Also this issue:

An Angry Party
-Bruce Schimmel

Almost Midnight
-Howard Altman

Upward and Onward
Saying thanks for a great gig -- and looking forward to a change.
-David Warner

March 27-April 2, 2003

mailbag

Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Battle Cries

(Re: "The War at Home," Howard Altman, Pretzel Logic, March 20, 2003)

In this age of spineless Democrats who lack any articulation in the face of the Republican dismantling of government, it was a pleasure, a joy, an indescribable ecstasy to read your column. I sent a copy to my niece, a Marine in Kuwait.

Darnel C. Tanksley
Via E-mail

Since when did the Dixie Chicks become martyrs to free speech? Are you saying that fans destroying CDs and tickets are being directed by the White House? Perhaps those recent photos of George Bush on the telephone were actually him calling country music stations urging them to drop the Dixie Chicks from their playlists.

Your comparison of the current political situation in the U.S. to Iraq would be silly if it were not such an insult. Mr. Altman, just where in the U.S. do you see massacres, use of chemical weapons against native tribes, physical torture of political opponents, rape of opponents' daughters (with videotapes of the rapes being sent to the parents)?

If Saddam is smiling (which I doubt at present), it's not because of a so-called "assault" on the U.S. Constitution; it's because the U.S. allows you not only to exist, but to prosper. I seriously doubt that there is a Baghdad version of this publication. If there is only one casualty of this war, let it be the paranoid hysteria of the City Paper!

Joseph Chudzinski
Philadelphia

Must-See ’YBE

(Re: "Cable Excess," Debra Auspitz, Lori Hill and Patrick Rapa, March 13, 2003)

I can't argue about the accuracy of what your reviewers watched, and it made for some very humorous copy. However, if they'd tuned in to WYBE during the other 17 hours of the day, they would have seen the outstanding international news and documentaries, independent films and original programming like Philly Live that WYBE has to offer. Stay tuned, City Paper!

Sherri Hope Culver

General Manager, WYBE
Philadelphia

Catherine the Great

I recently read a short review of the film Chicago by Sam Adams (Movie Shorts), and was horrified that it included the statement "Catherine Zeta-Jones is too hippy for her high-cut costumes." Living in the U.S. in 2003, I shouldn't be too surprised to find this sort of distorted perception of the feminine body being expressed, but I am surprised to find it being expressed in the City Paper. In my opinion, and in the opinion of every single person with whom I am acquainted who saw the film, male or female, Zeta-Jones was a beautiful woman, while the skeletal Zellweger looked like a little boy. It is the manufactured imperative that women should look like anime characters or prepubescent girls that is responsible for the prevalence of eating disorders in our society. Mr. Adams obviously needs some therapy. Or maybe he should leave the City Paper and apply for a job on either The Howard Stern Show or ABC's Are You Hot?

Amy Guskin
Malvern

Correction

In "The Winds of War" (March 20, 2003), Paul Burress attributed a statement about Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's preparedness alerts to spokesperson Jeff Baxt. This statement was made by Dr. Edward Jasper, emergency medicine physician and co-chair of the Thomas Jefferson Emergency Preparedness Committee.