January 25–February 1, 2001

mailbag

Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Whacking The Bushes

As a Holocaust researcher for close to 30 years, I was dumbfounded and astonished to see that your publication had the courage to publish Robert Lederman’s article (Slant, "The Bush Gang," Jan. 18) on the Bush family ties to the Nazis in WWII.

I saw former U.S. Prosecutor John Loftus’ speech on this topic on CSPAN2 only after the election — and the silence on this subject by the mainstream media has been deafening.

I interviewed Mr. Loftus early this year for a piece I was doing on this subject and was amazed that the mainstream media has seemingly intentionally buried this subject due to their own financial ties to the Wall Street financial entities which bankrolled Hitler, the death camps and the slaughter of U.S. GIs in the Second World War. Bush’s ties to energy, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, media and other corporations who are part of the new Corporate World Order is a subject we ALL need to pay attention to and closely watch.

Kudos to the Philadelphia City Paper and to journalist Robert Lederman for having the courage to bring this story to light in America — especially today — so that we can be on guard against fascism’s reemergence as political reality and modus operandi and so that it can’t happen here.

William S. Brewster
New London, Connecticut

Catholic View

(Re: Pretzel Logic, "Unsettling," Howard Altman, Jan. 11; On Media, "So Sorry," Frank Lewis, Jan. 11)

I have my differences with the Philadelphia City Paper partly because of bias I perceive against the Catholic Church, and have no time for the National Catholic Reporter, but 1) you’re still the funniest, hippest, most useful free newspaper in town and I respect your intelligent presentation of "the other side"; and 2) the issue Cipriano was writing about was legitimate criticism and not a slam against the Church’s faith or moral teaching at all. It was fair game for a good reporter. Liberal vs. conservative issues in the Church have nothing to do with it either. In this case, he, you and NCR are right and the Inquirer and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia are wrong. Kudos.

Serge Beeler
St. Davids

Addressing Royalty

(Re: Mailbag, Jan. 11 and 18)

Perhaps like [Chris] O’Brien and Thomas D. Puketza, I am not satisfied by poems that speak only to my intellect. I want a poem, a painting, a song to send me beyond my intellect, to seize my body — heart, viscera, funnybone even — as well as my mind. Art that penetrates only the intellect was created, I suspect, only from the intellect: a "good" idea, a clever experiment, a successful execution of learned technique. And although I appreciate such artistic expression as I do a candy bar that pleases my taste buds, it is often in the absence of something more substantial. What captures my body is that boundless universal something that connects us as humans. What captures my intellect is its freshly intelligent rendering. No, "Royalty" does not capture my body; it does not illuminate my humanity. What it does do, as judge Molly Russakoff offers, is celebrate the deliciously infinite, impermanent organism that is language.

Marj Hahne
Philadelphia