Letters to the Editor

What You Say

Thanks, Andrew Parks, for braving a week with Philadelphia's best live act and most intriguing band, Man Man [Cover, "Hiding Out," April 19, 2007]. I think they're incredible. But, I'm disgusted by City Paper's choice for the cover photograph of the band given the tragedy in Virginia this week. What were you thinking? Couldn't you have used something else or at least held the story for another week? Were you making some sort of statement?

I know there is an element of the macabre with bands like Man Man, and I can dig that, but the timing here is all wrong. In this context, smart, challenging music looks dumb, and that's unfair to the band, and to Mr. Parks. Still love the paper; still love Michael Regan's photography every week. Just can't get behind this one.

Chad Willenborg
Graduate Hospital area

How can you come out with a cover like that just three days after the Virginia Tech shootings? What were you thinking? Was anyone there thinking at all?

A Disgusted (ex?) Reader
Philadelphia

On April 22, we recognized Earth Day, a global holiday set aside to acknowledge and appreciate our environment and to inspire action to conserve our natural resources. In recognition of this significant day, the Philadelphia Streets Department has an easy way for all Philadelphians to participate with tremendous impact. We challenge each and every Philadelphia household — all 530,000 — to add at least one more pound of recyclable material to your collection containers for curbside pickup.

Recycling one more pound is as easy as adding a single Sunday newspaper into your collection container; collecting two more empty 12-ounce glass containers such as a pickle, mayonnaise or spaghetti sauce jar; tossing [away] one outdated telephone book; or including 32 more empty aluminum cans with your recyclables following a family get-together or block party.

Recycling helps fund an array of Philadelphia programs and services, including our police and fire departments, along with our parks and recreation centers. Recycling also creates jobs for Philadelphia's hard-working citizens. And, recycling in Philadelphia certainly helps save precious landfill space.

Clarena I.W. Tolson
City of Philadelphia Streets Commissioner

It is so refreshing to hear the blunt truth spoken bluntly and fearlessly [Slant, "End This Filthy War," David Faris, April 19, 2007]. The Bush administration has made me long for a parliamentary system for the first time in my life! Now we must hope and pray that the Democrats will continue to fight the good fight.

Patricia Witherspoon
Charlotte, N.C.

[News, "Life Row," Tom Namako, April 19, 2007] provides a generally insightful view of the event that called attention to the severe flaws in our state's death penalty. In a noble effort to present a balanced perspective on this critical issue, however, Namako ignores a number of key facts while giving carte blanche to Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia District Attorney [law division head] Ronald Eisenberg to spread the same tiresome misinformation that we've been hearing for decades.

Allowing statements from Rendell's spokesman that the governor "continues to believe that the death penalty serves as a deterrent" and that Rendell "does agree that death penalty cases deserve the best legal representation possible" to go unchallenged is a disservice to your readers. Criminology experts and most ordinary citizens realize that the death penalty doesn't deter violent crime, evidenced year after year by the fact that Southern states (where approximately 80 percent of executions take place) have far higher murder rates than Northeastern states, which account for less than 1 percent of all executions. As for prosecutors' increasingly desperate contention that one does not have to prove "factual innocence" to be exonerated, I believe the last time any of us checked, this country's justice system wasn't founded upon the premise that one has to "prove" his or her innocence; rather, it's the state's responsibility to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Also missing was the fact that polling has shown more than 70 percent of Pennsylvanians support a moratorium and that most Pennsylvanians support life without parole over the death penalty.

Kurt Rosenberg
Director, Witness to Innocence

[Slant, "Alien Nation," Christine Flowers, April 12, 2007] is right. We have to find a sane middle ground in how we handle the illegal immigration problem in our country. If we must choose which aliens to deport immediately, the answer is common sense. Those who are criminals, drug dealers or involved with any kind of serious law-breaking should be summarily rounded up and deported. Drunken driving is a serious offense that kills people. So is running red lights. These are reckless and sometimes lethal acts. Flowers writes a cogent argument for finding compromise in the humane treatment of illegal aliens that takes into consideration all circumstances. The criminals and drug dealers get no consideration.

Gloria C. Endres
South Philadelphia

With the exception of the Daily News, Philadelphia newspapers are giving Tom Knox a free ride as he seems to be gaining in the polls [The Insider, "Could Tom Cruise to Victory?" Anonymous, March 6, 2007]. He was chief executive officer of Crusader Bank when payday loans were a scourge on the lives of low-income workers in Philadelphia, most of whom were minorities. Unregulated, Crusader Bank under his leadership raked in millions on the backs of the working poor. Now he wants these same citizens to vote for him to be Philadelphia's mayor. I don't think so.

Still hustling us, he circumvents the campaign finance law(s) by loaning his campaign $5 million thereby not needing to solicit campaign contributions like the rest of the mayoral candidates. In effect he has encouraged pay-to-play. Any money that is donated to his campaign goes directly into his pocket. He's still playing his money games. Is this pay-to-play? I think it is but, you be the judge.

He frequently touts his working for Mayor [Ed] Rendell as his deputy mayor for $1 a year. The question that should be asked: How much money did the companies that he owned or was affiliated with make during the tenure of the Rendell administration? He was only able to work for $1 because he had already made millions off of the suffering of low-income wage earners. Philadelphia doesn't need Knox for mayor or anything else.

James W. Wilson, Esq. (semi-retired)
East Mt. Airy

Regarding the Loose Canon ["A City of Two Tails," Bruce Schimmel] and Editor's Letter ["The Weapons We Need," Duane Swierczynski] in your April 5 issue: You know, I respect and would excuse this vulgarity from a columnist attempting to shock us or display a complete lack of intellectual imagination. But from the "founder and editor emeritus" and the "editor in chief" I find it disgusting and, frankly, sophomoric. It's bad enough each week we have to wade through a dozen pages at the end of your paper displaying a complete disregard for the bulk (I hope) of your readership, but to be asked to endure your editorial sloppiness is, well, a bit much.

William L. Cooper
Center City