You hit the nail on the head [News, "Throwback Backstop," Jeff Pearlman, June 8, 2006]. I know Sammy [Sal Fasano] as the big sweet boy that was the "school pal" to my youngest son, Marty, who is developmentally disabled. All through junior high, high school and college, Sammy kept Marty close. Sam's [wife] Kerri speaks to Marty three or four times a week and at Sam's wedding, Marty escorted Sam's mom, Nella, down the aisle. Isn't Philly known as the city of love? Thank you, for loving my Sammy or Sal as you also know him. You are true judges of goodness in people.

Myrna Goldsmith
Hoffman Estates, Ill.

This is by far one of the greatest articles I have ever read on Fasano. I hope you don't mind, but when people ask us what prompted us to create "Sal's Pals," I'm going to refer them to your article.

Tom Dudzic
Co-founder, Sal's Pals

Everyone thinks we are doing this as a joke, which is totally incorrect. The man is a great blue-collar athlete. He should be an example of how professional athletes should act.

Michael Czyzewski
Member, Sal's Pals

I did not know this man and said he would be back in Triple-A within a month. This guy truly deserves a shot and I am now one of Sal's Pals. Keep up the great journalism. Go Sal!

John Slaby
Northeast Philadelphia

… and City Paper …

I read your articles every Thursday and I must say this is the only Philly paper I read. You gotta keep up the great [work] no matter what. I need your City Paper for life.

Lance Postell
Via E-mail

… But Not the Ads in the Back of the Book

I'm not one to write irate letters to cynical editors, but since you brought up the lack of escort ads at one point in time, I can only say let's go back to that era [Naked City, "Paper Trail," June 8, 2006]. How many men-throw-strippers-off- bridge, man-kills-wife-to-support-fling-with-dancer, suburban-creep-has-escort's-dead-body-dumped stories does it take to make you sit down and say, "You know, the city doesn't need this crap, the foreign women being kept as sex slaves don't need this crap, prostitution isn't the glamour job of the century. What other businesses might be willing to step in and finance the paper?"

Donna Miller
King of Prussia

Expat in the Making

I had spent much of this past week wondering if I should seriously be looking for ways to exit this country because my government wanted to spend time figuring out how to make sure I knew that they regarded me as less than a full citizen and human being [Editor's Letter, "Holy Sanctimony," Duane Swierczynski, June 8, 2006]. They want to enshrine discrimination against me in the friggin' Constitution. Although I still wonder about the exit strategy (I'm developing one, George, why can't you?), your editorial added much-needed comic relief to the absurdity of it all. Knowing there are straight guys out there that have my back helps.

Jody Dodd
Center City

Granny Power

I say right on for the Grandmothers for Peace [Philly Blunt, "Grannies Gone Wild," Brian Hickey, June 8, 2006]. The recruiters pursue the kids, tell them lies and half-truths and take advantage of their youth and lack of other opportunities. I talk and bring information to Latino parents and they are so grateful that someone cares and can give them some information about alternatives. As a member of the Raging Grannies Action League, we have visited recruits and schools and taken part in rallies, one of which (on Mother's Day) was spied upon by a rogue spy unit of the National Guard.

Gail Sredanovic
Menlo Park, Calif.

All grannies should go to their local recruitment office on June 28, in every state.

B. Davis
Palm Beach County, Fla.

Give This Man a Jackhammer

Yes, let's take back the streets of Philadelphia [Loose Canon, "Auto-Asphyxiation," Bruce Schimmel, June 8, 2006] and return them to their rightful pedestrian owners! Better yet, the city ought to seriously consider tearing up all the ugly black asphalt that belies this great city to reveal once again the beautiful Belgian cobblestone blocks that lie shamefully unexposed, just inches below. Doing this and bringing back more trolley lines (whose very rails also lie just inches below the ugly black asphalt) would be a huge boon to "The City That Loves Its Blocks!"

Steve Detofsky
Rittenhouse Square

Duck, Duck, Let 'Em Loose

A more appropriate headline for [Food, "Stuck on Duck," Lindsay Hicks, June 1, 2006] would have been "Stuck on Humaneness." Plaudits to Councilman Jack Kelly for introducing a bill that would ban the sale of a food born of the suffering of ducks and geese, foie gras.

Joel Assouline's referring to Kelly as a crazy person with a stupid idea lends credence to a statement by Albert Einstein: "Great spirits have always been criticized by mediocre minds."

The hapless winged beings have four pounds of grains pumped into them several times a day, which causes hepatic steatosis, the liver's enlarging to 10 times the normal size. This cruelly produced liver gets 85 percent of its calories from fat. A 2-ounce serving of this product of pain contains 25 grams of fat and 85 milligrams of cholesterol. Moreover, as the ruined goose/duck liver slithers through the digestive track of the morally truncated gourmands, it oils the arteries with a coating that makes it easier for cardiovascular disease to slide in to attack the body.

Like the plantation owners who survived the abolition of slavery and the factories that survived child labor laws, the pimps of pain who pander mega livers would survive the abolition of this "delicacy of despair."

Israel, Germany, Italy and Turkey have already boarded the bandwagon of compassion and banned this hepatic hell food.

Cruelties inherent in the real world of meat production cited in defense of foie gras production notwithstanding, the words of Aristotle burst this self-serving defense: "One cruelty does not justify another."

Gloria S. Feldscher
Plymouth Meeting

While I certainly agree that the treatment of foie gras ducks is intolerably inhumane, I feel that Councilman Jack Kelly's actions are a bit arbitrary and a bit misguided. If his reason for seeking to ban the food is the unnatural and excessively cruel treatment of the animals needed to produce it, it is unclear why he has not applied that reason and ban to the dozens of other foods that require very similar animal abuse—veal, for starters. In fact, very little meat—even the organic stuff—comes from animals that are treated any less appallingly than the councilman's ducks.

If the councilman is serious, and seeks to avoid hypocrisy, he must end up campaigning for a meat-free city. Rather than selectively banning the food itself, it would be much more productive for animal rights-minded politicians to lobby for stricter and more meaningful standards for the treatment of food animals. The country is not going to give up foie gras or veal any time soon, and this city probably isn't either. Nonetheless, if Philly sets an example by demanding more humane treatment of the animals we eat, we really could shake things up.

Julia Feldman
Bala Cynwyd

Sam's Fan Club

Once again, I so enjoyed Sam Adams' perceptive review [Movies, "The Last Roundup," June 8, 2006]. His intellect is shrewd and savvy. I continue to read his work, even out of Philadelphia. He has quite a following in these mountains.

J.C.
New Hampshire

Getting Warmer

[Cover Story, "The Real Earthwatch," Brian Hickey, May 25, 2006] clearly sets forth a number of effects from global warming. Yet it is also interesting to consider what can happen when various effects are combined.

From more intense precipitation, flood levels could be more than the rise in sea level alone in cities like Philadelphia, which are along major tidal rivers. Other cities include Washington, D.C., historic Alexandria, Va., and Portland, Ore., let alone the many U.S. port cities with very low areas. This concern over flood levels is not just mine, but the EPA's. At least as early as 2000, the EPA warned that higher sea level and more intense precipitation could combine synergistically to increase flood levels by more than the rise in sea level alone, given that along tidal rivers and in very flat areas, floods can be caused by storm surges or river surges.

The article also mentions prices of agricultural goods, the flooding, rises in sea level and water salinity problems [that] pose serious infrastructure and economic problems for our city and region. Studies by the EPA and others have estimated that along the Atlantic coast, a one-foot rise in sea level is likely in less than 50 years.

We must act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We should support initiatives like the Pennsylvania Clean Vehicles Program, which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars by nearly 25 percent by 2025. Also, if we are to reverse the trend and try to stop the disasters from happening, we should aim for 20 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and 70 to 80 percent reductions by 2050. We can also rely more on renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which do not emit greenhouse gases, to help meet our energy demands.

Ivan Chan
University City

Good Works

Forget the drug-soaked pro ranks; the true heroes of cycling are guys like Andy Dyson [Naked City, "Training Wheels Off," Andy Greenberg, June 1, 2006]. He's been fighting the good fight on a shoestring budget for many years. Let's hope that your fine article gives Neighborhood Bike Works some much-needed publicity so that all of the staffers can continue their great work.

Pete LaVerghetta
Cheltenham

Dirty Talk

As a reader profoundly concerned with current revitalization in Philadelphia and other cities, I found [Loose Canon, "The Instant Slum," Bruce Schimmel, June 1, 2006] maddeningly unclear.

What is meant by "dirty development"? Why the prediction of "instant slums"? How precisely are new developments "car dependent"? If the answer is the city rule requiring garages for new housing, this is never mentioned in the article. I have been fulminating against the proliferation of ugly garages and parking ramps; Councilman [Frank] DiCicco, I recall reading, has proposed a code change eliminating the garage requirement. What is the status of this much-needed, sensible proposal? Again, the article is mum on this critical "pro-urban" proposal.

Finally, with examples of bad anti-urban, suburban style, car-dependent development all around (one of the worst offenders being the cul-de-sac design of the rebuilt Richard Allen homes around 10th and Girard), why does this article pick on the former Martin Luther King site on South 13th Street as an example of "bad development"? On the contrary, by eliminating garages, building close to the sidewalk and respecting Philadelphia's traditional row house vernacular, and even incorporating some street-level retail space, that development is the most pro-urban to be seen anywhere in Philadelphia. It has, in fact, won a charter award from the Congress for New Urbanism.

Miklos Pogonyi
Center City

Much Love

I personally enjoyed [Naked City, "Double Double Take," Rod L. Wilson, April 27, 2006], not because I like children and am a day-care provider, but it was good hearing something good and positive in the news about our young black men for a change. We always hear the bad and negative news.

Shirley Love
Sanford, N.C.

Correction

Last week's review of Apamate [Small Bites, "Salud, Apamate," Elisa Ludwig, June 8, 2006] stated that the restaurant was the only Philadelphia establishment to use the Chicago-based coffee company Intelligentsia; 1 Shot Coffee (1040 N. Second St.) also uses Intelligentsia. City Paper regrets the error.