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Grand pursuit and economic genius
Re Tom Purdom’s review of Sylvia Nasar’s Grand Pursuit—
I just finished Claire Tomalins’s biography of Jane Austen and have concluded that I would not have wanted to be a woman in her times, not even a top 5 per center, as she apparently was, with a servant or two to help about the kitchen and garden.
Austen watched many of her relatives and friends die in or as a result of childbirth. Couples might have ten or 11 children before a poor (truly poor!) wife would collapse at the tender age of 35. It’s no wonder that Austen chose spinsterhood and writing as her occupation, feeling blessed not to have the burden of marriage and family in her 30s, even though she had little financial and social security at that time in her life.
As for Nasar’s assertion that the average Englishman (prior to the Industrial Revolution?) had precious little amusement beyond sex and drink, here is evidence to the contrary.
The villagers of Chipping Camden in the Cotswolds, England, have held annual “Olimpick” games of “shinkicking,” “coursing,” “spurning the barre,” “throwing the sledgehammer,” “tumbling,” dancing and more for some 400 years. (Click here.)
Here is a video of the wholesome activity of “shin-kicking.”
Apparently, the 17th-Century dramatist and poet Ben Jonson, among others, immortalized these games in verse. It was believed that they promoted “good sportsmanship.” No doubt these activities produced a lot of laughs too.
I certainly wouldn’t want to regress to the economic conditions of those times, but somehow in terms of community engagement and connectivity, this historical example of just one village shows me that perhaps we moderns have regressed a bit.
Victoria Skelly
Wayne, Pa.
January 25, 2012
Editor’s comment: Just our luck— the Los Angeles Philharmonic will probably beat Philadelphia to the punch with shinkicking contests at intermission.
Victoria Skelly replies: Philadelphia need not feel shy about instituting what could easily become a marketing “best practice” for orchestras nationwide. I have no doubt that shinkicking contests at intermission would attract a few more patrons.
I agree that economic growth helps humankind. But humankind isn’t the only consideration here. Economic growth is detrimental to many other life forms on the planet. Maybe we humans suffered in the past, but other species thrived then, and are not thriving now.
We humans should get over ourselves and be better stewards of the planet, since we’re the only species capable of destroying it.
I’m tired of the emphasis on economic growth (which depends on consumption of materials). Can’t we humans live in balance with the planet? It’s a beautiful place, to which we are very well adapted. It’s unlikely we’ll ever find as perfect a paradise.
Connie Briggs
Willow Grove, Pa.
January 26, 2012
Editor’s note: To read Tom Purdom’s response, click here. To read my comments, click here.
Very wise. Now the common task should be to spread such modest wealth, first, throughout our own society, and then attend, courtesy of mass leisure, to the millions still locked in primeval poverty. Start with the likes of Haiti.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
January 25, 2012
I read Tom Purdom’s reviews because he always gives me something more to think about later on. I read this wonderful book by Sylvia Nasar and agree with his take on it as well. Yet the final paragraph of this review gave me pause. I hate to think of what it would take to get the world’s current 7 billion down to a few hundred million.
It was a totally different world in 1964.
Henry Pashkow
Center City/ Philadelphia
February 7, 2012
Yannick conducts Mahler
BSR’s reviews of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony by Robert Zaller and by me demonstrate how two critics can agree on the merits of a composition and performance yet bring different perspectives. (That’s why I read all opinions on BSR when you print many different contributions of one event.)
Mahler’s Sixth is the 20th Century symphony that I most want to hear in varied renditions. Because it includes so much more than tragedy, I like to hear different conductors balance its heroism with despair, restraint with excess, nihilism with acceptance. In addition, they re-arrange the order of the movements. Eschenbach recorded it with the Philadelphia Orchestra just six years ago, but I’m ready— even anxious— to see and hear a Nézet-Séguin/Philadelphia version on disc.
Steve Cohen
King of Prussia, Pa.
January 31, 2012
Why Stokowski left the Orchestra
Steve Cohen’s account of Leopold Stokowski’s departure from the Philadelphia Orchestra suggests to me that the maestro was probably looking for new worlds to conquer, or fresh horizons at least, after decades of giving Philadelphia more than it deserved in creating a world-class orchestra.
Leonard Bernstein’s shrewdly timed tour of the Soviet Union with the New York Philharmonic in 1958 was a great success, but to have toured Stalin’s Russia at the moment of the Spanish Civil War, the Popular Front, and the beginning of the Great Purges? It would probably have caused conniption fits— we don’t have these any more, do we?— all the way to the Oval Office.
Of course it is the merit of great artists to cut across the considerations of politicians and bureaucrats, as Daniel Barenboim did when he played Wagner in Israel. But it’s hard to imagine a more diplomatically provocative gesture; and the reaction of Main Line dowagers to legitimating a pariah state (not to mention exposing their musicians to the seductive horrors of the classless society) can only be imagined.
Cutting records for a rival label with another orchestra four years later would only have been icing on the cake.
Philadelphians are very much where we were in 1936— that is, in the middle of a protracted depression, and with an Orchestra leadership that thinks a dumbed-down repertoire will save its bacon. The Elizabethan aristocracy patronized Shakespeare and Marlowe, but our homegrown swells think only safe, safer and safest can play here.
A Beethoven festival in January— O, the boldness and excitement of it! I can’t wait for the show-tune medleys that come next.
Robert Zaller
Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
January 18, 2012
Steve Cohen replies: Robert Zaller is correct: The 1930s were a time when Stokie sought new directions: sexually (his affair with Garbo) and musically (his new seating plan with winds and brass in front, strings in the rear). He could have seized on a number of issues as provocation for quitting:
In 1934 the Orchestra, without consulting Stokowski, issued a statement saying: “The directors of the association feel that in times such as the present, the audiences prefer music which they know and love and that performances of debatable music should be postponed to a more suitable time.”
On December 6, 1934, Stokowski resigned. Rallies and petitions led most board members to abdicate. They were replaced by new members sympathetic to Stokie’s plans, so he came back. But Stokowski had a talent for turning friends into enemies; he quit again in 1936, returned again as co-conductor, and these new board members eventually voted not to renew his contract beyond the 1940-41 season.
Incidentally, it was in this tumultuous period that Stokowski and the Orchestra recorded one of their most-remembered accomplishments, Disney’s Fantasia.
Just a point on the Stokowski drawing. It’s a one-line drawing— meaning that the pen doesn’t have to leave the paper to draw it.
Joseph Glantz
Levittown, Pa.
January 22, 2012
Steve Cohen replies: It was drawn by the Philadelphia artist Ben Wolf (1914-1996), who was only in his 20s at the time. Some of Wolf’s drawings of musicians were on display at the Academy of Music and Curtis Institute in years past.
Dotty Damien Hirst
“A better way to destroy Damien Hirst,” by Victoria Skelly, is a truly splendid idea. I would love to join the anti-Damien bandwagon.
Caroline D. Millett
Powelton Village/ Philadelphia
January 22, 2012
Heh, Modernism has been losing your mind for you ever since Marcel the Chump got a learned giggle out of his swiped urinal.
The humane reaction is to maintain a civilized agenda by feeding the hungry and comforting the beleaguered, meanwhile going ecological and mocking the foolish whenever they threaten really civilized values. It is the greatest mistake of our limping civilization to assume that all activities called artistic are civilized, or civilizing.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
January 24, 2012
Victoria Skelly replies: My understanding of the early work of Marcel Duchamp and the Dadaists is that they were responding to the uncivilized values, indeed the inhumanity, that ran rampant in Europe just prior to World War II. This work is comprehensible given what was happening then. But modern-day artists who mimic the Duchamp style are lifting ideas that are not necessarily apropos to our times.
I would argue that what we choose to call “art,” especially if we happen to be powerful and/or influential, has consequences for the well-being of a society, for our identity as a people. We can feed the hungry, comfort the afflicted, care for the environment, all wonderful things. But shall we then just let their souls rot?
Townie
Re Tom Purdom’s review of Townie, Andre Dubus III—
One has to wonder how much the relationship between father and son was poisoned by the breakup between the father and the mother. Was the senior Dubus so cold to his son because he hated his first wife so much? Does Mr. Dubus III discuss that possibility in his book? Or was the senior Dubus just a coldhearted hyena?
I guess one has to read the book!
Sanford Zane Meschkow
Wynnewood, Pa.
January 17, 2012
Tom Purdom replies: Actually, the elder Dubus seems to have been a warm person. He got along well with his first wife and with their children. He visited them frequently and he skimped along on his academic pay, for many years, while paying child support. But he never learned how Andre III and his siblings were living. His son didn’t tell him, and he made no attempt to find out.
The first divorce took place, further, because the elder Dubus left his wife and four children so he could live with one of his students—one of the reasons I called him irresponsible. Until then, his children lived in the home of a college professor and rising writer. After it, they lived in a world of violence, drugs and disorder.
When Jews ruled basketball
Re “When Jews ruled basketball,” by Steve Cohen—
Yeah, write that book! I knew about the SPHAs from my father, who once dated Kitty Kallen and, before that, was recruited by friends to play (under an assumed name) on their CYO teams. I went to a camp owned by Menchy Goldblatt, an all-American at Penn in the ’20s, and used to play at camps owned by Harry Litwack and Sam Cozen and, I think, Ace Weinstein and other names of that era honored by aspirants of my baby-boomer age group.
Bob Levin
Berkeley, Calif.
January 18, 2012
My uncle, Mose Wolfe, played in those “cager” days of basketball, for a semi-pro team in northeastern Pennsylvania. Of course, he never played for the SPHAs, but they were his idols in a day when there were few Jews in pro sports.
Lila R. Vail
Center City/ Philadelphia
January 18, 2012
The kid’s first challenge
“The kid’s first challenge,” by Bob Ingram, is a nice piece, clean and economical. I love how it captures the characters and scene, how it informs and moves emotionally. And the ending lands like Kenny’s punch.
Bob Levin
Berkeley, Calif.
January 18, 2012
Steve Jobs’s legacy
Re “A plague of journalists (and professors,” by Dan Rottenberg (Editor’s Notebook)—
Sue Halpern did indeed echo some of my sentiments about Steve Jobs in her New York Review article, although his contributions to information pollution seem more immediately serious to me than leaching rare metals into the soil (we can leave it to the frackers to ruin our water supply and provoke the occasional earthquake).
The erosion of privacy and the destruction of public space is Jobs’s legacy, along with the Attention Deficit Society he has helped to create. Of course he has had helpers, and Death by Technology seems the destined end of our species.
On the off chance that some members of it will survive, I’ll keep my oxen and clay tablets in the barn. Dan Rottenberg should remember that manure is actually a great fertilizer. (Please don’t tell me that I’m a great expert on this subject. I’ve heard that comment already.)
Robert Zaller
Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
January 18, 2012
Robert Zaller says, “I have somehow managed to survive without any of Jobs’s devices.” Yet he writes for an online publication?
Merilyn Jackson
South Philadelphia
January 18, 2012
Technology: Jobs vs. Zaller
Re “Zaller’s Law meets Rottenberg’s Law,” by Dan Rottenberg (Editor’s Notebook)—
The iDo side of technology: I just had a stent put in while I was awake watching my cardiologist work with a computer monitor so he could have a precise mathematical readout of where the stent should go.
The iDon’t side: While I waited to go into surgery, someone had an emergency (my surgery was planned). As a consolation for being bumped, I was given a “preprogrammed” gift card for $5 from— Dunkin’ Donuts. Ideal for a heart patient.
Hey, I did use it, but just for low-fat blueberry muffins.
Joseph Glantz
Levittown, Pa.
December 28, 2011
I’m with Zaller on this one. How will our technotopia end? Not with a bang, but a short circuit. Thoreau saw it coming: When our first technoids went gaga over the Transatlantic Cable, he voted No! “What shall come into the broad,flapping American ear?” he asked. “That the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough?”
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
December 30, 2011
I’ve never been more in awe of our dad’s prescience in regard to primogeniture. Here you are, chained to the family plantation, making sure that all those slaves not only perform their work but are housed, fed and kept fit, while I’ve managed to pursue numerous careers in diverse areas, raised multiple families, and never lost any sleep worrying that any slaves might rise up in violent revolt against my uncaring and oppressive ways.
Bob Rottenberg
Brattleboro, Vt.
December 28, 2011
When dancers compete
Merilyn Jackson, in “Dance highlights of 2011,” criticizes May’s A.W.A.R.D. show at the Arts Bank and says she finds “the very idea of making artists compete against each other” for cash prizes “disturbing.”
Providing a free space, production and marketing for Philadelphia’s dance community is disturbing? Providing $12,000 from a national funder to be given away locally is disturbing? No grant application was required. Being seen and reviewed is disturbing?
Competitions in opera and music help make careers and are always mentioned in bios. In dance they are put down, dismissed and ridiculed. I wonder why.
Every day, artistic directors make choices as to whom to hire and whom to cast in what roles. In this case, the audience served as artistic directors, making choices after seeing the work and asking questions of the choreographers.
It was an opportunity to perform, engage an audience and hand out a few dollars. No one was forced to participate. No one had to create new work or expend a lot of resources.
By the way, the director of the Joyce Theatre in New York was a judge, providing an opportunity for our locals to be seen by a national presenter of dance.
The A.W.A.R.D. Show was staged in six cities. Only in Philadelphia do we hear the ungrateful whining of a few.
Merilyn Jackson participated as a judge, knowing full well what the guidelines were in advance. Is she now complicit in this “disturbing” event?
The only thing disturbing is thumbing your nose at an event that directly brought money and resources to the local dance community.
Randy Swartz
University City/ Philadelphia
January 11, 20112
Editor’s note: The writer is artistic director of Dance Affiliates, which presents dance programs at Penn’s Annenberg Center.
Merilyn Jackson replies: The other competitions of which Randy speaks are judged by people in the field— peers, critics and presenters— not by how many friends are in the audience. And they are not set up to mimic “So You Think You Can Dance” and other demeaning reality TV shows. That is my concern.
Body Awareness
Re Dan Rottenberg’s review of Body Awarenesss, at the Wilma—
I can see your take on the play as one about serious issues in the form of a comedy, but I didn’t quite see a happy ending there—the last image of the play, Frank intrusively snaps a photo of the family (I thought he only took pictures with consent?) was rather jarring to me, though I don’t know whether it was in the script or a directorial touch.
Robert Zaller
Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
January 17, 2012
Dan Rottenberg replies: The ending isn’t necessarily happy— in real life there’s no such thing. But to me it does suggest an improved situation.
Washington’s crossing: Art and history
Andrew Mangravite makes some good points in his comments on the new painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware. But I think he overstresses the impact of the older version.
Most people I know find the Emanuel Leutz picture slightly comic— and they aren’t all liberal intellectuals who automatically laugh at overtly patriotic art. You don’t need a college degree, for example, to know that you aren’t supposed to stand up in a small boat.
While we Americans have our share of art and literature that glamorizes war, we’ve also produced a less glittery tradition that focuses on the lot of the common soldier. The books that appeared in the years right after World War II pictured the war as an ordeal and honored the soldiers— when they chose to honor them— as men who had endured the ordeal in a good cause. The movies of that period didn’t picture all the gore, but they often took a similar stance.
Later on, as usually happens, Hollywood turned World War II into a never-never land for action movies, like its version of the American West. But the movies Hollywood produced right after the war often reflected the sobriety of the veterans who had been there.
That tradition is still a strong current in our literature and our histories. It even shows up in movies and TV shows like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers.
Tom Purdom
Center City/ Philadelphia
January 12, 2012
Andrew Mangravite replies: What Tom says is true. It’s worth noting, however, that the more realistic war movies vanished for a while, and the best of them— A Walk in the Sun— was virtually missing in action, having been considered a little too “lefty” for the 1950s/Korea period.
Also, the best of the Korean War films— Men in War and Pork Chop Hill— both came out after the war was safely concluded. (To be sure, some of the glossier contemporary films, like The Bridges at Toko-Ri, did bring home the fact that in war even William Holden and Mickey Rooney might die in combat.)
As for Leutz’s Washington Crossing the Delaware, at my Philadelphia Archdiocesan school we were certainly taught to view it as an icon and a veritable distillation of patriotism. My larger point remains: History is a much wilier, more dangerous animal than we think. It can’t be tamed, but it must be understood— or we end up quasi-banning films because their message is inconvenient to us. We also end up ignoring objects, like the cruiser U.S.S. Olympia, that tell us so much about ourselves and who we once were.
Tom Purdom replies: I agree with everything Andrew says in his last sentence. I read a lot of history, including military history. I’m not sure it can be understood but it is a constant reminder of the complexities, ambiguities and moral and psychological tensions that real humans must deal with.
It’s obvious Andrew and I had different childhood experiences with the Leutz painting. I don’t have specific memories of classroom encounters with the picture, but it seems to me the students always thought it was funny and the teachers shared their attitude. I may remember it that way because I attended public schools in semi-rural areas below the Mason-Dixon Line during part of my childhood, and we all noted the damn fool was standing up. I spent another big part of my school days in Connecticut, living with my Italian relatives, who had a joke (told in Italian) that one of the soldiers in the boat was an Italian who thought Washington was an Italian, too
Andrew Mangravite replies:For my part, I rather like the new “revisionist” take on the crossing. But then, I’m also a big fan of Revisionist Westerns.
Lewis Carroll’s political advice
Watching the gaggle of Republican wannabes juggle their presumed programs the last couple of weeks sent me back to The Letters of Lewis Carroll. In 1886, Carroll wrote a friend who had solicited his support for a candidate for steward at his Oxford college: ”I don’t vote. If a vote could get ‘A’ in without keeping ‘B’ out, I should not object to giving it: but every vote has a double effect, and I have no means of deciding that the person I help to keep out is less worthy than the one I help to put in.”
Gerald Weales
University City/ Philadelphia
January 13, 2012
Editor’s comment: This sounds like the policy the late Luciano Pavarotti applied to his International Voice Competition: Since he couldn’t bear to designate anyone a loser, he proclaimed all the contestants winners— oblivious, like Lewis Carroll, to Gilbert and Sullivan’s dictum: “When everyone is somebody/ Then no one’s anybody.”
Etta James and ‘At Last’
In “One immortal song, and one mortal woman,” Kile Smith has written a beautiful piece that’s knowledgeable and evocative at the same time. He does, however, give too short a shrift to the original recording of “At Last” by Glenn Miller.
That orchestra’s romantic version of the song became an anthem for young lovers in 1942, and it had special poignancy, because many of those couples separated shortly thereafter as 16 million men went off to war. While they sang “at last” as if it were a fulfillment of their dreams (“lonely days are over”), in fact it marked an ending –- for three years at least, and forever for those who died in the war, like Miller himself.
Miller’s arrangement was languid, with a harmonically sweet blending of reeds (without the typical brass of other dance bands) leading into a tender vocal solo by Ray Eberle. Of all the many Miller hits, “At Last” exemplifies his style best. And among all the wartime songs about separation, it uniquely focused on togetherness.
For those who were in their teens or 20s in 1942, Miller’s “At Last” was the quintessential ballad of the era, and it became immortal a decade before Etta James sang it.
Steve Cohen
King of Prussia, Pa.
January 2, 2012
Kile Smith replies: I take my hat off to Steve Cohen’s grand encomium to Glenn Miller’s original. I don’t know as I’d change my view too much, but his angle on it completely eluded me. The power of association I know well. Thanks for the pleasant reminder.
Perhaps because I was not drafted until 1943 and was not in love (or was in love with everyone), I did not sing “At Last” even though I liked the Glenn Miller version. I sang, “I’ll see you again/ Whenever spring breaks through again"— you know the rest. That seems a more appropriate song for going to war.
Gerald Weales
University City/ Philadelphia
January 11, 2012
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Re Judy Weightman’s review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy—
Great review. However you neglected to mention that the film was also slow and boring. I rarely walk out of a movie, but I left half way through this one, since I was confused and bored.
Felice Pandola
Voorhees, N.J.
January 4, 2012
Re “Tinker Tailor and the certainty trap,” by Dan Rottenberg (Editor’s Notebook)—
My father, who was a big le Carré fan, said it in a nutshell: “The essence of life is having the questions, not the answers.” Discovery and or progress comes more through those who don’t know (and use System Two thinking) than those who claim they do (the System One thinkers).
Joe Glantz
Levittown, Pa.
January 4, 2012
Boy, were you lucky. I tried to nod off at Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy but stayed awake.
However, I went home, went to Netflix and ordered the original— I think it was BBC’s six-hour version— which was terrific. Tinker Tailor is a complicated story, and it needs time, not posturing.
Myra Chanin
New York
January 4, 2012
Re Jake Blumgart’s review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy—
I stand behind my original point: “It makes no freaking sense if you don’t already know the story.” But I definitely wanted to hear an analysis from someone who did know the story. I truly appreciate finding out why you think it’s a good film.
Judy Weightman
East Falls/ Philadelphia
January 10, 2012
I don’t think the views expressed in your Editor’s Notebook conflict with Judy Weightman’s complaints about Tinker Tailor. I’ve read all of le Carré’s Smiley novels and watched the original mini-series. Le Carré captures all the murkiness and ambiguity you talk about, but he also manages to tell a coherent story.
Le Carré also delves into the psychological costs of the espionage trade, as Jake Blumgart says. But would Blumgart have come up with all his insights if he had only seen the movie? Your Notebook and Judy Weightman’s review indicate he wouldn’t have.
I had a similar experience when I saw the Swedish film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I liked the movie version but afterward I decided I was filling it out with my memories of the book. If I hadn’t read the book, I would have found the movie blander and less interesting.
Tom Purdom
Center City/ Philadelphia
January 12, 2012
A South Philly back yard
Re “Lessons of a back yard,” by J.T. Barbarese—
Lovely article. I invite you and your mother to come for tea in my South Philly garden next spring.
Merilyn Jackson
South Philadelphia
January 6, 2012
Christmas letters
Re “Who needs Christmas letters?” by Tom Purdom—
I love Christmas letters, no matter how grandiose or humble. E-mail is great. Facebook is great. But there’s nothing like opening a holiday card delivered by the postman and pulling out a Christmas letter and maybe a photo.
It’s good to hold the letter in your hand and to know that your friend took the time to choose the card, compose a letter, put it in the card, seal the card and seal and stamp the envelope. And mail it! It’s getting a little bit of love.
A friend I haven’t seen for maybe 40 years sends me a Christmas letter every year without fail, and I’ve followed her family ever since. I still feel close to Sonya and her family down in Florida. Hooray for Christmas letters!
Marguerite Ferra
Camden, N.J.
December 28, 2011
As one who receives a copy of Tom Purdom’s Christmas letter, I must comment that I learned about a book of a favorite author of mine I would have missed if not for his mentioning of it. Thanks, Tom!
Sanford Zane Meschkow
Wynnewood, Pa.
December 28, 2011
Tom could be my ideal uncle, the convincing way he defends the truly “social medium” of the Christmas letter in hypermobile America. The newest so-called anti-media of Facebook and Twitter present sadly convincing evidence that over-entertain(t)ed America is slowly sliding ignominiously into a Narcissistic swamp. How sad. Walt would weep.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
December 28, 2011
Four-year-old’s Nutcracker
I enjoyed reading Dan Rottenberg’s “A four-year-old’s Nutcracker” The show never gets old and is always magical for adults and kids alike. Your granddaughter is probably already asking to take ballet lessons.
We are lucky here in Philadelphia to have a first-rate ballet company that can year after year turn the Academy of Music into a magical re-enactment of the wonder of holidays for kids and adults alike. Jeff Gribler (the Pennsylvania Ballet’s former principal dancer and now a ballet master) is the man who works with the kids, and the children always look wonderful.
I asked Jeff if he got tired of teaching roles and leading rehearsals with the kids.
Naw, he laughed, saying, “I holler, jump around and make faces. The kids love this, and they think I’m a kid too.”
We’re lucky too that the Pennsylvania is one of only two companies (Miami Ballet is the other) with permission to perform the Balanchine version, which is just what The Nutcracker was when Balanchine was a boy who danced the role of the prince for the Russian version. If you ever see some of the other versions, you will quickly know how very lucky indeed we are to have this tie to Balanchine.
Janet Anderson
Laverock, Pa.
December 28, 2011
Everything is better with grandchildren, even The Nutcracker!
Merilyn Jackson
South Philadelphia
December 29, 2011
Vaclav Havel’s legacy
Re “Reflections on Vaclav Havel’s Leaving,” by Martin Beck Matuštík—
This new BSR “Voice” is eloquent. I hope he is not “Leaving” too soon.
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
December 29, 2011
Kim Jong-il, R.I.P.
Re “A few not unkind words for Kim Jong-il,” by Maralyn Lois Polak—
Kim. Kim, our quite often contrary Maralyn. Two nuts don’t make an edible salad.
I just sweated through an Al Jazeera documentary that reported how our tactical Agent Orange bombings from the Korean War are still afflicting both live and yet unborn North Koreans, almost 50 years on. For moral squalor, our McNamara domino foolishness easily matches the insanely sobbing funeral of North Korea’s Dear Leader.
We have let the military-industrial complex bring us to the brink of bankruptcy. They are starving their own masses. Who’s nutsier?
Patrick D. Hazard
Weimar, Germany
January 3, 2012
Editor’s comment: Can I safely surmise that you’ve never lived in North Korea?
WHYY
Re “What price public TV?” by Dan Rottenberg (Editor’s Notebook, November 2008)—
So...It’s just about 8 o’clock on the final evening of the WHYY radio fund drive. I’m waiting for the final ping, signifying the last online pledge before the cut to “The World.” As I anticipate listening to one of my favorite programs, all I can think of is Bill Marrazzo’s salary, while wondering how much of my donation is earmarked to fund it.
After reading your article, I doubt that I will renew my membership.
James Bruno
Wayne, Pa.
January 4, 2012
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