You’re Not Alone You’re Not Alone Am I ...

You're Not Alone

Am I NUTS or did two adult males just write about their drug experiences in the past? ("Summer Guide," 5/21) I keep wondering where all the people went that I took acid with in the 60s. I saw thousands of doses go out to people for years and yet no one in the public eye ever took any of it. No politicians, no reporters?no one took any except Matt Taibbi, MUGGER and me.

Tom Paynter, Las Vegas

Herman's Hero

I'm one of the people who hates to read Friedman's stuff ("Cage Match," 5/14). He's agenda-packaged, and his side is so obvious. It just angered me. Now I can laugh out loud! All those questions I hated in English class. Reducing stories to their plots. But it has style! Matt, you made me happy! You have no idea.

Carol Herman, San Marino, CA

We Still Win

I also have come to dislike Friedman ("Cage Match," 5/14). I think the problem is that punditry has gone to his head. His appearances on PBS have convinced me that PBS is becoming tv for idiots rather than tv for eggheads. Like other mainstream media, Friedman's columns reflect the group rationalization of Bush's policies, which is alarming for democratic debate here in the United States.

Still, Matt Taibbi's declaration of drug-related harassment of the Times columnist makes him a less than dispassionate critic, even as he dwells on the columnist's literary faults as opposed to his wrong-headed political opinions. Speaking of feces, your paper's toleration of frat boy hijinks, and its encouragement of the snide and uncompassionate, has led me, a compulsive reader of almost everything, to relegate the Press to dog-shit clean-up. I read Taibbi's column online.

Frances Chapman, Brooklyn

Large Indeed

I suspect that the entire motivation for the first paragraph of Armond White's review of The Matrix Reloaded was so he could make yet another inane reference to Spielberg ("Film," 5/14). Unfortunately, the hard-on that White has for Spielberg is so large that it poked me in the eye and rendered me unable to finish reading his review.

Mark Huston, Detroit

The Berlin Wail

This is a response to Mimi Kramer-Bryk's misguided review of O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night ("Theater," 5/14). I write without having seen the production. I'll make the point at the outset that what perturbs me is the attitude that the reviewer brought to the theater, not her specific observations about a specific performance.

It's obvious that she doesn't like O'Neill and that dislike colors everything she says, leading her to generalizations that are just plain foolish. Kramer-Bryk claims that we don't go to an O'Neill play to see the play as a "totality" but to see how particular roles are performed, which, she asserts, "doesn't necessarily place O'Neill in the best possible light." I assume, therefore, that when we go to see how a particular actor performs Hamlet we are not placing Shakespeare in the best light as a dramatist. She praises Our Town and Miller's Salesman and Bridge by pinpointing dramatic moments that are effective because of "what has come before." Nothing, according to Kramer-Bryk, seems to come before the "wonderful set-pieces." A remarkable assertion. The set pieces she admires all depend on what came before. For example, Tyrone's confession about the play that ruined him as an actor and his reasons for being sucked into that commercial success surely force us to better understand and perhaps change our minds about the man whose character we judged before the revelation. Kramer-Bryk says that the memorable events in the play could be appreciated "just as easily out of context," which she sees as a "terrible indictment" of O'Neill. According to this line of reasoning, Shakespeare should also be indicted because we often appreciate his speeches out of context. O'Neill, she says, has "no interest in or facility with dialogue." Every actor performing O'Neill has commented on his remarkable facility with stage speech. She faults the director, Robert Falls, for doing what O'Neill has laid out in his stage directions?a strange fault. Too often directors do not respect the wishes of the dramatist, with ego and innovation (for worse or better) asserting itself.

Now I'll go to see what is arguably America's greatest play by, unarguably, America's most important dramatist. My wish is that Kramer-Bryk will refrain from reviewing O'Neill in the future, because she just doesn't get it.

Normand Berlin, Amherst, MA

In the Ruins

Is it good that MUGGER can pull his head out of Bush's ass long enough to brag about what a creepy little dick he was in 1975 ("Summer Guide," 5/21)? That was about when Bush was AWOL/Alabama after swindling a free pass out of Vietnam and free flying lessons from the Texas Air National Guard. MUGGER and Bush are still creepy cheese-dicks AWOL from reality.

Bush inherited the biggest and best economy in history with the biggest budget surplus in history and the biggest and by far the best military in history. Bottom line: He has blown up a lot of stuff and killed a lot of people. He has squandered the surplus, lost trillions in market capital, and placed this country at more risk from terrorism than at any time since 9/11. The dollar is plunging, foreign debt is alarming and millions of jobs have been lost, while our standing in the world is the lowest in 17 years and our Middle East policy is a disaster.

He's ruined a lot.

Peter H. Edmiston, Manhattan

Tinytown's on Alert

I can't believe MUGGER is going to Baltimore (5/14). An era is over. I'll miss the first-hand reports of family life in NYC.

Jan Hutchinson, Tempe, AZ

Into the Fire

MUGGER: So NYC under Bloomberg is going to be so bad you're relocating to East Coast murder capital Baltimore? You gotta be kidding, Tribeca homeboy that you are, you are going to be nesting in urban Baltimore? I demand a recount and failing that, a recall.

Peter Haley, Manhattan

The Party's Over

So the MUGGER family is moving back to Baltimore? What a surprise. New York never really felt like a good match, did it? I guess as long as ad revenues were robust, the Concorde was flying and thunderstorms didn't make you shit in your pants, it was worth it. The time has clearly come to cash out and run away. Be honest with your readers: Baltimore is a great place from which to preach the gospel of Cheney and Wolfowitz without fearing the consequences.

Oren Tatcher, Manhattan

And Krugman?

Matt Taibbi seems to have a serious case of sour grapes vis-a-vis Tom Friedman ("Cage Match," 5/14). Is Friedman's column taking up space in the New York Times that Taibbi figures should be his? Maybe Taibbi would prefer being a copy editor at the Times instead, given all the English composition 101 hints he served up in his piece. Or better yet, how about censor-in-chief, given his view that Friedman is "decisively wrong in all of his opinions."

Stop whining and grow up, man. Friedman's the only thing worth reading in the Times these days (besides the Metropolitan Diary). The Times sorely needs a little fairness and balance.

Melanie Posey, Manhattan

Suburban Gotham

I live in Hell's Kitchen, in a rent-stabilized barely one-bedroom (no closets) apartment on 49th St ("New York City," 5/14). I walk home past the towers on 8th Ave. every night and these luxury buildings are mostly dark in the evenings. I know New Yorkers lead busy lives, but the banks of dark windows with the blinds drawn leads me to believe that a fair percentage of these overpriced apartments are, in reality, unoccupied. I have to say, I find Longacre House's claim of 99 percent occupancy implausible.

It just doesn't make sense that there would be that kind of demand for so many new luxury apartments in this economy. Counting all the new (since 1998) luxury buildings in our neighborhood, there must be at least 2500 such units that have become available since Longacre opened. And when I read about how tax dollars are being used to subsidize this kind of white elephant construction, when we can't get any affordable housing built, when the waiting lists for city housing units are 10 years long! This is a major scandal that ought to be attracting far more attention.

Unfortunately, there are powerful interests backing these "suburban-style" developments. It's not just the developers, it's the construction unions who pack planning hearings with their members to push for every new development proposal that comes up?they simply flooded the floor with speakers at the January hearing on the Olympic stadium/new business district proposal, for example. Most of the union members, I take it, don't live in the city and so don't have to live with the impact of high-end development on the ordinary people who can just barely afford their rent and the cost of living in the city as it is. So it's not just the architecture, it's the economics and politics of Hell's Kitchen that are being suburbanized as well, as the lives of urban people are ruined to satisfy the needs of groups from "the world beyond New York."

Mark Haag, Manhattan

And God Bless You, Stevey

Thanks for that piece of shit written by Taibbi ("Cage Match," 5/7). He is a journalist, correct? You could have fooled me. I guess you guys will give any Red Diaper Doper Baby Microsoft Word and a pc that asks for one these days. Maybe you can ask that plagiarist and liar Blair to come work for you (he should fit right in). It is amazing how all you commie-leftist-anti-Americans in drag are the first to cast stones but never have any answers. Never! Typical, but not surprising. God bless America, our wonderful military that gives Taibbi the freedom to display his stupidity and God bless George W. Bush.

Steve Golden, Hawthorne, NJ

ReCorr: W-w-w-wrong!

Now I'm thoroughly confused. Not only does Taibbi illustrate Friedman's mixed metaphorical rantings, but he mimics his allusive gobbledy-gook as well ("Cage Match," 5/14). Semantic digressions are one thing, but remembering to stay on topic is the more important point I think Taibbi was trying to make (which he did, though like Friedman's metaphor involving Saddam Hussein's iron fist, inadvertently). Or did I just miss the none-too-subtle irony in Taibbi's column? Help, please.

Ken ReCorr, Brooklyn

Thanks, Silly

Taibbi asks of Thomas Friedman: "Where did they find this guy? And who edits him?" The answer, silly, is that no one edits him. Like Jayson Blair and everyone else at the Times, he just makes it up as he goes along. And you can quote me on that.

John O'Connell, Manchester, CT

MUGGER Intl. Airport

I would like to nominate Bloomberg for Greatest Mayor of All Time. Why? He got MUGGER to move to Baltimore (5/14). Guy should get a friggin' medal.

Tom Patterson, Queens

 

Hello From The Badlands

Mike Signorile: Count your lucky stars you're separated from Phelps ("The Gist," 5/14) and her apeshit clan by over a thousand miles. I live in central Nebraska, and we have to put up with her insane Westboro Baptist Church fundies from time to time. When Clinton visited our city two years ago, they came up to picket it with "Clinton is the Anti-Christ" signs.

If you think their low standards for picking a Great Satan are bad, you should see their website, godhatesamerica.com, a subsidiary of their main site, godhatesfags.com. These people make Rick Santorum almost look like the "inclusive" man Dubya's bullshit machine says he is. Their whole philosophy on 9/11 is that God let it happen because the ambassador to Belize is openly gay. Just when you think the fundies can't get any more insane, they hit you with this shit. Keep up the good work.

Jesse Stutzman, Kearney, NE

Gay Pusherman

Maybe one man's clarity is another man's confusion, but not everyone can be correct about everything. A couple weeks back, I quoted the Bible (Matthew, 19:4) to show that Christ intended marriage to be between one man and one woman. Last week ("The Mail," 5/14), Phil Hall of Manhattan, who includes "Rev." before his name, wrote in to criticize me for misquoting, to throw trendy buzzwords at me ("homophobia," the kind of word people use in place of reasoned argument) and to claim that homosexual activity is just fine with Christ.

So, if you'll kindly bear with me just a bit longer on this, I'll quote Matthew 19:4 directly: "Jesus answered, 'Haven't you read the scripture that says that in the beginning the Creator made people male and female? And God said: 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife, and the two will become one.' So they are no longer two, but one. Man must not separate, then, what God has joined together."

If this isn't clear on its face as establishing Christ's support of heterosexual marriage exclusively, then people have lost the ability to read a text for what it plainly says. And if Christ had the blasphemously outlandish idea of canceling the long-standing, godly Judaic laws against homosexual immorality and all sexual immorality, would He not have taken the opportunity to do so on the above occasion? Or on some occasion?

Well, He never did. Neither do the numerous other Bible passages that oppose homosexual sin and all sin, both before and after Christ's Resurrection, which I can go into exhaustively if I have to. Neither does the entire history of all traditional Christianity dating from the time of Christ Himself. The "gospel of gayness" is a complete fabrication that only had its birth from the minds of certain homosexual activists in very recent times. I suspect that the "gay gospel" pushers know this themselves.

Rev. (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here) Hall and his imaginary pro-gay gospel are one broad extreme. Rev. (same benefit) Phelps and his non-Christlike vitriol against homosexuals are another. The true gospel of the eternal mercy and salvation of Christ for all who come to Him, no matter who they are (John, 6:37-38. I think we'll agree on that one, Rev. Hall), remains the narrow but glorious Path where the truth is found.

Jack Seney, Queens

Big Bill Boozey

Mike Signorile: You rock again. My biggest regret about the whole Bill Bennett meltdown ("The Gist," 5/14) is that it was too short-lived. Now, with the meltdown at the Times, the righties have a new piñata to swing at instead of being forced to defend the egregious Mr. Bennett. By the way, with reference to the Rev. Fred in Topeka, a friend of mine forwarded his URL after the destruction of the space shuttle a few months ago. Turns out Fred was convinced those poor astronauts were also going to hell, though for reasons I cannot recall.

As a lapsed Catholic, I'm pretty ambivalent about whether there is an afterlife. But if so, I hope there is a particularly nasty corner of hell for the likes of the Rev. Fred and all the others who have used God's name as cover for their bigotry. As a t-shirt popular on Halsted St. a few years ago noted, "Jesus, Protect Me From Your Followers."

J.T. Borden, Chicago, IL

Duh, Amato

MUGGER: We can't wait any longer for Osama to kill again. Bush must resign and let someone take over who won't fail to catch dangerous mass murderers. Bush promised to catch Osama and Saddam and he didn't keep his word, and many more people will die while our Keystone Kowboy is busy destroying America's economy with more reckless borrowing and tax cuts for the rich. According to Bush's own statements, he has made the world a deadlier place by refusing to catch these madmen, and so now is not soon enough for him to resign with dignity. Never mind that Bush's own father has admitted to training and funding many of these people! Why aren't you using your snide manners to complain about this madness?

Janice Amato, Manhattan

Piazza, with Everything

MUGGER: We'll miss you here in NYC. I just finished your column and have some issues with your Mike Piazza comments (5/14). I normally laugh and agree with you 99 percent of the time, however I think you're a little off here. First of all, Mike did confront Clemens in the WS (remember him walking up to him with the broken bat in his hand?). Anymore than that and he would risk getting tossed. I think he was using his head. Yes, he is a defensive liability, but his offense more than makes up for it (see last two games vs. Rockies and career numbers). He also calls a very good game for pitchers, something that goes unnoticed due to lack of stats to support it.

Incidentally, the New York Post suggested trading him to Baltimore, so you may get to see him play more often. Good luck.

Gene Sullivan, Manhattan