Letters to the Editor

What You Say

Credit should go to Nick Norlen for admitting in [Slant, "War by the Numbers," Jan. 4, 2007] that he is unsure whether Gerald Ford deserves flags flying at half-mast: "Frankly, I don't know that much about him." Norlen shouldn't feel bad. It's startling how much ignorance the media's shown in covering Ford's death.

Let me offer one small story about him to demonstrate his value as a president and a human being. In 1975, Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger spoke with Indonesian ruler [Gen. Haji Mohammad] Suharto about Suharto's plan to invade East Timor. Damningly, Ford told Suharto, "We understand and will not press you on the issue." The issue, of course, is a war and occupation which may have killed 200,000 people. Because Ford followed Nixon, he has been given a free pass. Fine. But it will be a crime of American history if it excuses the smear of shit that the man had for a soul.

Matthew Sullivan
Via E-mail

Patrick D. Hazard has apparently forgotten that the Nazis lost, and that propaganda minister Josef Goebbels killed himself and his children, together with his wife, as the Russkies and Americans, under our great, greater, greatest Gen. George Patton rolled into Germany [Feedback, "No Surge Ahead," Dec. 28, 2006]. Forgetting the Nazis lost, Hazard takes his shots at the Jews, er, "Israelis." Hazard apparently also likes Hezbollah, the party of Allah, notwithstanding they are funded by Iran's [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, whom I imagine Hazard also likes. The Arabs fought with the Nazis until Patton kicked their asses into North Africa, but for the Islamic fanatics, hope springs eternal when there are crazies like Hazard always ready to take up the scimitar. Like all the others, Hazard ignores that the so-called West Bank of Israel, i.e. Judea and Samaria in the Bible, was never Arab territory.

Jerry Boris
Center City

What would a truly "rogue" event look like [Naked City, "Rogue Warriors," Megan M. Erwin, Dec. 28, 2006]? Not what I found at the Slought Foundation. Nor did I expect to, because a codified structure of master of ceremonies, lecturer and panelists is appropriate at an event giving awards, even if the event was to award practitioners recognized to be rogue in their practice. The Slought Foundation chose to critique "the economy of the prize" at this event where they were awarding prizes. How does giving an award to a select few and then criticizing this method of recognition benefit anyone? Why would any benefactor go to such lengths to nullify its own agency to give? Would have it not been better for Slought to simply recognize its authority to award by honoring the practitioners with the graciousness that they deserve? What do they gain by timidly honoring? An institution that attempts to reconcile its ambivalence toward its own authority by complaining and apologizing about their position to award is nothing less then self-indulgent.

Listening to others critique their own position of privilege to give and receive awards within the comfort of their position is hardly radical or rogue, and rather downright insulting. Despite my dissatisfaction, however, I did come away with one radical rogue thought, that being a pre-emptive rejection of a Rogue Award. Therefore, I hereby decline a Rogue Award from the Slought Foundation, and I extend my sincere regards and gratitude for their future consideration.

Lena Helen

Director, Department for the Investigation of the Unmentionable (DIUM)

Thank you David Faris for so succinctly spelling out a few of the many reasons why Philadelphians and the country has rid itself of another ignorant, harmful and formerly too-powerful politician [Slant, "Goodbye to Santorum," Dec. 28, 2006]. The voice of dissent is alive and active.

Marlena Santoyo

Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia