Letters to the Editor

What You Say

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Published: Jun 25, 2008

Pop and Lock

Your article of "Locked Down" [Cover Story, Tom Namako, June 19, 2008] was mesmerizing. I tried to put my mind and body into those of the inmates and the guards. I could not fathom either. I just don't understand repeat offenders. Taking one stretch, short or long, is terrible. My brother is a highway patrol cop and I visited his precinct a couple times. Just stepping into the holding cells was bad enough.

George J. Walton
Upper Darby, PA

I was extremely disappointed to see that City Paper granted anonymity to a lawyer who apparently just wanted to float his argument on behalf of his client without having to own up to it [News, "Changing the Rules," Isaiah Thompson," June 19, 2008]. He said: "You live in Philadelphia County? ... Because if you do, stop paying your mortgage right now. ... In Philadelphia, apparently, you don't have to pay anymore."

Why on earth would you print this guy's sniping without making him at least admit his own name, if not his client's? It adds nothing to the article and just provides cover for an anonymous attack. This guy made the effort to come up to the reporter, and you obliged by giving him a free bully pulpit without any need to take ownership of his remarks. That's not journalism, that's endorsement.

Amanda Bergson-Shilcock
Fort Washington, PA

Tell Michael Washburn that his "Obama Oogum Boogum" Slant ["Barry's Rules?" June 19, 2008] isn't going to work. He uses the most extreme, questionable cases and tries to link them to Obama's policies, while real cases go ... unaddressed. How about going to work and seeing a noose over your locker? How about being forced to train the people that will get the promotions you deserve? Those are real examples, but Washburn found them too boring, I guess.

Washburn's another white man who has no qualms about profiling, because he knows that white people will never be profiled. Cartoon villain Richard Reid gets on a plane with a Maxwell Smart-type "shoe bomb" that he needs matches to set off, and we all have to remove our shoes at the airports. Timothy McVeigh — young, white, male, Army vet — blows up a building. We all remember the Great Young White Male Army Vet Roundup of 1995, don't we?

Mouth the words slowly to yourself, Mr. Washburn: President Obama. President Obama. President Obama.

Mark F. Walker
Philadelphia

A number of months ago, Michael Washburn wrote an op-ed [Slant, "The Faces of Racism, December 27, 2007] crying about how the local media had the audacity to report on whites committing crimes against people of color.

His gripe du jour is the possibility of a president Barack Obama making racial profiling illegal and strengthening anti-discrimination laws. He also threw in a little aside against "forced" integration. We can sum up Washburn's worldview as follows: Racist white people should be allowed to trample on the rights and freedoms of people who are not white, and none of us should ever speak on it, let alone fight it. In other words, it sucks really, really bad to be Michael Washburn this election year.

The rest of us are doing just fine, however. Obama is not perfect and, just like any other politician, we have to deal with the issues as they come. Racial profiling and forced integration are not those issues. The war, gas prices and whether or not we will be able to make ends meet will be. Our lives will go on as they always have — at least for those of us who, unlike Mr. Washburn, have one.

Daryle Lamont Jenkins
West Philadelphia

John Mims is the head chef and owner of Les Bons Temps. Brett Naylor is the chef de cuisine. [Food, "I'll Stand Bayou," Trey Popp, June 19, 2008].

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