? Smart? Sexy? Because it sure as hell wasn’t entertaining. You guys need to find better ways to pick up women than promising them some inches. In your paper.

Alex Sand, Brooklyn

Worst Person

How ironic that a perfectly good piece on the tyranny of the cellphone (Lionel Tiger, "Human Follies," 6/14) was placed right across the fold from an example of another obnoxious social trend: overly self-indulgent journalists who think readers care about the dull minutiae of their lives. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Christen Clifford, her oral surgery or her yen to be fisted. I know we’ve elevated journalists to the level of celebrities (thank you very much, Bob Woodward), but some things are better left unsaid.

Dave Avery, Manhattan

244-9711

I love your paper and am keenly interested in much of its content every week.

I noticed most of the letters you receive address editorial subjects. I’m writing to praise a different aspect of your paper: the advertising.

Your array of advertisers is so hip and interesting–your ads are as much of a service to the reader as your articles. And I pay more attention to them than to most advertising.

I’m 24, and an exotic dancer, making good money. I like to shop and love fashion. My agency requires that we be constantly chic in attire (which is fine by me).

I want to thank New York Press for turning me on to North Beach Leather. They have great stuff! (I went on a spree today.)

Carla Wynnt, Manhattan

H2 Doh

Hey, Alexander Cockburn: Dull as dishwater, man. Ditchwater is interesting.

Caleb Wright, Brooklyn

Chronic Offender

I find it painful to read Alexander Cockburn’s anti-Semitic complaints in every issue, especially as I used to think he was a great columnist.

Has his brain been so addled by West Coast smoke that he can’t think of anything else to write about, except his prejudices? What pitiful garbage. Perhaps he needs a long, long vacation in fresh air?

R. Hoffman, Brooklyn

A Fistful of Shekels

I see where Alexander Cockburn calls Al Gore a "whore for Israel" ("Wild Justice," 6/7). But since it was Cockburn who got kicked off the Village Voice some years ago when it was discovered that he was taking money from an Arab propaganda group, would someone kindly explain to me what kind of a prostitute Alexander Cockburn is?

(Note to New York Press: Please consider changing the title of Cockburn’s column from the meaningless "Wild Justice" to the far more appropriate "The Best ‘Journalist’ Money Can Buy.")

Morris Buch, Manhattan

He Jazzercizes Now

Andrey Slivka: In your 6/14 "Apples with Honey" I find the following lines–"...which spreads itself out over the near plains of Jersey...from the Earth’s high places (few of which, honestly, are in northeast Jersey...)"–in reference to Jersey City.

Although the immediate vicinity of the Grove St. PATH station is flat, much of Jersey City and northeast New Jersey is extremely hilly, even giving way to actual cliffs in places.

If you still run, I encourage you to run over the George Washington Bridge and through Hudson County to the PATH station. Very little of the route will be flat.

Duane Rende, Manhattan

It Floats

William Bryk: I sent some of your "Old Smoke" articles to a friend, identifying New York Press as "60 percent pornography, 30 percent conservative/libertarian commentary and ten percent gems such as Bryk’s."

Keep up the good work.

Name Withheld, Manhattan

They’re Crafty!

Re: George Szamuely:

The man is on it! What a bold, brave article ("Taki’s Top Drawer," 6/14). The modus operandi of the Jew–there, I said it!–exposed!

I hope justice prevails in my lifetime.

Chris Collins, St. Petersburg, FL

Elgin Street Sweeper

MUGGER: As always, you’ve been right on the money lately. I am so sick of these moon-faced Republicans who either react too slowly or not at all. I wish they would come back either with their shield or on it.

Laura Skamser, Elgin, IL

Skins Game

MUGGER distinguished himself among conservatives last year by defending The New Yorker’s provocative "41 Shots" cover against a disgraceful attack by the New York Post. Now it appears that may have just been a salvo in MUGGER’s war against John Podhoretz, not a serious defense of political provocation. To his own disgrace, MUGGER, in his 6/14 column, has now joined the crowd attacking Bruce Springsteen and his song "American Skin."

Gee, MUGGER, if you’ve decided that using one’s craft to comment on events is in bad taste for the wealthy, can we anticipate eight or 10 empty columns in the next issue of New York Press, where your prose normally squats? You do seem to resent the time Springsteen took to make his views public–could it be all these years of churning out your impercipient punditry on self-imposed deadline are finally getting to you? Even right-wing alternative press publishers get old, just like rock stars, after all.

Since you quote the lyrics, at least I can’t accuse you of not knowing them, like so many who condemn such things reflexively. Could it have been that pesky deadline that made you overlook the first, powerful image in the song, of a policeman desperately praying over the body of an innocent man? Indictment of "working-class guys trying to do their jobs," to quote John Tierney in the Times, is not what Mr. Springsteen is about here. His imaginative sympathy, placing Mr. Diallo and that cop in their American skin, "baptized in these waters and in each other’s blood," makes that New Yorker cover look like, well, poster art. But should he not emphasize that it was Mr. Diallo whose blood was shed?

MUGGER, you write that Springsteen is on a "selfish quest...for a personal Fountain of Youth." In playing up to the worst of your political and media cronies, what fountain are you slurping from?

David Irwin, Queens

Soup Bones

MUGGER is all wet on the subject of Microsoft (6/14).

MUGGER is a Macintosh man, so I really can’t understand why he carries a torch for Bill Gates. I almost choked at his statement about Gates "daring to be great." It recalls Norman Mailer’s response to Jack Kerouac’s assertion that "Eisenhower was our greatest president." Said Norman, "Kerouac is simply making a surrealistic statement, equating two things that have absolutely nothing to do with one another–Eisenhower and greatness."

For one thing, you complained that Judge Jackson was "barely computer literate." But that’s okay. Jackson doesn’t really need to be intimately familiar with Windows or any other operating system in order to grasp the essential points of the case. All he has to know is that the operating system animates the machine and all user software is written on top of that. The operating system defines an instruction set called an "API," and that user software is written in terms of that API.

For Intel-compatible PCs, Microsoft’s market share is about 95 percent. That means that if you want to write software for the Intel-compatible market (practically everything except the Macintosh), and you want big market share, it better run under Windows.

Now suppose you come up with a really innovative piece of software, the kind that Microsoft defenders like George Will, Taki and MUGGER admire so much. Suppose that it is visionary and successful. If Microsoft decides to compete with you, it’s pretty straightforward for them to freeze you out on their own platform if they really want to. Since they define the Windows API, they can within certain limits change it with every new release and thereby break your code. They need not make the revised API public until they release, which means that you cannot have a new version of your software ready until some months after the release. Nothing you can do about it.

Now imagine that this happens every few months. If your customers want to upgrade Windows and need your software, many will capitulate and switch to the Microsoft version if one is available, even if it’s a piece of shit, because at least it runs under Windows.

Not only that, but Microsoft defines its own API for internal use that is richer and more efficient than the official API, and their developers have inside knowledge about it. If the developers need special modifications, they get them. Eventually details of this internal API leak outside the company–but Microsoft has been known to sue companies that try to use it, claiming that it constitutes a trade secret. From an engineering point of view, this is a totally arbitrary distinction whose only purpose is to screw competitors.

No amount of innovation on your part will overcome these problems–you’re building on top of their operating system, and therefore you need their cooperation. And Bill Gates, being Bill Gates, is not going to give you anything without taking something disproportionate in return. Don’t like it? Tough. They have 95 percent of the market. What are you going to do?

This is the tip of the iceberg. They have all sorts of dirty tricks that I don’t want to get into. The bottom line is that they can only get away with this because they are a monopoly. Eventually I believe they will be displaced by Linux, once it becomes easy enough for novice users to install, but that is a few years away. In the meantime, why shouldn’t Microsoft be punished for breaking the law like any other company? And please, stop harping on their so-called "innovation". On technical merits, among engineers they are an object of contempt.

Joe Rodrigue, New Haven

Suffering From Dropsy

MUGGER: Regarding your 6/14 item "Bush Needs a Guts-Transfusion," I’d like to mention one factor that may not have occurred to you. If one assumes that Bush wins in November, he will likely have the suit quietly dropped. Presumably to do so without legal prejudice, it will be necessary that he not have expressed an opinion about the matter beforehand.

By the way, I enjoy your columns and your iconoclastic view of politics.

Bob Kurland, Danville, PA

At Least He’s Not Canadian

MUGGER: I hate to break it to you, but the reason that George W. Bush doesn’t make any big stands (6/14) is that he is essentially the same as Clinton/Gore on everything.

He even went them one better on the asinine gun locks b.s. He lobbied vigorously against the congressional bill that would have restored a semblance of constitutionality to the waging of war.

Hell, he even has his own s&m scandal rattling around in his closet.

He’s no alternative, Russ. He’s just Mr. More of the Same Old B.S.

Hope I didn’t disillusion you.

Now go mug somebody.

Manuel Miles, Edmonton, Alberta

Russ Smith replies: This is what passes for correspondence in the year 2000. No, Mr. Miles, Bush and Gore don’t have the same views. Gore believes the government should interfere in and regulate Americans’ lives because government (and especially Gore) knows better; Bush has more respect for the country’s citizens. As for that lob of spit about s&m, you must be working for James Carville. If it’s true, why not sink Bush’s campaign and leak your news to The New York Times or Joe Conason? Voters apparently can justify a president who harasses, hits on and possibly rapes women, but s&m might be the last frontier of taboo in politics.

Just Like We Thought

For John Strausbaugh, regarding his 5/17 "Summer in the City of Rednecks" essay, about Baltimore:

Man, talk about callin’ the ’shine kettle black. That’s exactly what was botherin’ me and my little Ford-drivin’ friend Joe-Joe at that shithole cowtown we was all at. If I’d a had one more glass ’a that boojwah red wine, I’d a started singin’ fuckin’ opera or sumpin! Talk about gildin’ the hillbilly!

Anyways, my cousin just walked in the room nekkid. And considrin’ her age and all (she’s 13), I better hurry up and take care ’a her ’fore she dries up!

Say hi to those Fat Cats in that big city y’all live in.

(Just An) Anftalachian Country Boy,

Michael Anft, Baltimore

One Moose, Two Meese

Your 6/14 editorial about Rudy Giuliani was curious. Not altogether bad for your paper, I guess, but it made some very strange points.

"Giuliani had the chance to be a revolutionary mayor"? I have to disagree with that ridiculous idea. This buffoon was always a lying, shifty creep, starting with his work next to that crook Reagan and his buddy Ed Meese (or was Iran-Contra just a dream?), and then as a U.S. attorney where he was just as selfish and immature, running in front of every camera he saw and throwing bombastic press conferences at every turn (which he now ridicules Mark Green for doing!). Even back then he was considered an attention-hungry blowhard and empty suit.

He never, ever had the chance to be a revolutionary mayor. It’s nowhere in his blood. He’s a typical politician who cheats on his wife, lies about it, takes credit for anything good that happens while he’s in office, votes himself enormous pay raises and jumps in front of the cameras as often as possible. A revolutionary politician doesn’t flipflop constantly, but a political hack does. (Maybe you didn’t know he was pro-life until deciding to run for mayor of New York City!)

Giuliani is a cigar-chomping, combover cliche of a man. He’s a dim bulb who’s gotten more of a free ride than Bill Clinton.

Hmm, I think he just might be the right man to be Al Gore’s vice-presidential runningmate!

Nader for President! Vote Green Party!

James Carpio, Manhattan

The editors reply: Carpio is too clever for his own good.

He’s exactly right in what he says about Giuliani; in fact, over the years, we’ve ourselves written most of the things Carpio says above. However, Carpio misreads us. We didn’t say Giuliani had the capacity to be a revolutionary mayor, just that he had the chance to be. Carpio gets the two mixed up, insists that we made the former claim, then debunks it with what’s under the circumstances rather pathetic bravado. In fact, our editorial was dedicated to making the same point Carpio tries to make.

That must be why we’re in here and he’s out there.

Quiet on the West Side Front

I’ve been unable to access your website for almost four days now. Tech problems? What’s going on? Hope you get it fixed soon, as I need my New York Press fix. No Slivka rants? No MUGGER raves? Can’t take it.

W.T. Quick, San Francisco

Crap’s Last Take

I read an article about Jim Knipfel in a local Philadelphia weekly paper. A whiny former grad student? "Comparative Studies." No wonder he went blind.

Is that the best you can come up with in terms of authenticity? Yet another refugee from the academy? You’re so out of touch it’s ridiculous. He’s from Philly, so what. This town is way gentrified compared to Detroit. Here they just talk tough.

I’m sure Knipfel is a big hit in New York, the same city that loves what Dave Eggers spews out. They both could walk around with signs proclaiming "Feel Sorry for Me!" Jim Knipfel; J.T. (Terminator) Leroy; Jonathan Ames: you’ve got them all, don’t you? A regular circus sideshow. Isn’t the exhibitionism of the self a trend that’s getting tiresome by now?

Goo goo ga ga. I picture all of you sitting around your Manhattan office sucking your thumbs. Put any of you into a real job and you wouldn’t last a week.

A friend of mine in New York City sent me a John Ellis column that chastised New York magazines for not giving enough coverage to hyper-capitalism ("Convergence," 6/7)! (Strange, that’s all I seem to read.) Oh yeah, you’re alternative, allright. Jump on the bandwagon, everybody! Over here! We suck up to e-commerce better than the average guys.

You’re a joke.

King Wenclas, Philadelphia

The editors reply: As we explained in a reply to Wenclas’ last letter to New York Press ("The Mail," 5/31), Wenclas has sent us publicity materials for his zine, and seems to be clamoring for our attention. We’re used to behavior like his–we often receive "abusive" mail from writers who suspect that sending such is a sure way into the hearts of the editors of an "alternative" paper. But now that we’ve published the above letter, we’ll never again publish another word from Wenclas.

Our readers are privileged to be witnessing here the last gesture of Wenclas’ illustrious New York City publishing career. We wish him luck in Philadelphia. We’re sure we’ll be hearing a lot about him.

You’re Welcome, Paul

On Jan. 20, 1989, your cover story was an article on Peck Slip (with illustrations by Ben Katchor), which I found entertaining.

Since then, your paper has gone downhill like a runaway toboggan. Lately cover articles are on the caliber of "How to Circumcise Yourself With a Rusty Penknife Found in a Street Kennel." Also, just about every article cheapens itself with the liberal use of four-letter words.

Of the comics, I see now that they have virtually all vanished. They included the psychotic, paranoid, schizophrenic "Amy and Jordan," Mark Newgarden, "Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer," "Big Baby," Don Rubin’s puzzles, even "Steven" and "USA Toady." The incomprehensible "Maakies" and "Underworld" are all that’s left. Not even the zesty scribbling of "Two-Fisted Management" is left.

Cecil Adams is still here, thank God.

A few years ago, there was a front-page article on a fatal knifing at the Brooklyn Brewery, with a fire-eater as the illo (Jim Knipfel, "Blood on the Barroom Floor," 9/30/98). Why you didn’t just review the fire-eater, I do not know.

Some months ago, I passed a former vending box for New York Press, but it was derelict and used as a garbage can, so I felt that your paper was gone.

The way New York Press now thinks, an article on Peck Slip would be peppered with the f-word–used as an adjective to describe the various blocks and houses.

"Ask Isadora," an excellent, enlightened, sex advice column, was replaced by "Savage Love," which, judging from the one or two I’ve seen, appeared to promote insane promiscuity and recklessness. It is this that has turned Africa into AIDS-land.

Just before I retired on disability leave and left my job on 23rd St., 11 years ago, New York Press started running sexually explicit ads for promiscuous weirdo swingers, and even had explicit color photos. Again, I must add that I avoid one-night stands with often physically abnormal women (huge, protruding clitorises, rings inserted in genitalia, pubic hair up to the navel etc.) who might have AIDS, who are often on drugs, who may be menstruating–as well as serial killers looking for their next chop-up victim.

You give the air of not screening for such. I’ve never been promiscuous or reckless.

I’m not gay, either.

I only picked up New York Press in the last 10 or 11 years when I had the opportunity, as the vending boxes near 41st St. are smashed up and abandoned.

I don’t miss it, not with all these changes.

Thank you.

Paul R. Wilson, Bergenfield, NJ

Ten Years After

If Taki’s bloated crypto-fascism could reach lower into the intestinal depths of his own self-regard than it did in his most recent column about John Rocker ("Top Drawer," 6/14), then he would have to award himself the next annual "Taki Prize." How long are we going to keep hearing about "p.c." now that it’s been 10 years since the phenomenon began to be widely and consistently denounced as a form of Stalinist mind-control? How powerful p.c. must be, that it can be endlessly wheeled around and inveighed against, yet rarely identified, and never diminishing in its horrifying aspect!

It is no accident that p.c. emerged in the culture as something to worry about at the same time that anticommunism ceased to suffice as an operant conditioning tool for the guard dogs of reaction serving the elite elements of our society. What else could readers of the National Review (or the National Vanguard, for that matter) do to justify sitting on their fat asses and to excuse wanton fulmination against a few dozen self-serious faculty members and a handful of sex educators and feminist journalists? "Political correctness" has become such a meaningless cliche, such a self-parody, so totally an example of the kind of sloppy thinking and automatic, fill-in-the-blank phrase-making that it is meant to indict, that its use surely signals the presence of a tired mind on an intellectual feeding tube.

Taki says of p.c. that "it means adjusting what you say to what you think ought to be true, not what you know actually to be true." Oh. I see. So John Rocker’s interesting take on the 7 train is not simply his opinion–it’s what he "knows actually to be true."

Maybe Taki’s hermeneutics fell off his yacht.

Seth Barron, Manhattan

A Savile Row

Matthew DeBord, Taki, Toby Young, et al.:

You have got to stop attacking the wearing of casual attire, especially the wearing of it in the workplace. I suspect that you want everybody in a suit because being in a suit is a marker that denotes "non-threatening." With all these people in street clothes, you can’t tell who’s liable to kick your ass at any given moment.

And how out of touch with the current working environment can you possibly be? To your credit, you are writers and reporters, and you can argue against this until you’re blue in the face, but the fact is that you’re more independent than the rest of us. You don’t understand what it’s like to be glued to a cheap chair in front of a huge monitor at least 10 hours a day with your boss hanging over your shoulder, not because he’s a jerk (there are myriad other justifications for that), but because there are 10 other people in the same room, which is the size of your personal office at your last job, which you left so you could have some fictitious "equity in the company" and "a chance to have your ideas heard."

Meanwhile, nobody can ever agree on how much to open the window or what temperature the air conditioner should be set at, so you’re always hot because the women are always cold, and of course you let the women have their way or you’re an asshole.

And you fuckers want me to have a suit on amidst all that. Yeah, let’s try it and see how many people go postal by the first Wednesday.

Dan Burnstein, Brooklyn

Barger/Ridge 2000

I think that Sonny Barger ("An Interview With Sonny Barger," 5/24) should be the next president of the United States. At least we know what his past felonies were. He obviously believes in what America should be, not in the politics of today.

No, I am not a drug-crazed criminal. I am a member of the military, with a very clean record. Wouldn’t it be great to have someone in office who could bring pride to so many, like Barger has brought to his club? He’s a real leader.

I guess we’ll keep being deceived by the crooks who are supposed to be "public servants."

Gerald Roth, Oak Grove, KY

Mexican Timetable

Regarding Doug Ireland’s 6/7 "Open Letter to Harold Levy" ("Opinion"):

Mr. Ireland, I was happy to see that you are so actively involved in educating young New Yorkers. As a "contributing editor" for a "national monthly," you surely spend more time in the classroom than on the media circuit. You surely struggle with rent while spending your days standing up, whispering, screaming, play-acting–anything it takes to help teenagers learn to read and write basic English.

Then, at night, you surely take home stacks of illegible essays, sorting through them as you recall the notes students have left in your faculty box about their abusive fathers; or you come home to messages on your machine from worried parents, whose children have been admitted to hospitals following suicide attempts.

Or is it not that way? Is it perhaps that you are a pundit, a "contributing editor" to a "national monthly," paid by the word, paid to fire controversy with your writing? If this is the case, how justified do you feel in collecting still more money by offering a way to fix something you deal with only theoretically?

I teach at a Catholic school. I teach the children of immigrants, those brown-skinned "religious primitives" you scorn, who came to the United States only recently from Latin America, and who pay nearly a fifth of their salaries to send their children to my school. This is partly because the "primitivism" of which you speak is the moral code with the largest number of adherents in the Western hemisphere–the ethical backbone of Western civilization–and these parents want their children to have their philosophy based in revealed truth; and partly because public schools in upper Manhattan and the South Bronx suck. Why? Well, the thousands of bureaucrats who run them must answer to fools who insist that the public forum be used to discuss AIDS education, and not for teaching students how to read and write in English.

I’m willing to bet that most of the class of 2000 in the New York City public schools are not able to read the articles in POZ, and thus won’t ever grow to appreciate the clarity of Mr. Ireland’s thought.

How do we fix this? Look to a model that works. The schools in the Archdiocese are freed from the tirades of gay or any other kind of activists, allowing them to focus on teaching students, as the Jesuits put it so succinctly, to read, write and think on their feet.

And in regards to Tanya Richardson’s 6/14 review of Pearl Jam’s latest album ("Reviews" online): Tanya, I have read what you write with such enthusiasm, because I thought you really liked to rock. I never would have guessed it had all been fraught with irony. I suppose my heartbreak was inevitable. You don’t sincerely like tight leather jeans and drunken power chords; you like something that is outdated (guitar rock), just because it is outdated.

It’s simple Gen-X irony: I like this, but I don’t. I guess I hoped you would’ve dismissed the Pearl Jam album (which I haven’t even heard) for its, you know, demerits. Seeing you discard it with practiced party-talk, with rawk attitude, made me see for the first time that it’s an act. An enormous air guitar windmill.

Finally, can we get Dirty Sanchez on some kind of a regular schedule? He’s one brilliant Mexican.

Paul Dwyer, Manhattan

Fast Company

I could not believe John Ellis dissed The New York Times in his 6/7 encomium to the virtues of New Economy trade glossies.

Perhaps he does not realize the Times still employs hard-hitting newsies like Gail Collins. No dimpled-ass, SUV-driving soccer mom is she. How about Tom Friedman, whose IQ is so fucking high he has to explain everything in terms of lotuses, frogs and turtles, so we can understand globalism? How about tough guys like Frank Rich? He ain’t afraid to buck the zeitgeist. What about noir-chanteuse Maureen Dowd? She won the one objective award there is, the Pulitzer. Don’t forget Anthony Lewis, a man willing to call snobs to account.

The only lightweight is William Safire, but he is counterbalanced by hardboiled guys like Adam Nagourney, Nicholas Kristoff and Richard L. Berke. Try talking back to these dudes while they’re downing some cold guys in a sleazy bar in Times Square. They had the guts to put Rick Lazio’s stock purchases on the front page instead of a silly racketeering case about Wall Street.

You yuppies have some nerve.

One of these days Frank Rich is gonna come into your office dressed like a totally buffed Keanu Reeves and kick all your asses and screw all your wives.

Tom Phillips, Manhattan

Lifeline?

Recent writings in New York Press by George Szamuely, Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn have led me to a question: Are we in a period of radicalization in the U.S., or is my survey so selective as to give that misimpression?

What I’m seeing in my readings is a recent pattern that shows that authorities have increasing intolerance and fear of dissent, and that dissenters have increasing intolerance and fear of authority. Peaceful protest is increasingly viewed as a threat, so that authorities feel justified in acting preemptively to stifle such protest by breaking up or preventing meetings, exerting aggressive crowd control and disrupting communications–"before it leads to violence."

Dissenters then start acting defensively, preparing by getting gas masks and meeting and communicating furtively. This becomes evidence of violent intent, and so on. Then it’s too late for peaceful activity.

I don’t remember things having gotten to this stage, affecting such a broad range of issues, even in the 1960s.

Is it just the selective attention I’m paying, or is it really happening?

Robert Goodman, the Bronx

Justice for Boss Tweed

MUGGER: Enjoy your columns to the max.

Sorry to see you accept the Microsoft myth, however (6/14). Bill Gates never innovated anything in his life. An exhausted IBM handed the punk the PC operating system (Bill didn’t seem upset by antitrust then). Ten years later he double-crossed them on a joint venture (the OS system).

Next he stole the Mafia’s business techniques of threat and intimidation. Don’t forget sleazy lawyers writing contracts with loopholes so that Bill could break them whenever he wanted. (I know: He just has better liars.) Now the great innovator and free marketer wants the FTC to hand him access to AOL’s instant messaging service–which AOL designed and built itself–because no one wants Microshaft’s garbage. Government interference doesn’t bother Bill now. Thanks for listening.

Wanda LaBisoniere, Beecher, IL

Debating PC

MUGGER: I am a huge fan of yours. But I do not agree with you or Larry Kudlow (for whom I also have great respect) when it comes to Microsoft.

I have owned at least one, and usually two, PCs since 1981. I have had dealings with the PC OEM world (those local entrepreneurs who build systems for their customers) in which Microsoft, according to the information I have, has routinely used every trick in the book to try to keep competitors’ software off of PCs that OEMs sell and to rig the software so that Joe Public will more likely activate Microsoft’s version–Internet Explorer rather than Netscape, for example.

I also happen to believe that Office Suite pricing is a case of using higher profit margins from Windows (no competition) to subsidize lower margins on Office to build market share. This is not unlike the tie-in sales that got IBM in trouble 30 years ago and triggered the un-bundling of software from hardware in the mainframe computer industry.

Highly successful companies do frequently wander over the line and I believe that Microsoft has. As to the remedy...

Blaine Patrick, Eden Prairie, MN

Cemetery Gates

MUGGER: You are on target when you say: "...just because Gates is now fabulously wealthy is no reason to punish him."

However, you are swallowing the camel when you say, "Sure, Microsoft sometimes operated on the border of existing antitrust laws; that’s what happens when speed-of-light technology is beyond the comprehension of a legal system that adheres to laws passed more than 100 years ago."

I am a computer consultant who has never voted for a Democrat in his life. I spend my recreation time "hanging" on conservative sites. But it’s my belief that Microsoft should be punished, not for their wealth and success, but because they have harmed the computer-buying public.

Let me give you an example.

In the days of Windows 95 I was looking for a new source of machines. I saw a distributor that had many good features. When I phoned for a quote, though, we were hit with a Microsoft elbow in the teeth. We could not buy any machine from this distributor without paying again for Windows 95–it was part of their agreement with Microsoft. Now, my customer already owned Windows 95. His machine had suffered from a lightening strike, but he was the legal owner of a Microsoft license for Windows 95, which he had already bought and paid for. Under the terms of the Microsoft license agreement, he was entitled to use it on any one machine at a time, as long as there was no possibility that it could be used on two or more machines at the same time.

This has nothing to do with technology’s being beyond the comprehension of our legal system It has to do with a basketball player who elbows everyone–including his own players–in order to have total control of the ball, without regard to the rules. Gates and pals violated their own license agreement, while rigorously choking anyone who wanted a machine without their operating system.

It is as if Shaquille O’Neal continuously committed flagrant fouls. When the whistle blows, it is not because of his size, his color or his success. It’s because he’s doing what the rules say he cannot do.

I do not like the Clinton administration. Certainly the Justice Dept. is not to be trusted. But in this case, Microsoft had it coming.

Max G. Kearse, Mountain View, CA

Soft Machine

MUGGER: You’re absolutely right (6/14) about George W. Bush’s failure to make points on the Microsoft case. Oddly enough, by doing so, he could also revisit the theme of Clinton’s (and Gore’s) corrupt fundraising practices and their politicization of the Justice Dept.

Back when Clinton was holding $75,000 coffees in the White House, he invited business leaders to meet with their regulators in the various federal agencies. The message was clear: Anyone who ponied up could count on minimal hassles from the government. Anyone who didn’t, well, they just weren’t Friends of Bill, were they?

It would be a shame if something happened to them because they weren’t under the protection of the President, now wouldn’t it? It’s a classic protection scam, the kind that government is supposed to protect us from, not indulge in for its own benefit. Of course, the heads of Sun Microsystems and Netscape, both parties to the Microsoft suit, showed up and paid up. Bill Gates didn’t. If Gates had shown up with his checkbook, is there any doubt that the Justice Dept. would be investigating some Republican who spit on the sidewalk instead of Microsoft?

True, the anti-big-business rhetoric is typical Democratic blather, but Democrats only object to big businesses that don’t contribute to the Democratic National Committee. When Loral gave away classified data to the Chinese, they didn’t even get their wrist slapped. Of course, Loral’s CEO was the single largest DNC contributor in 1996, so what’s a few secrets between pals? After all, it’s not like the Chinese haven’t ponied up, too.

Microsoft’s only real "crime" is political naivete. They didn’t pay the extortionist hack in the White House, so they get dismembered as a lesson to others. The only difference is that Bill Gates won’t wind up in a Jersey landfill somewhere. They’ll leave him enough stock in one of his companies (how much you want to bet the other one ends up in the hands of Clinton cronies?) to pay up the next time the feds decide to lean on him.

Bush is missing a great opportunity to remind voters that the Clinton/Gore administration is the most corrupt that we’ve ever had, that the new economy happened in spite of Clinton, not because of him and that prosperity can be taken away a lot more easily than it can be built. There’s a whole investor class of Americans who now make up a majority of voters who were not amused when the NASDAQ went berserk after the judge dropped Microsoft’s stock price. A Bush campaign that forced Gore to defend the Justice Dept. would make a clear distinction between Gore’s support for his boss’ corrupt manipulation of law and markets and his own entrepreneurial bent.

It’s a great issue. It’s too bad that Bush hasn’t seized on it.

Mike Harris, Los Angeles

Lake Effect

MUGGER: Will somebody please explain to me why the wretched stupidity of these soooo intelligent Clintonites isn’t harped upon incessantly, as were Dan Quayle’s spelling errors?

For example, watching a Newsworld report of Clinton addressing the Russian parliament, I saw that the silly twit said something to the effect of: You (the Russians) don’t approve of what we did in Kosovo; we don’t approve of what you are doing in Chechnya.

Duh! The last time I looked, Kosovo was part of Serbia, not part of the U.S., while Chechnya is part of Russia! The Russians have every reason to be in Chechnya; the U.S. has not one to be in Kosovo. No one has breathed a word about this idiotic analogy.

And we can’t leave Al Gore out of the equation, with his brilliant Latin translations. "E pluribus unum" means "out of one, many." Yeah, diversity lives.

Still wondering, though, why this lot of cultural and intellectual starvelings are allowed to go unchallenged. Any suggestions why?

M.L.B. Woods, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario

Old Ironsides

MUGGER: Your 6/7 hosanna to Major League Baseball was lovely, in spite of the Merrimac/Monitor reference. I confess I don’t check the sports pages too often, but if the twaddle quotient is as high as you make it out to be, I’m glad to know I am not missing out on much.

Anyway, it is the commentators who have always had a more central role in shaping my impressions of the game. Indulge me a minute, would you, as I sing the praises of the guys who bring the games to life for those of us who can’t afford to shell out a king’s ransom for a day at the ballpark.

Over the years New Yorkers of both National and American League allegiances have counted on a legion of venerable announcers to deliver the play-by-play. In my (albeit brief) lifetime I’ve had the great pleasure of hearing games called by Bob Murphy, Gary Thorn and Phil Rizutto. Hell, even Ralph Kiner’s sub-senile ramblings are at times inspired.

But there is one Voice of the Game who has garnered special favor with me. His name is synonymous with New York baseball, and his sheer love of the sport is transmitted with every pitch he calls. I’m talking about Tim McCarver. His analyses are insightful and good-humored, and his sincerity is almost unknown elsewhere in the entertainment industry. Whether he’s calling for the Mets or the Yankees, his voice has always been able to transport me to some place of comfort, where for a few hours I almost believe that everything is going to be all right.

In this town, that’s nothing short of miraculous. Okay, so you won’t find great baseball commentary in The New York Times (big surprise), but there are a few journalists out there who can still do right by the game and its fans.

Lauren Raz, The Bronx

Domestic Tedium

Emily Prager’s 5/31 "Opinion" piece, "Getting to Know the Homeless," failed to attack the real problem of the homelessness problem in New York. After reading the article, some people might think that homelessness is caused by substance abuse, and that all homeless people have AIDS.

I am not disputing that homelessness is a problem in New York City. However, as a columnist, Prager should use her advantages to expose the real problem. Maybe she will make a difference, and her daughter will be proud.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, homelessness is on the rise in the U.S. Families with children are the fastest-growing segment. Many of the factors leading to homelessness can be traced to poverty, lack of affordable housing, domestic abuse and childhood abuse.

Rent is tremendously high. Working families who are living from paycheck to paycheck can’t afford their rents or mortgages. Most insurance policies do not cover the mentally ill; and we have only a few mental institutions in New York. Our minimum wage, compared to that in other industrial countries with a cost of living similar to ours, is very discouraging. Three out of five marriages end up in divorce. Many of the divorcees join the ranks of the homeless. Spousal abuse is at startling levels. Approximately half of all homeless are refugees from domestic violence.

It would be a good idea for Emily to volunteer her spare time to some homeless shelter, where she could experience the real problem. Before they became filthy on the train, homeless people held jobs, just like anybody else. The system failed them. Before you start to criticize them, take your paycheck and deduct from it your rent, food costs, lifestyle costs and credit-card debt–and see, if you were to lose your job, how many months you could survive before you reached rock bottom.

Emily, you could do your daughter a big favor by taking off your blinders and telling her the truth about Western civilization. Teach her about the dualism of the capitalist system, the haves and the have-nots.

I understand your fears in the wake of your experience with that one homeless person. But there are thousands and thousands of them, and they are not all violent. I think God put your daughter in your life for a reason.

Marie Chantale Bazelais, Rosedale, NY