TOC/MAIL 24 THE MAIL THIS WEEK: Spite begets spite, an old-timer calls ...

THE MAIL

THIS WEEK: Spite begets spite, an old-timer calls New York Press "fish wrap" and the oil debate seeps into Minnesota. PLUS: Chip Kidd strikes back—if that is his real name.

ORIGINS OF THE SPECIOUS

Gee, kids—thanks for the love ("Press Clips," 6/9), but here's the real story. Regarding the image on the cover of Sedaris' Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, I was lucky enough to find it on the website of Alamy Images the first week of February. Well before your little effort in March. The photo is by Oote Boe, with whom I've worked in the past on Thomas Beller's The Sleep-Over Artist.

Had any of your, ahem, reporters bothered to contact me before you went to press (the way actual newspapers do), they might have spared themselves the embarrassment brought by the fact that Amazon (among many other websites) has had the Sedaris cover posted since late February. Although maybe your "fact-checkers" thought that was after March 24.

P.S. Nice typo in the second-to-last line—"he also add," indeed. Keep up the good work.

Chip Kidd, Manhattan

NO KIDDING

I noticed your article in "Press Clips" (6/9) concerning the theft of the idea for the cover of the new David Sedaris book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. You suggest that the book cover idea was stolen from your March 24 cover.

I manage the data on book products for Barnes and Noble.com. I checked our database, and we processed the cover image for the Sedaris book on March 23, 2004, one day before your cover. The publisher would have to have had the art well before that date to have prepared the cover. It looks like Chip Kidd is guilty of being smug, but not stealing the idea.

David Bock, VP, Database Technology

Barnes and Noble.com

TOO MUCH SUN?

Ever wonder where sour grapes come from ("Press Clips," 6/9)? The David Sedaris cover for Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim was created by Chip Kidd well in advance of your March 24 issue. Anyone connected with publishing knows the lead-time required for a book cover. And anyone who knows Chip and his work knows he hasn't gotten to where he is in this industry by making a practice of ripping off anyone's ideas. Next time, might I suggest, your less-than-original cover designer should read Chip's novel The Cheese Monkeys, or perhaps take a class at the New School in ethics.

Charles Kochman, Editor, DC Comics, Manhattan

The editors reply: Of course we considered the issue of lead-time in producing jacket art, but it was too close to call (from the data available to us). We'll back off the claims of creative borrowing, but stand by our belief that Kidd is a smarmy no-talent. Or, to put it another way, we offer up this gem from his interview in the Onion: "[Q]uite frankly, it was easy for me to get stuff published, because they knew who I was. Had I tried to do it the way normal people do it…I wouldn't have gotten very far." Correction: Kidd is a smarmy, no-talent asshole.

TEN-GUN SALUTE

I salute you on printing the book review Blown Away: American Women and Guns by Caitlin Kelly (Judy Jackson, "Books," 6/9). Very few people have the courage, maturity and proper judgment to speak out about the truth without bias on the issue of guns. Very few people have the courage to speak the truth because it may affect their career. Thank you. It is so hard to find those in the media who are unbiased and speak the truth. You have just gained a reader.

Lt. Jason Perusek, USN, Ledyard, CT

TUBMAN COULD SHOOT?

Just read your review on Blown Away by Caitlin Kelly (Judy Jackson, "Books," 6/9). Most people frequently overlook Harriet Tubman, who often carried a rifle with her, for obvious reasons, when she traveled in slave states to help bring escaped slaves up north through her Underground Railroad.

Recently in Baltimore, an African-American organization commissioned an artist to paint a portrait of Tubman on the side of their building. The organization did not want to see Tubman holding a rifle. Being true to history and rejecting a revisionist historical perspective, the artist was fired because he refused to paint Tubman without her rifle.

Guns do not cause crime. They are only a symptom, not the cause. Blaming guns for crime is like blaming a cough for causing colds. Most firearms are owned by those who live in rural areas where crime is rare. It's the cities, usually with strict gun control, where crime rates are high.

James Mullen, White Hall, MD

CABAL HOLDS THE FORT

The paper has become nothing short of fish wrap. The paper was great three to four years ago. I used to enjoy a respite from the Village Voice. It was balanced too. With Christopher Caldwell vs. That Other Guy. And George Tabb was especially entertaining. J.R. Taylor is boring now. The only guy I like to read now is Alan Cabal. Why did you sell out, Russ Smith? Time to move on, I guess. To actually have good writers who were from the right was a blessing. I guess you know where I stand.

Robert Logomasini, Weehawken, NJ

SPITE IS MIGHT

I just read your article "Spite! It Wins Votes" (Mark Ames, "Spite the Vote," 6/9). You know what? It does win votes. I own my own business and several homes here in the New York City area. I think your article is atrocious; you're an America-hating bastard.

We vote for Bush because Bush protects us. We are angry white males; we are spiteful. I don't like seeing a black man holding a white woman's hand when walking down the street, and I don't like to see a man holding another man's hand walking down the street. We are angry and we will vote for Bush.

Rother Schlager, Bronx

NO, BUT HE SHOULD BE

A crackhead psychoanalyzing our collective psyche (Mark Ames, "Spite the Vote," 6/9)? I guess the fact that he's a self-loathing white suburban crackhead, who by the way has lived in a former Soviet Bloc state, makes him the right sort of crackhead to explain our behavior to us.

This long stream of lofty reductivism, a trait endemic among the urgently radical, really gets boring right about here: "Spite voting is mostly a white male phenomenon, which is why a majority of white males vote Republican. It comes from a toxic mix of thwarted expectations, cowardice and anomie that is unique to the white American male experience." This after stating that Middle America's resentment of condescending smart alecks who "really do know what is best" is a myth perpetuated by the whiny right.

Is this guy running Kerry's campaign?

Thomas Brown, Manhattan

BLACK AND WHITE SPITE

For readers interested in more information about this subject (Mark Ames, "Spite the Vote," 6/9), here are two in-depth, though small, books: Eric Hoffer's The True Believer and Wilhelm Reich's Listen Little Man. Both were written around 1950. The first deals with deep historical insights, the second includes women and details the Nazi era. Both are outstanding and delightfully readable.

Ann G. Peluso, Limerick, ME

GLORIOUS-LEADER THEORY

Mark Ames is without a clue when he writes that people vote for George Bush to spite the limousine liberals of Hollywood (Mark Ames, "Spite the Vote," 6/9). The reason that people support Bush is that after 9/11, he perceived the threat posed by militant Islam to Western civilization and articulated a strategy for dealing with that threat. If Bill Clinton had reacted properly to the first World Trade Center bombing, the African embassy killings or the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, then Al Gore would be in the White House today.

Bill Hough, Manhattan

CAN ONE MITIGATE HORSESHIT?

Mark Ames' article "Spite the Vote" (6/9) is an interesting case of some gems of insight mixed with unmitigated horseshit. His discussion of "why so many working- and middle-class white males vote against their own best interests" is certainly worth reading. We're all familiar with anti-intellectualism in America, but the idea of spite as a manifestation of it is (for me) new. And while his discussion of the psychology of the white American male is also worthwhile, one can't help wondering if white male disenchantment and disenfranchisement in the U.S. is not unlike that of the many male Muslims, who just want to blow something up. In the latter case there is at least some target or goal, however far off it may be. Spite, as Ames makes clear, is total impotence.

But Ames' criticism of Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi and their fake rage just doesn't sell. The same holds for the persona of John Kerry. Ames has some good ideas, but a little review and editing would have gone a long way here.

Gerald S. Rellick, Santa Ana, CA

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED

I loved Mark Ames' "Spite the Vote" (6/9), because it confirms and illuminates the totalitarian impulse of the socialist mind. The best part of the article was his insistence that the affluent urbanites vote for the Democratic party "because their lives are so wonderful." Maybe Mark counts himself as one of the happy Democrats feeding soma to the idiots who make up the mass of humanity, or maybe he is just blind to the deep spiritual emptiness and sadness of so many Democrats that I know who are living "wonderful" lives—maybe both.

Whatever, he makes a great case for voting Republican this fall.

Charles Matheson, Manhattan

TIGHT AMES

This was the lead on Mark Ames' article this week ("Spite the Vote," 6/9): "It came on suddenly and without warning. Fuck the Democrats. Fuck the liberals."

What more needs to be said? He's got it. That's as much of the column as I read, or needed to—did he say anything else? Doesn't really matter.

Jim Switz, Port Townsend, WA

OH, NO. ANOTHER BOXING MATCH?

Apparently Mark Ames is under the illusion that conservatives are gutless ("Spite the Vote," 6/9). Please pass along an invitation to that piece of crap: This former Marine will beat him to a pulp—just present himself in San Diego and we can lace up the gloves and let the games begin. Gutless is the pathetic crap he is, passing off for a journalist, or the staff allowing this crap. And stuff the 1st Amendment—he's gutless and the paper is not much better.

I'm praying for my prayer to be answered. You have my email. Let's rock and roll.

Jack Truman, San Diego

FIXING THE TRAINS

Excellent commentary on rebuilding the Fulton St. Station ("Mass Transit Authority," 6/9), but you missed a few points. First, concentrate on the Second Ave. line to ease the congestion on the Lex. Possibly explore a 10th or 11th Ave. subway. The West Side has been underserved since the 9th Ave. El was razed in the 1940s.

Second, instead of making Fulton Station a glass palace, clean up all the garbage on the tracks. The uptown express platform at 125th St. looks more like the uptown sewer, as does virtually every subway track in the Bronx. I could probably retire on all the deposit bottles on the tracks.

Third, give us some more service on the 40/42 bus in the Bronx. I often wait 10 minutes at the height of rush hour for a bus to take me to the subway.

Nathan F. Weiner, Bronx

CLOWN CARS FOR ALL

Thanks for a great article by Aaron Naparstek ("The Coming Energy Crunch," 6/2). I'm interested to see whether any DC politician could be honest enough to re-awaken America to evaluate potential energy resources. How the United States went from a policy of resolving to conserve energy—oil in particular—to driving tanker SUVs over the last 25 years is unbelievable. European countries pay $4 to $6 a gallon for petrol—no wonder they still have economy cars there. Does this make any sense to Americans?

Bob Oberkeitr, Northvale, NJ

PAST PEAK

Thanks for a good article (Aaron Naparstek, "The Coming Energy Crunch," 6/2). Although many articles are beginning to discuss oil peak, this one treads in the forbidden territory of life after peak and the kinds of fundamental changes it will bring. The 30-year update of the 1972 book, The Limits to Growth, which presented warnings about the impossibility of unlimited exponential growth, is now available. It is worth reading.

Chuck Wright, Round Rock, TX

NO "HOT AIR" PUNS HERE

At one level The Day After Tomorrow is supposed to be about Al Gore's politically correct global-warming message, compliments of Hollywood, the DNC's political mouthpiece. However, though unintended by the producers, the movie is truly an allegory about the far more devastating social and economic effects of the impending global peak in oil production—which virtually guarantees insufficient oil consumption and economic activity to drive the mathematical (really political) models of the all-knowing leftist academics.

John Jauregui, Woodbridge, VA

YOU MEAN, A FOREIGN ADVERSARY LIKE IRAN?

Of course the media and Reagan-haters brought up the Iran-Contra affair (Russ Smith, "Death Changes Everything," 6/9). They describe it as a Reagan crime, but he was fighting communism in our hemisphere. The real story in the Iran-Contra affair is that of the "Dear Commandante" letter, in which a bunch of prominent Democrat lefties assured Ortega that he had their support and their promise to subvert President Reagan for Ortega's benefit.

Even if the democrats had had something on Reagan, American law would take a dim constitutional view of the Congress supporting and cooperating with a foreign adversary.

G.B. Hall, Marietta, GA

VET ON TET

I just read Matt Taibbi's "The Ghost of Tet" (6/9). I marched, repeatedly, against the Vietnam War in 1968-69 because it was clear that the Johnson administration, after lying to get us into that war, did not intend to win it, which meant that further killing was simply an obscene waste without reason.

Further, it's a simple fact that the Tet offensive was a massive defeat that so decimated the Vietcong that it was never again an independent force in the Vietnam war—North Vietnam took command in the South after Tet.

Barry Peterson, Tallahassee

YOU READ IT

Another excellent story about transportation policy by Aaron Naparstek ("The Coming Energy Crunch," 6/2). It's too bad that Americans who don't live in Manhattan won't be reading this story. Manhattan is one of those rare cities where a person can easily live without an automobile.

Many cities are still building and expanding their automobile infrastructure, as the recently released Taxpayers for Common Sense and Friends of the Earth's "Road to Ruin Report" revealed. Check it out at taxpayer.net/road2ruin/.

Ken Avidor, Minneapolis