Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Vive La France!

I want to express my relief that the French wine resolution will probably not come up for vote ["The French Rejection," Daniel Brook, Aftermath, May 15, 2003].

I personally think that the French have acted in a far more sane manner than the leaders of this country and I have gone out of my way to purchase French wine and cheese (the sacrifices I make to be consistent with my values!).

As a writer expressed, it has become harder and harder to satirize public figures in this country because their actions are so absurd. Sad and frightening. Sigh.

Gloria Rohlfs
PHILADELPHIA

Operation Sick of Street

Regarding the harassment of Sam Katz in West Philly [Gale Warning, Daryl Gale, May 8, 2003], I am so sick and tired of the Philly media babbling about what a great success Operation Safe Streets was/is. The drug dealers didn’t go away, they simply moved to another corner where the cops weren’t. I noticed that after the initial hype from these "operations" -- Operation Sunrise, Operation Safe Streets -- that things got worse in my neighborhood. I want Street to take an anonymous trip along Kensington Avenue -- between Lehigh and Allegheny -- at around midnight and see people screwing right under the streetlight while cops just mosey along in their cruisers never giving the scene a second glance: people shooting up drugs in the wide open and people passed out.

Donna Di Giacomo
PHILADELPHIA

Token of Disgrace

Read with interest your observations about the utter inability of SEPTA [Gale Warning, Daryl Gale, May 15, 2003] to provide any shred of information when there is a breakdown. I commuted for about two decades until a recent job change and share your frustration after enduring dozens of mysterious stoppages, diversions, adjustments or whatever, with rarely an explanation, let alone an apology. It is almost as if those who run the agency view information as some kind of fixed commodity that loses value when shared.

Unfortunately it appears from your article that you may also have been the victim of another aspect of SEPTA's practice of keeping valuable information to itself. You repeatedly refer to having paid the full $2 cash fare for your rides, yet there are two ways to avoid that highest-in-the-nation charge: For small numbers of trips, you should always purchase tokens, which cost 35 percent less than the equivalent cash fare; and if you ride very frequently you might do well with a TransPass which allows unlimited transit rides during the week and unlimited weekend rides on the regional rails as well.

It took action by Community Legal Services about a decade ago plus constant hectoring by many of us transit activists before SEPTA made tokens, and information about them, more readily available. Even so there are still employees who try to make it appear that cash is the only payment method

Jeff Karpinski
KING OF PRUSSIA