Whos Your Daddy Whos Your Daddy? This ...
We Were Extradited
When are you guys gonna go back to Prague? I hope soon. MUGGER, you took the only platform for those of us on the right, and sold it to a bunch of liberals with a Village Voice complex. I hope the dollars find you solace.
Ron Malpeli, Staatsburg, NY
Page Six Believes Us
Margaret Menge's article ("Books," 8/13) is the most frivolous and irresponsible piece of journalism I have read in a long time. Menge connects two events?the laying off of employees and striking a book deal with Hillary Clinton?without any sources, named or unnamed, to corroborate her theory. She then goes on to opine that Simon & Schuster is "losing" money on the Clinton book simply because they did not give Hillary Clinton a "standard" book contract.
Of course the terms of a standard book contract will change for the most anticipated release of the year! If a company makes less than it would proportionally on the Clinton book than it would on, say, a first-time author with a surprise bestseller, it's because the company can bank on a high volume of sales, something that is less predictable for a standard release work of literature.
The author is comparing apples and oranges. However, even under the "standard" terms, Hillary is sure to make back her unprecedented advance. In the U.S. alone, according to the author, she is 2/3 of the way there, and this is not counting foreign, paperback and books-on-tape sales.
Whatever the company eventually makes, it is still a lot more than it would make if the book had gone to a competitor. That is why Hillary was able to negotiate a more advantageous contract in the first place. To insinuate that the company is losing so much money on this book that it had to lay off 75 employees is complete nonsense. It is surprising that your company would publish anything containing such huge gaps in common sense, lacking any hard facts to back up the argument. Is anyone awake at the editor's desk?
Colin Steele, Manhattan
Third Base with the President?!?
Matt Taibbi is at it again ("Cage Match," 8/20). He fingers President Bush and his father for "this kind of thinking" that caused the recent blackout in the Northeast. C'mon Matt, you can do better than that. Take the silver spoon out of your mouth. You are choking on it. Your elitist ass is showing once again. Save your energy for Hillary. No pun intended.
Tracy Meadows, Brenham, TX
Grid Knock
Matt Taibbi's diatribe ("Cage Match," 8/20) against Niagara Mohawk and National Grid was sloppy. He first fingered NiMo as the culprit. We have known for nearly a week now that the source of the problem was in northern Ohio. NiMo does not serve northern Ohio. Taibbi blames NiMo, under Grid's ownership, for cutting 750 employees. NiMo was a bloated, overstaffed company that needed realignment, and cutting costs, which requires reducing payroll, was a condition of approving the deal by the NY Public Service Commission.
Taibbi castigates the Grid for caring more about the safety of its UK plants than it does for those in the U.S. The Grid is a transmission and distribution company in the U.S. and in the UK. It owns no generating plants in either country. Taibbi had to go all the way to Japan to find a publication sufficiently ill-informed to blame the blackout on the perceived unwillingness of competitive electricity companies to build sufficient generating plants.
At the moment the U.S. in general and the Northeast specifically are awash in excess generating capacity precisely due to the speculative building of unneeded generating capacity by competitive generators.
That's an awful lot to get completely wrong in one little article.
Tim O'Brien, Scituate, MA
Bronx Boost
As he did with his column on the trip he made to his grandparents' and Babe Ruth's parish church, C.J. Sullivan hit the heights with his column on Orio Palmer ("Bronx Stroll," 8/20), a great man of the Bronx, the Borough of Giants. Keep it up, C.J.! You make all us Bronxites, former as well as present, proud.
David S. Levine, White Lake, NY
Praise Be the Lord
Hallelujah! What fun and how satisfying to finally have some written words to look forward to. Thank you for recognizing the importance and the genius of Paul Krassner!
Linda Grossman, Traverse City, MI
No, but Jenna Is
Congratulations on landing Krassner. But how can a weekly publish a "biweekly column"? Is G.W. Bush moonlighting as your copy editor?
Mark Paul, Chicago
The editors reply: Thank you, Mr. Safire, but our big dictionary prefers "biweekly" to indicate every two weeks, not twice a week. And we've got its back.
Dr. Dolan: Dismissed!
The review of The Paris Review Book ("Books," 7/23) was a bad review in more than one way. Not only did the reviewer, John Dolan, not like the book, he displayed a lack of professionalism by not offering a single bit of evidence?not a single quotation?supporting any of his dismissive assertions. If you're going to claim that writers widely thought to be good are not, you have to quote examples of their shortcomings, not just display your smug attitude. I've done book reviews and I would have been embarrassed to turn in such transparently lazy and dishonest piece of work. As an editor I would not have accepted such work without questioning it.
Daniel Garrett, Richmond Hill, NY
Times Change, Alfred
Would someone please tell Mike Signorile that it's "the media are," not "the media is." Media is the plural of medium.
Alfred C. Mandler, Elmhurst, NY
Lucky Thirteen
As someone who does extensive research and reading about the adolescent experience in America (across all ethnic, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds), I feel White should be wary of allowing his own clear personal biases inform his opinion of Thirteen ("Film," 8/20). The voice of the film is not meant to appeal to adults, so much as to attempt to educate them about the female adolescent perspective. White is really saying that because the characters of Tracy and Evie are white, their personal experiences of adolescence are not only invalid, but also not worth examining.
White feels that the two girls' behavior demonstrates only the self-indulgence of adolescence, but if he does, he is missing the point. Who among us, regardless of background, had any real perspective at that age? That is precisely the reason that parents and adolescents find it so difficult to communicate with one another. Teens, who do not have the benefit of adult experience or perspective, cannot possibly be expected to make informed decisions based on lessons learned from the past.
To dismiss the film as "lying" because it lacks this perspective simply serves to further alienate a generation, as one more adult refuses to validate the adolescent voice.
Elizabeth Silber, Los Angeles
McCullen's Roundup
All right, there's several movie reviews from the past couple of months that I want to comment on now that I've seen the movies.
Armond White first. I knew months ago he was going to hate Thirteen ("Film," 8/20), so I'll just say that I don't think the movie's passing the blame to everyone else so much that the main character is. I see her as pathologically incapable of taking responsibility for anything, and I don't think the movie is approving of her?she's having fun, but the audience can't enjoy watching her descent.
And speaking of films it's not worth arguing about, I thought there was some truth in Seabiscuit ("Film," 7/23), but I can't imagine White finding anything worthwhile in the narrative of a sports movie in any case. I was amused that the Voice knocked it as Spielbergian (wrongly), while the huge Spielberg fan loathed it.
Okay, both guys talked about The Secret Lives of Dentists, although White just used it as an excuse to rave about Trixie again for reasons I've never been able to comprehend ("Film," 8/13). (I did actually like Trixie, but that was more from my fondness for Emily Watson and puns.) That movie's another example of White's unique (but interesting) critical paradigm, which would be much less annoying without the godlike pronouncements implying that the rest of us have no critical faculties.
As for Matt Zoller Seitz's review ("Film," 8/6) of the same film, I actually felt the Denis Leary stuff was necessary as a way to break up the monotonous rhythm of the family life. I think if it had been nothing but the carefully observed family life, that would have ultimately been too draining on the audience. (I'll concede the shotgun scene was too much.) The one thing I thought was missing from the film was that the parents seemed to draw no happiness from their children. There are times kids are a burden; there are times they're a joy, but you couldn't tell that from this movie.
I disagree with Seitz that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was better than Pirates of the Caribbean ("Film," 7/23), although both were enjoyable. The Venice scenes in LXG were wildly overdone, and I wasn't even sure what the characters were trying to do there. And there were shots in London where you could clearly see where the painted backdrop started. Pirates was simply more fun, although it was too long and spent too much time with the dull comedy relief.
I haven't gotten to American Splendor yet, but in response to Seitz's comments on Ghost World ("Film," 8/13), I don't know why it's a bad thing to regret the harshness of the world. And the main characters are not hapless victims of a cruel world; they're intelligent, self-aware people who have chosen to reject the popular values of society. They may bitch and moan, but they're too smart not to realize their situation comes out of their own choice. That doesn't make their story any less enjoyable. (Or maybe I'm just a hipster who likes being pandered to. I still think Ghost World was a great movie.)
And finally, the review that made this letter necessary: Northfork, which I wouldn't have gone to see otherwise ("Film," 7/23). Seitz nailed that one right between the eyes. Wonderful movie. Just don't ask me to explain why.
Devin McCullen, Green Brook, NJ
One Reader's Poll
You know, Russ Smith really is as dumb as people say. (Doesn't he win "Worst Writer at New York Press" in your readers poll every year?) His recent whining about the blackout and Bloomberg confirms he's a first-class dolt (8/20). The smoking ban will hurt NYC's economy? Nevermind that he has it totally backwards?the economy went through the roof after the last smoking ban went into effect in the 90s, and all these bars and restaurants were empty before Bloomberg got elected because of 9/11 and Bush's Depression?but Smith could be completely right and he'd still be completely wrong.
Does he have any idea how many people lost their jobs when we outlawed asbestos? Why isn't he clamoring on about that hit on our economy?
What a jerk. The most damaging maneuver to private business in history was when that goddamned liberal, Abraham Lincoln, forced the emancipation of slaves. All those farmers and other businessmen lost the labor they'd cheaply bought and actually had to pay wages to their employees! I'm not sure if the Americas ever recovered from that dark day when government regulation trumped the free market and devastated our economy! So, should we bring back slavery?will Smith admit he's a jackass?
Mark Vitale, Brooklyn
GB2: Election Day
Two weeks ago I wrote a letter to New York Press criticizing Russ Smith's article about the Gray Davis recall. I said the article had very little to do with the issue of the recall and was merely an opportunity for Smith to engage in name-calling. In his article Smith proceeded, in short order, to insult seven United States senators, DNC Chairman Terry McCauliffe, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and a few lesser-known public figures.
Everyone is aware by now, I'm sure, of the Fox News lawsuit last week against comedian Al Franken for trademark infringement for his use of the words "fair and balanced" in his new book's title, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced View of the Right. Writing about the lawsuit, Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that his "favorite allegation" in the suit "is the claim that Franken is a 'parasite' who is 'commonly perceived as having to trade off the name recognition of others in order to make money.'"
Bookman adds: "Have the Fox lawyers never watched O'Reilly's show, or read his newspaper column? Trading off the name recognition of others is one of O'Reilly's favorite shticks. He has made himself rich and famous in large part by feeding off public resentment of people who are rich and famous.
"For proof, we need look no further than O'Reilly's most recent syndicated newspaper column, marketed to editorial pages around the country. In the space of just a few hundred words, O'Reilly manages to cram in the names of J. Lo, Ben Affleck, Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Roseanne, Michael Jackson, Bob Hope, Holly Hunter, Meryl Streep and Eminem."
At the very moment I read these lines I realized, All these people do it: O'Reilly, Rush, Ann Coulter, MUGGER. They're really not like us. I submit that they are cyborgs transported back from the future in the 1980s and 90s. Their mission is to intervene in the natural processes?terminate them, as it were?that lead to Bush's loss in the presidential election of 2004 by the margin of 96 percent to four percent?almost all of that four percent coming from the suburban community of Irvine, CA.
Following the 2004 election, the Bush lineage and associated DNA quickly became extinct through natural processes?such as public stonings and burnings at the stake. However one microscopic strand of Dubya brain tissue?constituting 90 percent of his frontal lobe?was saved in a refrigerated mayonnaise jar by the illegitimate lovechild of Condi Rice and Trent Lott, and was used in the year 2067 to fabricate human replicates.
We now know them as O' Reilly, MUGGER, Brit Hume, et al.
Will the future proceed according to the natural order, or will the entrenched cyborgs, recognizing the media as the weak link in the electoral process, win the day and bring about the reelection of Dubya Bush? We will know on election day. If Bush loses, as God himself wishes it, the incredible-sounding thesis advanced here will be confirmed by immediate cyborg self-termination, the pre-programmed consequence of mission failure. May God bless America!
Gerald S. Rellick, SAnta Ana,CA