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Also this issue: Home Court Advantage Top Public Spaces Cadaver Envy |
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August 1- 7, 2002
mailbag
(Re: Cover story, “Today Philadelphia, Tomorrow the World,” Debra Auspitz, July 25, 2002)
Debra Auspitz's cover story on "Philly's unique brand of movement theater" was a thorough portrait of dance/theater groups and performers whom I admire. Yet in its larger aim to profile a Philadelphia cultural movement, it falls short of delineating the full complexity and hybridity of Philly's dance/theater scene.
For one, Auspitz's critical flight path seems to issue straight from the 'burbs to Center/Old City, missing sites like West Philly's Community Education Center. Worse, she omits substantive discussion of any artists and troupes of color who are also putting Philadelphia dance/theater on the map with innovative syntheses of dance, theater and music, notably Paule Turner (who performed at the Edinburgh Fringe last year), Merian Soto (who performs regularly in New York) and Rennie Harris Puremovement (whose national and international touring itinerary is arguably the most extensive of any Philadelphia dance group). Finally, what's especially troubling is that the overwhelming whiteness of the companies Auspitz profiles -- the whiteness of their dancers, creators and, yes, their aesthetics -- doesn't even warrant a peep.
Ray Ricketts
Philadelphia
(Re: Pretzel Logic, “Basket Case,” Howard Altman, July 25, 2002)
Thank you for your column regarding the code violation notice issued to Stephen Shih for placing household trash in a city litter basket. While we disagree with your spin, we welcome the opportunity to bring attention to the problems caused by the misuse of city litter baskets.
The city provides baskets in commercial areas and, occasionally, in mixed residential-commercial sections. Unfortunately, residents sometimes abuse baskets by carrying their household trash to the baskets between collection days. Baskets jammed with bags of household debris overflow and pose a neighborhood eyesore. The city is castigated for failing to collect frequently enough to assure that there will always be room for the item a passerby wants to discard. City regulations stipulate that city litter baskets are reserved for items such as wrappers and beverage containers carried in the hand. While Mr. Shih's efforts may be laudable, street sweepings should be stored with other household trash and set out for the regular weekly collection.
Mr. Shih may think the hearing examiner, A.J. "Gus" Fanelli, is a cretin. Nothing could be further from the truth. Gus serves as a master for the Tax Review Board and a hearing examiner for the Office of Administrative Review. In both capacities, he hears a lot of stories, explanations, excuses and woes. He sorts them out with an even hand, and his rulings are fair and responsible ones.
Citizens throughout Philadelphia support the important work of enforcing the requirements of the Philadelphia Code. Civilization is being chipped away around the edges by transgressions that individually may seem minor but collectively pose a serious threat to our ability to live and work together in a safe, clean and pleasant environment. The law about litter baskets is one small way to remind us to consider our neighbors and not just ourselves. The city's efforts to enforce the laws against litter-basket abuse help make city neighborhoods places we all want to live.
Gary Gibson
Eileen M. O’Brien
Bureau of Administrative Adjudication
I understand Stephen Shih's frustration with his "trash incident." Center City Residents' Association (www.centercityresidents.org) has responded to neighbors' desire for clean sidewalks. As part of its Clean Streets program, CCRA raises and spends about $50,000 a year to hire Center City District workers to sweep sidewalks on residential blocks the day after trash day.
The city's SWEEP program intends to punish people who dump their own trash into public receptacles -- not a bad thing. I'm sorry that Shih, seemingly a fine citizen, was falsely accused. If it's any solace, one time I saw a SWEEP officer check a can and come up with a handful of dog shit.
Pamela Rosser Thistle
President, Center City Residents’ Association
(Re: News, “Back in Style,” Michael Washburn, July 25, 2002)
The politics of Philadelphia's Vietnamese community largely shades the historical accuracy of your article. In the interest of fairness, the contention that the "North Vietnamese overran the country" is a half-truth at best. The majority of the fighters involved in the fight against the South's Army of the Republic of Vietnam and U.S. troops were the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) of South Vietnam, fighting against an oppressive, non-democratic puppet state. It was the South Vietnamese government that violated the U.N. settlement of the war against the French (encouraged by the U.S.), refusing to hold nationwide democratic elections in 1955. South Vietnamese elections were notoriously corrupt/rigged and the ARVN-backed governments only served to enrich the nation's elite. Unfortunately for the people of Vietnam, the postwar communist governments proved no more democratic or less oppressive.
Paul Walcutt
Philadelphia
(Re: Mailbag, “Save the Pit Bulls,” Michelle-Lynn Hamilton, July 18, 2002)
I am stunned that such an incredibly inane and misleading rant would be printed, unless to promote controversy. Michelle-Lynn Hamilton must be completely ignorant of the reality of living with pit bulls, year in and year out, or she could never have dashed off such shallow nonsense. And, incidentally, why bring up the subjects of black men killing, white men beating their wives or Asians arrested for DUI? I am very surprised that City Paper would print such uncalled-for racist allusions.
Pit bulls are increasingly being recognized by thinking people and governments as a major social problem and totally inappropriate for residential neighborhoods. I am speaking from many years' experience of living next door to constant pit bull threat and terrorization.
Pit bulls are bred to fight and destroy. They are savage and ferocious. Nobody who has not personally had to live with these terrible animals can possibly understand the situation. The kind of people who favor pit bulls, who keep them and breed them, usually are the very ones who are least fit to do so. They are the kind who, for example, think it humorous to order a pit bull to attack an 80-year-old woman for no other reason than malice -- and a complete absence of witnesses.
Dorothy Smith
Philadelphia
(Re: Cover story, “Pipes’ Dreams,” Daniel Brook, July 18, 2002)
I never thought I'd agree with Daniel Pipes on much of anything; the Mephistopheles image of him still seems to me more accurate than that of a biblical prophet (especially Isaiah, who advocated turning swords into plowshares). But Pipes is probably right that the U.S. government relied more on electronic surveillance (putting faith in technology, as usual) than human intelligence before 9/11. Human intelligence might have warned us -- and some intelligent human beings still warn us -- that many U.S. policies are exploitive, provocative and supportive of repressive regimes, thus helping to bolster "Islamist" terrorism.
Pipes is wrong, however, that the U.S. government has viewed terrorist attacks as crimes, not acts of war. Even before this Bush-proclaimed "war on terrorism," the U.S. military and intelligence agencies reacted to terrorist attacks as acts of war (even though the enemy has not been a visible opponent as in conventional war).
In fact, if terrorist attacks had really been treated as the criminal acts they are, and the full force of the United Nations, Interpol and other international agencies had been called on (along with the International Criminal Court that Bush and Co. refuse to support), the government might have been further along in tracking down the specific perpetrators -- and reconsidering policies that fuel them -- instead of attacking whole countries and threatening others.
What Pipes calls the "Islamists" may indeed be a fanatical fundamentalist group promoting terrorism and aiming to take over the world. But in the eyes of many others around the world, fanatical fundamentalist groups such as Zionists and "Corporate America" (adhering to the religion of free trade that mainly benefits the elite) might be accused of the same thing. I have read bloodthirsty sections in the Koran as well as in the equally self-contradictory Old Testament Bible, and I am wary of fundamentalist followers of these or any other "word of God" texts. So I do agree with Pipes that encouraging Muslim tolerance, moderation and modernization (of customs, not weapons) might help mitigate Islamic extremism and terrorism -- just as encouraging Israeli-Jewish moderation and withdrawal of occupying troops instead of vengeful retaliation might have a similar effect.
Ann Morrissett Davidon
Philadelphia
An editing error in Toby Zinman's review of Arcadia University's production of The Tempest (July 25) misconstrued Zinman's opinion in one part of the review. The line read that Ahren Portratz's Ariel "has no effect, no personality; he is not human." The line should have read, "he has no affect, no personality; he is not human."
