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Political Graveyard
I will clarify my position for your paper, regarding your recent article, entitled "Grave-Dancers Union," ("Page Two," 11/26) which would have been more accurate had you actually contacted me before printing misinformation. In fact, I did initially draft this legislation, but after conversations several weeks ago with the president and board members of Green-Wood Cemetery, I decided not to introduce this legislation but to instead address my concerns of appropriate ways to finance cemeteries. In particular, I was very concerned that cemeteries would need to resort to providing entertainment in order to finance the upkeep of the grounds.
After speaking with representatives of Green-Wood Cemetery, we concluded that some types of entertainment are more appropriate than others, particularly those pertaining to the cemetery's significance as an historical and educational resource. I am very supportive of celebrating the rich and diverse past of the cemetery site and those buried in the cemetery, which I believe to be a very valuable asset in our community. I will continue to be in contact with the president of Green-Wood Cemetery and I will be reviewing other possible funding streams to provide for the continual maintenance of our treasured cemeteries, many of which across the state, have fallen into disrepair.
Joan L. Millman, Member of Assembly, District 52, Brooklyn
Like a Pinecone, We Know
Paul Krassner's Oct. 22 "Zen Bastard" column was refreshing. It's about time contrarians stand up to these deplorable mindfuck tactics. Governments, schools and the entire industrial-military complex have used that tried and true "for the children" plea as an integral piece to their Hegelian dialectic puzzle.
It's a shame the few people who see through the veil are drowned out by jingoism and SUV exhaust. Keep it up.
Robert Neil Bunch, Huntsville, AL
L Ron-ariffic!
Having known many Scientologists in my life, I concur completely with Alan Cabal's well-written and candid article ("Rotation," 12/3). It took uncommon courage. Hey, maybe some of those ethics have been rubbing off!
Bruce Clark, Tampa
Actually, he's a Freelance Scientology Apologist
Your staff Scientology apologist Alan Cabal clearly knows nothing about the true horror of Scientology. He merely spouts cult propaganda as if it were dictated to him by a Scientology p.r. drone.
If Cabal is a Scientologist, at least he has an excuse for knowing nothing about the history of crimes and human-rights abuses of the insidious mind-control organization. Few Scientologists are even remotely aware of the real horror until they've blown the cult.
Mark Ebner, co-author, Hollywood, Interrupted, Venice, CA
She Blinded Me with Scientology
When I saw that the New York Press had courageously risen above the mainstream media din, boldly proclaiming Les Freres Corbusier's new production, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant, as "tired old anti-Scientology propaganda," somehow I knew that even at that fine organ, only one reviewer could lay claim to the unique visionary esthetic and critical eye to see the malice behind the music, and indeed, I was right ("Rotation," 12/3).
Kudos to you, Alan Cabal. You have stood apart from hoi polloi before, one of the few contributors to the popular press with the moral courage to look beyond the hysteria that surrounds the "antique atrocities," in your own striking phrase, of the Holocaust, to point the finger at the true villains, the Allied Forces responsible for the bombing of Dresden. With the contrarian panache that characterizes the bon mots you scatter, pearls before swine, you summed up the complexities of the debate over human cloning by quipping, with vigor, "Legalize everything, and free Charles Manson." With such a well-articulated worldview, it is easy to see why you praise the system of ethics envisioned by L. Ron Hubbard and carried out each day by faithful Scientologists. (Perhaps if Manson were freed he could return to Scientology and finish what he started!)
Were you not so clearly devoted to your chosen spiritual path, I would hazard a guess that your good friend John Carmichael would be able to free you from your passion for Satanism as swiftly as he freed your friend from the tyranny of medical treatment for his mental illness. Or perhaps not-perhaps these faiths, separated only by terminology, can simultaneously thrive in a being of such enlightened spiritual awareness, a testament to the symbiotic similarities of their deity-creators.
Scott Pilutik, Manhattan
Not that We Haven't Asked Him To
Taibbi: I enjoyed reading your eXile articles online. Glad to see that you haven't dumbed down now that you are writing for U.S. journals.
Andrew Sandor, Slovakia
Second and 10
As someone who watched my beloved New Orleans Breakers' franchise collapse with the demise of the USFL, I agree with Mr. Lisy ("The Mail," 12/3) and would find it too heart-wrenching to think the liberated Iraqis might also find a newly minted expansion team go down the drain. Besides, my 6-6 New Orleans Saints are already having enough problems with the Allah-forsaken Carolina Panthers in the NFC South, so the last thing we need is an expansion team of angry towelheads with a chip on their shoulder "takin' it to the house."
There are quite a few cities here in the U.S.A. (Los Angeles is the first that comes to mind) that are patiently waiting for their own expansion team. Shouldn't we take care of America first?
John Dean Alfone, Austin
Prepare to Dive
Matt Taibbi's cynical broadside on President Bush's Thanksgiving trip to Iraq ("Cage Match," 12/3) is simply more hate-Bush journalism. This toxic crap makes me want to puke, and you should be ashamed for running it under the banner of responsible journalism. New York Press via the polemics of Matt Taibbi continues to sink to new depths.
Tracy Meadows, Brenham, TX
Nap Time, Matt
Temper tantrums are not attractive, even on paper. Grow up.
Betsy M. Watson, Charlottesville, VA
Don't Hate the Playa
Matt Taibbi is not a real journalist. He is so sick. His hate for our president is so blatant and pathetic ("Cage Match," 12/3). It's probably going to kill him when George Bush is re-elected. What a sad, sad man he is, and what an awful reporter he is (not a journalist).
God bless our president and all those fine troops that are protecting us from another 9/11. Too bad this man is aiding the enemy by disparaging our commander-in-chief.
Diane Machamer, Boxborough, MA
Et Tu, Heiner?
Matt Taibbi: Were you on the Clinton Africa trip ("Cage Match," 12/3)? We spent millions on a totally staged media event to buy black votes. It didn't cure AIDS. Millions still will die. I'm sure your editorial on this was as vicious as this one. Did Clinton "piss" in your face? The problem is that he did, but through your blind obedience to your Caesar, you had no clue. Obviously, you are one of the 20 percent of Bush-haters. Get used to it for five more years.
Heiner B. Steffen, Bellefontaine, OH
Slimed!
The author of this slime piece ("Cage Match," 12/3) is showing his abject ignorance for the whole world to see!
Dorris McKinney, Albuquerque, NM
One Last Line
Matt Taibbi's excellent piece is only weakened by the last line ("Cage Match," 12/3): "Then again, how could a real journalist have gotten on that plane?" Any real journalist would have to get on that plane. That reporters and editors fawned is the real issue. That and they probably sealed the election for the president.
Jeffrey Abelson, Manhattan
Camelot
Once again Matt Taibbi proves he is one of the best, the brightest and the funniest ("Cage Match," 12/3).
Kate Gilbert, Cambridge, MA
As the Pool Turns
Do the editors of New York Press just sit back and watch with amusement as Michelangelo Signorile spouts his predictable Bush-hate, not bothering to let him in on his inaccuracies? Signorile writes: "The fact that Fox News was the only television network invited while those communists at CNN were sent on a wild turkey chase certainly tells you about the White House's priorities and how it manages the news" ("The Gist," 12/3). How can he have missed that it was Fox's regular turn at bat for network pool duty, and that if the rotation had fallen differently, then the commies at CNN would've been right there in Baghdad instead of Fox?
Jerry Peragine, Harrisburg, PA
White Concord
I am in complete agreement with Armond White on The Missing ("Film," 12/3), though I believe he doesn't go far enough into the gender and racial manipulative mish-mash of this loathsome and cowardly movie. As I have pointed out in a letter to Atkinson over at the Village Voice-who neglected even to bring up many of the issues that Armond White does-this film is a not only a failure, it is a rather hateful one.
The entire film is built on the premise that racists are really good people. That underneath their tough exterior, they are heroic and courageous. And finally that honorable Indians may kidnap women, but when they come from Hollywood, they wouldn't dare rape them. Audiences today are so ahistorical that most will certainly miss the implications of the Blanchett character and her dingbat older daughter (genocide was the policy of the day at this historical moment, as you know). They will certainly be confused by the fact that the women are not assaulted in an attempt to further act out the Indian brujo's revenge on whites. They may even overlook the film's lapses as a Western action picture (child in jeopardy anyone?).
White is also right to bring up the cowardice and malice of A Beautiful Mind. In an attempt to garner respect for himself (and an Oscar), Ron Howard neutered a psychotic asshole. I would happily dismiss Howard, as White does in his repeated references to his lack of intelligence and his childishness, but I find the director much too calculating for that. He is perfectly clear about every single choice he makes. Remember the Disney Tarzan picture that everyone raved about, yet it did not have a single black person in it? Was Disney childish and stupid, or calculating and smart? I believe the latter.
Phaedra Malino, Manhattan
Yeah, We Oughta
You ought to have a good artist come up with a collage of a turkey with the face of Bush landing on an aircraft carrier sitting in a sea of bright red blood and black oil; the carrier's landing area is an American flag, and half the stars are Indian heads.
Michael Roloff, Seattle
You're a Rare Box
The New York Press Association blames the new regulations that went into effect April 2003, regarding newsboxes (preferably called vending boxes, as the ones that cause the majority of problems do not contain "news," but rather advertising) on the Bloomberg administration. It became necessary to finally do something about these hideous eyesores-as when the boxes first hit the streets under the Koch administration, voluntary guidelines were put into place, leaving it to the publications to monitor themselves.
New York Press' "Page Two" states "the rack owners recognized that there were problems with the placement of many newsracks, and were determined to demonstrate a good-faith effort to be good corporate citizens" (11/26). This simply has not happened.
For one thing, the new regulations require that each vending box be identified with the owner's name, address, phone and e-address "in a visible location." It is a rare box that is identified in this way. All it takes is a sticker.
The only thing visible about these sentinels of garbage is that they continue to proliferate, taking up valuable NYC real estate that they are not paying for. In this time of serious fiscal crisis, the city saw fit to triple the license fees for restaurant outdoor cafes who benefit from the use of extra sidewalk space. Meanwhile, the city is creating newly redesigned newspaper stands and will benefit from advertising revenues that these new structures will display. The owners will not share in these monies. These structures provide a service to the public, employ people and do not block sidewalks in unnecessary ways.
February 2001, I did a vending box survey of my neighborhood, arbitrarily choosing 14th and 23rd Sts. as my cutoffs. With 86 of these boxes on 7th Ave. and another 78 on 8th Ave., that was a total of 164 boxes in a nine-block area! As of today, this number has risen to 227. Does this mean we can expect, on average, an additional 30 boxes to appear on these same streets each year, ad infinitum, in the name of free speech?
Of those 168, fewer than 40 contained "newspapers." The remaining boxes contained free literature for various businesses, which is tantamount to advertising. From what I have been told, the City Council in regards to the First Amendment does not distinguish between newspapers and other "printed content"-which I personally feel could (and should) be challenged in court.
It seems to me that if Learning Annex, for example, wanted to put a billboard up on my building, they would have to get permission from my landlord, from the city-and would then have to adhere to all kinds of other regulations as to location, size, height, lighting, hardware, insurance, etc., and on top of that, would have to pay for the privilege!
As we all know, these boxes collect garbage around their bases and are in general a menace to the streetscape. When seven or eight are crowded together (like a vending box convention), people feel free to use the sites as dumping grounds. I have seen ironing boards, baby strollers, old furniture and all kinds of other detritus wedged in-between the offending boxes, only making matters worse. Store owners cannot reasonably be asked to keep these areas clean, when they are immersed in so much unwanted garbage.
Finally, and more important, while the entire city in general suffers from the endless barrage of boxes, Chelsea in particular is host to an unusually large blind population due to Selis Manor on 23rd St. Aside from the residents who live there, the blind travel in from the other four boroughs to take advantage of the numerous services and programs offered. I get very upset each time I see one of these people, who are perfectly capable of navigating our transit system, transferring between subways and busses, confounded at every street corner by self-serving, greedy obstructions.
I have weekly observed wheelchair-bound people being forced to enter the lane of traffic in the wrong direction at 18th and 7th Ave. and enter that block via the 19th St. cut-a-way. There is an empty Employment Guide box at 18th St., chained to the lamppost that has been directly in the curb cut for over a year and a half! Complaints to DOT, 311, website, local precinct, etc., have done absolutely nothing to correct this mindless and unnecessary situation.
First Amendment issues notwithstanding, what about the civil rights of these citizens to unrestricted access to their city?
As we continue to try to clean up our city, it only becomes more onerous, when we have a sanctioned situation that amounts to legal littering.
Dianna Maeurer, Manhattan