Thou Shall Steal
Helen H. Thompson's article on getting God away from the Right was accurate and inspiring [Naked City, "Mercy Mission," Sept. 8, 2005]. It is courageous in this day for a hip young woman to "admit" to having a rapprochement with Christian faith. I want to thank her for "testifying" in such a personal and authentic way to the personal and political power of connecting with Christ and the progressive activism that "following Jesus" requires.
Andrea Davis
Via E-mail

---

Ballot Boxing
Michael Nutter will not be elected mayor and [Cover, "Michael Nutter May Not Be As Boring As You Think," Jenna Portnoy, Sept. 8, 2005] proved my case. Here you have a four-term councilman and the only successes he can boast of are in the areas where his white constituents are. I am glad that they can get service out of their councilperson, but in order to win in this city, he needs to attract the black vote as well. The average person in West Philly near Market Street doesn't even know Nutter is his or her councilperson; they think Jannie Blackwell is. [Though] the Market-Frankford Elevation Project disaster is in both their districts, you never even hear a word from Nutter concerning this failure, or about the safety and health problems it is causing his voting base. Here is a project that could use some of his muscle, but when we contacted him, he referred us to Blackwell. Nutter acts as if this part of his constituency does not exist. He needs to stop pretending otherwise.
T. L. Gordon
Via E-mail

---

Critical Review
[WTF, "What Criticism?" Duane Swierczynski, Sept. 8, 2005] made me think hard about how the general public views criticism of our president. While we can't really fathom the amount of destruction that this storm caused until the last drop of water is pumped, it should remind us of the gross incompetence of our federal government. There is now such a laundry list of things that we Americans can criticize our leaders about; it's comedy when the elder Bush looks Larry King straight in the face and responds, "What criticism?"
Let's remind him to read the 9/11 report and see the vast failures of our intelligence agencies. After the single biggest attack on U.S. soil, the culprit is still at large on the four-year anniversary.

Our economy is more than $400 billion in deficit and it doesn't look like things will get much better after $50 billion is spent on Katrina. Oh yeah, because of all this 24-hour news coverage, I almost forgot about the hundreds of billions of dollars we will end up spending on the war.

At least Bush came out and said that he takes responsibility for any failures in the response to Katrina. I'm not sure if that was a shrewd political move or a heartfelt response. I could be crazy, but maybe the next smart political move would be admitting that he could have done more to fund emergency management in New Orleans before this happened.

While Bush strategists analyze poll numbers that show him dipping below a 40 percent approval rating, and senators analyze a possible Chief Justice appointee, shouldn't all Americans — Republican and Democrat — start analyzing the competency of this administration?
Alex Smith
Old City