Also this issue:

Theater of War
-Bruce Schimmel

Niggah, Please!
Two black women respond to Carl Singley.
-Tarcistah Buetta Maddalay Dray-Mae Deville, Carol D. Tart

January 23-29, 2003

mailbag

Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Singley-Minded

(Re: "The End of a Beautiful Friendship," Daryl Gale and Howard Altman, Jan. 16, 2003)

It is about time that the whistle was blown on the Street administration. Carl Singley paints a picture of a mayor beholden to union officials and fat-cat campaign contributors and who plays the race card in order to destroy any valid debate.

Cutting the wage tax should be a no-brainer, like breathing in and out. But last spring Street tried to stop the miniscule cuts that Rendell started and actually claimed community centers and social services in black neighborhoods would have to close if the wage tax was cut by 0.04 percent. It hasn't happened yet. More importantly, Street fails to appreciate that the working poor, who are disproportionately black, suffer more than anyone from the regressive wage tax. The wage tax takes their money, giving nothing in return, while it simultaneously forces businesses that employ them away from the city.

Whoever runs against Street will have my vote, and any opponent's campaign slogan should recall Jim Carville just as Carl Singley does: "It's the wage tax, stupid!"

Jay Williams
Philadelphia

Anti-War Games

(Re: "Dissent in the Ranks," Howard Altman, Pretzel Logic, Jan. 16, 2003)

I was glad to see that some prominent Republicans are joining dissenters from Bush's war on Iraq. Too bad the new dissenters feel they must assure us they're not against war itself, "just against us going in by ourselves" (John Haas). I suppose that's some progress, but it must be a masculine hangover from caveman days that even men brave enough to resist the Bush juggernaut aren't brave enough to admit, or at least recognize, that war is an insane, barbaric, anachronistic male institution that mainly serves the rich and powerful and kills or further impoverishes the poor. The Orwellian pro-war rhetoric is always "moral," of course -- the White House spokesman you quoted: " if force is necessary to keep peace, America will act " -- thus conflating war with peace, and the imperial Bush court with America.

Contrary to Trudy Rubin's denial (Inquirer, Jan. 11) of its relevance to this war, oil is more than just "talk." I suggest Altman investigate Halliburton, from which Cheney came and no doubt will return, which makes billions by providing construction for oil production and other services to the U.S. and any country that will pay (including post-Gulf War Iraq and Qaddafy's Libya) -- both before and after their respective wars. And if you must refer to the broad ranks of anti-war activists as "pointy-heads," why not refer to their opposites as "flat-heads"?

Ann Davidon
Philadelphia

Did You Catch This?

(Re: "The Fugitive Fumble," Deborah Bolling, Nov. 28, 2002)

Chalk up another one for former Daily News reporter Mark Angeles, for catching another fugitive among us. Another murder suspect on the fated Daily News cover (Aug. 22, 2002, "Fugitives Among Us") was nabbed in North Carolina. I did not see this added to Deborah Bolling's SoundBites this week. There is no doubt that the cover was racially insensitive, but Angeles clearly intended to get the fugitives arrested, not to sow racial hatred. He is achieving his goal.

David Lorenz
Philadelphia