Letters Letters
He Doth Bestride the Narrow World… Santa Cruz, Calif. Reading E.L. Doctorow’s “Reading John Leonard” [Feb. 27], his lovely introduction to the collection of Leonard’s essays reminded me of the tag line of one of John’s first film reviews for the college paper, an appreciation of the 1953 Joseph Mankiewicz version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. After appraising the performances of James Mason, Marlon Brando and John Gielgud, Leonard ended thus: “And of course, it’s a competent script.” WALLY GOLDFRANK Wow! Oakland, Calif. Wow. The February 27 issue is the best! Readers protest in the Ron Paul “Letters” rebuttals; Todd Gitlin lays out how city governments suppress free speech; Trita Parsi shows us lurching down a dangerous path to war in Iran; Gary Younge outlines the scandalous attempt to rewrite history in Arizona; and Carne Ross wraps up with “A New Politics for a Disorderly World.” Well done, writers and editors! DAVE ALBERTS The Death of Anti-Semitism? Philadelphia Eric Alterman assuredly had his tongue in one of his cheeks writing about the end of anti-Semitism [“The Liberal Media,” Feb. 27] as evinced by the dearth of bigotry in reaction to Sheldon Adelson’s $10 million gift to the Gingrich Super PAC. Alterman notes that the media focus was on big campaign money, not on Adelson’s “ugly Jew” qualities. But if George Soros provided outsize funding for a candidate of the left, we know how he’d be portrayed—first by Fox and Limbaugh, then by all the others who report about Fox. Bigotry is not equal across the spectrum. It bends to the reactionary right much more often than to the progressive left. We can celebrate that, a little. DON DeMARCO Drones: Murder by Video Game San Francisco I appreciated John Sifton’s timely and illuminating cover story “Drones: A Troubling History” [Feb. 27].The reason I find drones—and those who authorize their use, including President Obama—revolting is that the devices have not reduced civilian casualties. Despite Obama’s statement that drones make “precision strikes” that “have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties,” the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found that they have caused some 400–800 civilian deaths in Pakistan alone, 175 of them children. HOLLY SEVERSON Murrieta, Calif. John Sifton worries that drone killing may become automated—HAL with an AK-47. No, there will always be personnel to pull the trigger. In 1996 I saw two young boys playing a video game. They had somehow rigged the software so the bad guys couldn’t shoot back; it became a carefree massacre. It was so disturbing, I wanted to tell their parents. Those boys from the ’90s have grown up and, as we saw in the videotape of the Reuters press-crew slaughter, are firing without compunction. JOHN STICKLER Dallas Before the flash, the doomed men and women shout Pashto words that in English mean “my child,” “my wife,” “my mother,” “my God.” The technician watching the screen in the darkened room shouts words that do not translate well into Pashto. In the next room, slightly lighter, a press release is issued announcing the triumph. At six, the technician clocks out, calls his wife, fills up his car and buys the milk she asked him to pick up on the way home. Each transaction is recorded in a database for use if someone calls another technician in another darkened room with a new order. It will not matter that the two technicians perfectly understand each other. They won’t be within shouting distance before that flash either. KENT H. ROBERTS Chelsea, Mich. The parallel between the “operational stress” reported by John Sifton in military drone operators who kill military/political targets and the psychological stress reported by Timothy Pachirat in slaughterhouse knockers killing cattle suggests another parallel. Pachirat believes that those who eat the meat of slaughtered animals—“who benefited at a distance, delegating this terrible work to others while disclaiming responsibility for it”—bear more moral responsibility than those who did the killing. Similarly, in benefiting at a distance from actions that maintain the perquisites of empire, aren’t we more morally responsible than the drone operator who pushes the button? Directing Pachirat’s question (“What might it mean…for all who benefit from dirty work not only to assume some share of responsibility for it but also to experience it?”) to the issue of murder by drone might be the first step toward aborting the dark future of brutality detached from humanity that Sifton foretells. DEBORAH RICHARDS Slaughterhouse Hive Philadelphia As a longtime appreciator of Ted Con- over’s reporting and someone loosely familiar with Timothy Pachirat’s research, I was eager to read Conover’s review of Every Twelve Seconds [“The Flesh Underneath,” Feb. 27]. I feel compelled to defend Pachirat’s decision to maintain the anonymity of the slaughterhouse where he carried out his research. Pachirat was presumably bound by the strictures of his university’s review board. His funding was likely contingent on a pledge to protect his subjects. Not only could he have exposed co-workers to discipline; he might have damaged his prospects in academia. And risk-adverse boards might be even more conservative in granting research approval for a future Pachirat, exemplary at both social theory and deep reporting, to carry out critical investigations. DAN PACKEL He Occupied Iraq & Occupied Wall Street Bluff Point, N.Y. I loved “The Occupied and the Occupier,” by Derek McGee! [Feb. 13] Maybe it’s because I too am a marine, and marines will always stand together. But I’m a disabled Vietnam veteran with a physical and PTSD rating of 100 percent. I wish I were able to join the Occupy movement, but my disability leaves me demo-phobic. Also, I don’t have that young marine discipline anymore. I will not stand by with a sign saying, I Forgive the Police while they’re spraying CS gas in the faces of peaceful young people exercising free speech. I would shove that gas canister where it belongs. And in Oakland, where police found it necessary to shoot an Iraq veteran in the head with rubber bullets, my reaction would be to return fire. One problem: I don’t own rubber bullets. So to Derek and all the other brave protesters, all I can add is moral and some financial support. Semper fidelis, Derek! I am adding you to my list of Marine Corps heroes next to the likes of Chesty Puller, Carlton Rouh, John Basilone and Daniel Ellsberg. MARK S. SMYTH
Mar 13, 2012 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
Do justices feel shame?—the Met found wanting—can Congress feel our pain?—eyewitnesses: not 20/20—a reviewed author objects—Rainbow Rowell’s wel...
Feb 29, 2012 / Our Readers and Caleb Crain
Letters Letters
Suffer the Little Puffins Atlanta To perpetuate Tony Kushner’s Puffin Prize, fondness for funny fowl and tilt toward alliteration, he might endow a Distinguished Dodo lectureship. Congratulations on being a creative citizen! [“On Puffins and Presidents,” Jan. 30]. SETH FOLDY New England’s PB: Beats Leaf-Peeping! Royalston, Mass. I read Gabriel Hetland’s “Grassroots Democracy in Venezuela” [Jan. 30] with a sense of déjà vu. Here in New England, we’ve been practicing participatory budgeting (PB) for nearly 400 years. We call it “town meeting.” In most New England towns, residents assemble once a year to vote on the budget—everything from cemetery care and streetlights to asphalt, senior housing and snow removal. So the true origin of PB is up here in the Northeast. It is ironic that Milwaukee, Chicago and Oakland, among other cities discussed by Hetland, must learn about PB from Venezuela rather than from US states and towns. I encourage those in the US PB movement to save the intercontinental airfare and head to New England in the spring. Town meeting is more entertaining than the autumn leaves, and we could sure use the tourist revenue! AARON ELLISON Schools for the Poor Are Poor Schools Philadelphia There is no doubt that President Obama made a serious mistake when he chose Arne Duncan over Linda Darling-Hammond to be his education secretary. Unlike Duncan, who arrived late to the conclusion that No Child Left Behind is a “broken” law, Darling-Hammond always knew it and correctly analyzes its failures in “Redlining Our Schools” [Jan. 30]. Except for the stipulation that teachers must be highly prepared and qualified, there is little to salvage from the disastrous NCLB. Congress would be wise to take Darling-Hammond’s suggestions, unless it is committed to the deconstruction and privatization of our public schools. That would indeed be an American tragedy. GLORIA C. ENDRES Morristown, N.J. Hooray for Linda Darling-Hammond blowing the whistle on the Obama administration’s misguided policies to turn around “failing schools.” The proposition that schools that educate only children from very poor families can be transformed by firing the principal and most of the teachers aims at the wrong target. That said, progressives err in acting like they know how to solve the problem of deep poverty. Of course we need a stronger safety net and more effective jobs and housing programs, as Darling-Hammond notes. But stick to the issue: what to do with “poverty only” schools. Concentrated poverty is the problem. Public schools are the only institutions certain to touch the lives of very poor children. So, stop with the jobs and housing suggestions and focus on what needs to change with educational policies and practices. Children from poor families begin kindergarten without the vocabulary, general knowledge and familiarity with print they need to begin to read. This is the tragic gap that is rarely narrowed, which means that most poor children are not strong readers by third grade. We know that if they are not up to grade level by age 9 or 10, their chances of catching up are only around 10 percent. The shame of federal policy is that it fails to concentrate on the kindergarten gap. President Obama campaigned with the right ideas but failed to follow through with what are proven practices: § start early with excellent preschool § concentrate on intensified literacy instruction in the primary grades and surround students with books, words, ideas, stories § spend more time with kids who struggle, check progress frequently § adjust and readjust instruction to reflect the needs of individual students. Simple to describe; devilishly difficult to do. Don’t confuse the issue by trying to solve everything. GORDON MacINNES, fellow The Century Foundation Rip Up That Pavement Over Paradise! Eugene, Ore. We’ve got to rethink the concept of a “growth economy” and focus on regenerating, renewing, repairing and regrowing. Let’s spend a generation hiring millions for these jobs: build miles of bike and horse paths; replant diversified forests, grasslands and hedgerows; tear down derelict buildings and parking lots and plant urban farms; retrofit all buildings; build light rail and trollies; clean up every creek, stream, river, lake, beach; put solar panels, micro wind and water catchment on all buildings; develop clean energy; modernize water and sewage systems; put power lines underground. We need a Great Renewal. Push for these jobs locally, regionally, nationally, even internationally. They can’t be outsourced. Go to Facebook.com/TheGreatRenewal. We can do this. VIRGINIA LUBELL All the News That’s Missed in Print Brown Deer, Wis. I just want to say thanks so very much. I subscribe to your print magazine and online newsletter and find your reporting especially insightful. While reading, I often find myself a tad chagrined because I’m not reading or viewing a similar story in the mainstream media; MSNBC is the exception. All too often everyone else is missing it, ignoring it or deciding against reporting it. Thanks again for what journalism is supposed to be all about. Really. ROBERT LEO RAMCZYK JR. Corrections An editor misplaced a quotation in Andy Robinson’s “Marxism at Davos” [Feb. 20]. It was Philip Jennings, not Gerard Lyons, who said, “This isn’t the Magic Mountain, it’s the Great Gatsby revisited.” Eric Alterman’s February 13 “The Liberal Media” column should have referred to the International Atomic Energy Agency, not “Association.”
Feb 15, 2012 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
From the grassy knoll; democracy is coming to town; phenotype in the pea patch; acclaim suduko frenzy without you, I hear
Jan 31, 2012 / Our Readers and Charles Taylor
Letters Letters
The dole, relief, welfare, safety net…; spying on Eleanor Roosevelt; pipeline whack-a-mole
Jan 25, 2012 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
As Alexandria Burns… New York City In “Upheaval at the New York Public Library—Shhhh!” [Dec. 19], Scott Sherman touches on many of the covert and not so covert changes happening at NYPL. These changes have proved most troubling, both to dedicated staff and to their admiring and grateful public. The NYPL Library for the Performing Arts has experienced the same sort of mergers, dismantling of staff, and cutbacks in budget and research services as did the Forty-second Street library. The research reference desks on the third floor were closed a few years ago. Many of the reference librarians (specialists in dance, music, recorded sound or theater) were eliminated, moved off the reference desks or offered buyouts to leave NYPL. The remaining few research librarians were moved to the second-floor circulation desks and merged with the staff there. Scholars, performing artists, writers and critics who used to come to the third-floor specialists now have to stand in line at the crowded second-floor circulation desks, where people are borrowing scores, CDs or books. When they finally reach the reference desk, they often encounter someone who does not have a specialized background or in-depth knowledge of the research collections. So they leave in frustration. It appears that NYPL’s main goal is to increase the number of people coming in the doors to borrow materials, operate their computers and other devices, attend free classes and meet friends. This is fine, as the library should be a welcoming place and refuge for all. But why cut staff, services and quiet reading rooms for the specialized researchers? In the past NYPL was regarded as one of the greatest public library systems in the world, because it opened to a vast public not only great circulating collections but also world-renowned research collections. Many well-known writers, professors and scientists who couldn’t afford to go to college educated themselves by exploring the enormous richness and diversity of these collections. Consultants hired by NYPL noted that the stats for people coming into the circulating branch libraries were higher than those for the research centers. Librarians tried to explain that there is a qualitative difference between services offered to specialized researchers and to the general public. Researchers need to spend more time with the librarians, explaining their projects and having the librarians plumb the depths of the research collections to find rare, unusual materials to enhance their projects. So it seems that the goal of NYPL is to no longer be known, internationally or domestically, as a major research library but as a New York community library. As the staff, collections and reading rooms of the research collections continue to be downsized, people desiring more specialized research services will have to seek them elsewhere, such as at universities. Researchers accustomed to the superb reference services at NYPL now receive, in some cases, perfunctory assistance, and are forced to find other resources for their research. I agree with Sherman that NYPL should not be secretly making such massive changes without some dialogue with the communities it serves. NAME WITHHELD Ypsilanti, Mich. Scott Sherman raises some good questions about the “closely guarded” NYPL Central Library Plan, and, unusually, he seems to have actually talked with NYPL librarians. As the author of a biography of a distinguished woman librarian who, after a public dispute with NYPL management, was summarily fired in 1918, denied a hearing and secretly reported to the government as a subversive, I was saddened but not surprised that today’s librarians demanded anonymity for fear of retribution. The more things change… How absurd that a plan to completely change the interior and apparently the purpose of a major public building should be kept secret and the librarians not allowed to discuss it. It may be that the superrich VIPs on the board will always go for fantasies of having a big-name architect design a flashy “state-of-the-art, computer-oriented library,” but what does that really mean? Is it just another version of the microform mania once pushed as state-of-the-art, high-tech, etc.? What needs will it meet? Who will use it? Is such an elaborate remodeling really the best use of hundreds of millions of dollars? NYPL has a uniquely complex history and structure, with the central building developed from the privately funded Astor and Lenox libraries. At a time when academic research libraries were just beginning to develop, it was intended to be a sophisticated information resource for an intellectual elite. Not a social or financial elite, an intellectual elite of those doing serious, in-depth reading and research. The branch libraries were to serve the educational and recreational reading needs of the general public. John Shaw Billings’s plan for the building made the stacks central to the library’s mission, with the many reading rooms surrounding the core. That concept soon proved to be expensive and complicated to operate, and within a few years of Billings’s death in 1913 the administration had begun consolidating and closing the specialized divisions. If Anthony Marx complains that “exquisite rooms” are used for storage, he probably refers to the closed reading rooms, but what use will the plan make of them? Blather about replacing “books with people” as “the future of where libraries are going” does not clarify the mysterious plan and sounds potentially anti-intellectual. Assurances of prompt delivery from offsite ignore the fact that the research library has quite limited hours, which will add to the delays. The Central Library Plan needs rigorous public examination. Thanks to Scott Sherman and The Nation for calling attention to it. CLARE BECK
Jan 10, 2012 / Our Readers