Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Hatin' the Hater

C.G. Varesko's article [Slant, "Spot Check," April 14, 2005] began with "I hate the handicapped" to grab the reader's attention. Seeing that phrase in print is offensive to someone that has a disability. Although unintentional, in print it is reinforcing. Further, using the phrase "the handicapped" projects a demeaning and ineffectual connotation that is distasteful. People with disabilities are individuals with a wide range of talents, abilities and unique characteristics aside from their disabilities.

On behalf of all the people with disabilities who drive, or are driven by family members or friends, I disagree with your assumption that there are too many accessible blue parking meters. In fact, more are needed. Having accessible meters adjacent to curb ramps allows people who use wheelchairs to navigate easily and gives them freedom and independence that those without disabilities take for granted. It allows people with disabilities who are citizens and taxpayers to access the varied goods, services and recreation available in our great city. I use two canes and appreciate when a parking space and curb cut is near my destination.

Furthermore, there are a larger number of people with disabilities than you realize. According to a recent Harris poll, one in five people in the U.S. has a disability. That amounts to over 350,000 folks in Philadelphia. Citizens with disabilities deserve access to all the city has to offer, including parking spaces.
Roger A. Margulies,
Assistant Deputy Mayor,
Mayor's Commission On People with Disabilities

Please have Varesko send me a list of the places he sees all these unused handicapped parking spaces. I drive a sick family member with a handicapped placard to a Center City hospital every two weeks for treatment, with visits to other physicians in Philadelphia in between. Every handicapped space we find is filled with commercial vehicles of one sort or another, who are apparently immune to the "Ticket Commandos," especially if the commerical vehicle is left with the engine running for hours, fouling the air in a lame attempt to make it seem that they are only there temporarily. Whether it's international delivery services with famous names, moving companies, construction vehicles, government vehicles of various agencies, I rarely see a vehicle for the handicapped in a handicapped space either.

Give sick folks a break. Having construction vehicles (working on a bank across the street) for months on end in the handicapped space on the corner of the block next to Graduate Hospital is not cool when sick people can't get to their doctors without a parking fee piled on top of medical costs. Working for UPS or "I'm just unloading here" is not a recognized disability.

Also, when you see somone get out of the car without a wheelchair, don't assume she or he is one of the "weasels" referred to in the article. I loathe the weasels as much as Varesko, but some people may have heart problems, cancer or other conditions that make them weak and/or make walking difficult. They don't, however, always wear a sign advertising their condition.

Being handicapped is the most inclusive minority: Anyone can become a member at any time. If Varesko becomes injured or ill in some way, I think he'd regret his words.
Diana Brooks
via e-mail

Canoe Sex

You owe us $12. Our beloved grandmother (95 years young!) was visiting from her venerable Yugoslavian home and she said, "Hey boys, I've got a matter of minutes left on this great green ball and I need to taste life one last lonely time." We assumed she was talking booze. Lucky day, we'd just read your enticing cover story on a pre-Prohibition style beer brewed by Victory [Cover Story, "Hop Heaven," Brian Howard, April 14, 2005]. Grammy quaffed in the teens, bathroom ginned in 20s, supped in the 30s, and so on, until they invented "Coors Light," when she threw her hands into the clear Yugoslavian sky and said "That's it! I quit!," all the while never forgetting the warm corn-fed taste of her beloved pre-Prohibition lagers that she enjoyed in her scrappy Germantown youth.

What a disappointment. Words to describe this brew (swill) (translated lovingly from Yugo-talk): "horse-trough water," "Windex," "stale coffee without the coffee," "same as sex in a canoe (i.e., fucking near water)," "bad neighborhood tapwater," "Schuylkill punch" and "would be better in a bottle but only if it were actually some other beer that didn't taste like total crap."

Frankly we're pissed. Flom's pissed, Bader's pissed, the beer is piss and Grammy's dead (1910-2005). Fuck you.
Richard Erik Bader Flom
via e-mail

Garbage Man

I was all set to sit down, drink my coffee and read what I assumed would be a hilarious send up of why we are now "supposed to like Garbage" [Music, "Under the Rock," Michael Pelusi, April 14, 2005]. But wait! That "g" is capitalized, and in earnest! A group full of middle-aged "producers" with a hot female singer, recycling old hooks for the "I like to cut myself" set deserves a pat on the back for never having been "of the moment?"

"The sharpest piece of rock criticism [you've] read in a long time" [WTF, "The Whole of It," Duane Swierczynski, April 14, 2005] turns out to be: "Hey, when I was young, I longed for something under-the-radar to connect to, to make me feel cooler and part of something, as was the fashion at the time. Now that I'm older, and that's no longer the cultural climate, why don't we give a fair chance to middling, admittedly unoriginal, vapid pap? Rather than continue to seek out new music and risk not liking it in a couple years, or trying to develop more discriminating taste, maybe I'll give a chance to some band of industry insiders who have no pretensions of doing anything new."

This article is a reactionary load.
Matt Ricchini
South Philadelphia

More Birth Control

The focus of the Feminists For Life of America intitially strikes me as elitist and classist [News, "Life Stories," Hannah Yi, April 7, 2005]. As a pro-choice feminist, I think that all women should be supported in terms of their reproductive decisions, regardless of student status. And women in college on average tend to be white, middle-class women. I wonder though if women in college base this decision solely on resources, or the fact that they want to finish college before having a child? Having a baby-changing station would be helpful, I'm sure, but perhaps increasing access to birth control on campus would be the best choice of all.
Sara Sierschula
Spring Hill

East Oak Lane rules!

Having read both Duane Swierczynski's account of showing a friend East Oak Lane [WTF, "Not From Around Here," March 31, 2005], and then the letters from those bothered by his article, I had to think about my own time living in Oak Lane. For several years, I lived at 11th and Godfrey streets, technically in Fern Rock, but to outsiders, it, too, is just a "bad area." The neighborhood, just below Godfrey on 11th streets, was full of tree-lined streets, families with young children, and most every home was tidy. It was quiet day and night. I won't pretend that nothing bad ever happens in some areas south of Fern Rock/East Oak Lane, but let's not fool ourselves, these communities still provide good places to live. I think Duane knows that, and so do a lot of Philadelphians. Yet, we continue as a city to play the game of making synonyms out of the phrases "bad area" and "not white." This trend has helped gut city neighborhoods quickly for many decades.

Case in point: just east of Fern Rock and East Oak Lane lies Olney. For years, the Eighth Street overpass of the regional rail line was a big line between black and white Philadelphians. East of the bridge was once heavily Irish American — rows of homes with immaculate yards, sycamore trees. West of the bridge, Fern Rock had been mostly African-American since the 1970s. By 1995, that upper part of Olney had become nearly all non-white, with flight of residents threatened by non-whites' increasing presence. Many will say they left for "bigger houses," "bigger yards" or "better schools." I don't buy it, and I hope most of you don't, either.

Communities like East Oak Lane, parts of Fern Rock, large areas of upper Olney — not to mention other great areas away from Center City — all demand attention and respect. The greatness of a city cannot be determined by how trendy its downtown is alone.
Ryan Caviglia
via e-mail

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