Letters

ROBBINS AND THE DEVECCHIO CASE

Re Tall Tales of a Mob Mistress'[October 31–November 6]: Please pass on to Tom Robbins my appreciation for his sense of justice in the Lindley DeVecchio case.

I am a 1977 graduate of Southern Methodist University, where I received my degree in broadcast journalism. As time went on, journalism became all about demonizing conservatives and their causes while carrying the rally flag for liberal causes and the Democratic Party, regardless of the facts. I decided I couldn't support that hypocrisy and made my career elsewhere.

Every once in a while, though, someone from the old school steps up to remind us that the principles of journalistic ethics that I was taught 30 years ago came attached with a conscience that demands speaking up for what is right, not what will sell books and newspapers or get your friends elected.

Scott Noris
DALLAS, TEXAS

NOT HIS TYPE

How can a paper with such important, well-researched, and well-written articles be so sloppy in its presentation to the point that it seems no one checks the pages before sending them to print! How could you possibly pass on the first page of your 'Secret Agent Schmuck'article [Chris Thompson, October 24–30] and allow your layout/art directors to use such small white type—or was it gray!—on a black background when almost anyone in graphics knows the ultimate result: almost unreadable! What a waste! I strained at the first line and then chucked the whole thing out of sheer anger and frustration. Why couldn't you have simply used black text on a white box inset and made it easy on everyone?! Or did your design team think it wouldn't be artistic enough?! The Voice often does this and for what reason I can't imagine, since the information in the articles is what your readers come back for, not some art director's idea of what looks exciting on the page.

T. Kanter
VIA E-MAIL

WORTH A SECOND LOOK

Re Michael Feingold's review of Die Mommie Die! ['Back to Camp,'October 31–November 6]: Thank you for your nice mention of our costumes for Charles Busch ("in drag . . . a lady of infinite aplomb"). It is most appreciated.

Michael Bottari and Ronald Case
MANHATTAN

WINNER OF OUR TRAVIS BICKLE ESSAY CONTEST

I am rather forgiving than bloodthirsty as some others, as Musto's 'Apocalypse Musto' testifies, and every time I leave New York it might be my last seeing this great lovely place definitely. Perhaps, an accident with a subway ticket machine I spent after midnight more than an hour wandering under Times Square around automatic and living staff cashiers while attempting to acquire a valid ticket, was a sure but just single really naughty nuisance fixed already to date.

Anonymous
VIA E-MAIL

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

I know someone there at the "new" Voice thought it would be clever to assume what restaurants famous people may frequent at the end of the world [Robert Sietsema's 'Best of New York—Eats & Treats,' October 17–23]. It wasn't. It was the elitist kind of crap that the old Voicewould have mocked, and rightfully. Oh, and by the way, if you're going to report on "best ofs in NYC," get real New Yorkers to write them: The United Palace Theatre, a/k/a Rev. Ike's theater, is in Washington Heights, not Harlem. Strictly amateur.

J. Stone
MANHATTAN

WE WERE THINKING OF THAT MOVIE LITTLE ITALY TOWN

Your 'Diplomats and Guns'article [Adam Weinstein, October 24–30], with the subhead "Chinatown mystery: Why did officials from the bloodiest country on earth stock up at a local gun shop?" made it seem as though it was indeed a Chinatown mystery, with maybe some Chinese diplomats involved in gun smuggling. It turned out that "the bloodiest country on earth" was "the Democratic Republic of Congo," and that the "John Joving Gun Shop has been a fixture of the Grand Street block that connects Chinatown and Little Italy since it opened in 1911." You could also easily have made it "Little Italy Saga."

Your editorial dishonesty is amazing. No wonder people are saying the Voice has changed; it is no longer the old Voice.

Timothy Tung
MANHATTAN

BUMMED IN BROOKLYN

Re Letters [October 24–30]: Daniel Goldstein responded to your "Best of New York" issue's award of Best Noble Failure to his organization, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, by claiming that the award was premature. Some of us in Brooklyn agree that Goldstein's group is a failure, but for a completely different—and less noble—reason. I view Goldstein and his absolutist views as responsible for the failure of the opposition to Atlantic Yards. While his organization is called Develop Don't Destroy, it should have been called Don't Develop Brooklyn. It never engaged in a serious effort to negotiate the size and bulk of Atlantic Yards and permit a reasonable development of that long-neglected neighborhood to go forward. There's no way to know whether a good-faith effort to negotiate a scaled-back version of Atlantic Yards might have succeeded, but Goldstein's absolutist opposition made serious negotiation impossible. You might as well blame him for the fact that Atlantic Yards will proceed as planned, without any real community input.