Letters

The Voice is accepting applications for its winter/spring arts internship. Candidates should have a broad familiarity with New York City's cultural scene—especially theater, film, and books—and be eager and talented writers. Applicants should mail a cover letter, résumé, and writing samples to:

Brian Parks, Arts and Culture Editor,
The Village Voice,
36 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003.

PROSE AND CONS

Re Graham Rayman's 'Do Not Go Directly to Jail' [December 26, 2007–January 1, 2008]: Your comment that "maybe you've never had to visit Rikers, but you probably know someone who has" is absurd on the face of it.

I'm sympathetic (up to a point for that misguided 19-year-old), but I've lived in New York City for 25 years and I don't know anyone who has visited Rikers. Maybe that makes me an insulated white boy living in Queens, but I doubt it.

Writing from a political position is something I am used to (and welcome) from the Voice. Assuming we all know someone at or visiting Rikers is just downright silly stuff. Get real.

Geoff King
Jackson Heights

Wow! Does anyone really care that some murderer/rapist/thug's girlfriend/wife/partner-in-crime has to wait all day to see his "love"? Who gives a shit about these scum?

tical
Via e-mail

My husband is currently a prisoner in Georgia, and we are experiencing harassment and attacks by a few officers due to our inquiry regarding the rules. Is there any type of program that visitors can turn to? The Department of Corrections down here is blowing us off as if I am an irate disgruntled visitor who is never satisfied. They keep insinuating that I don't have common sense. It is quite frustrating and depressing.

Nicole Smith
Via e-mail

THE GODMOTHER OF SOUL

Re Michael Clancy's 'It's a Woman's World' [December 26, 2007–January 1, 2008]:Who knew? Great article. I guess the song rings true: It is a man's world.

Hank
Via e-mail

START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT HIM

Re Maria Luisa Tucker's 'Motel Sucks' [December 26, 2007–January 1, 2008]: Once again, a story about an "evil" landlord who's trying to make money. You Marxists won't be happy until the unwashed masses rise up and slaughter the successful of our world.

Joe Hurley
Via e-mail

While the city supposedly is attempting to curtail homelessness in accelerated outreach programs, a group of greedy landlords (and the numbers are increasing daily) seems to be bent on throwing tenants onto the streets like garbage—and in record numbers.

Tucker's well-researched article touches only the surface of the gnawing gentrification problem in our city. The buildings being rented out in the metropolitan area in this manner should be publicized in the media, and the city should take more stringent steps—and come under more scrutiny and pressure—to stop this trend before more lower- and middle-class tenants get thrown out.

I live at the Prince George, a landmark building operated by Common Ground that is dedicated to getting homeless people off the street and into affordable housing. Several tenants here fear that the same factors forcing people out of apartment buildings in other parts of the city will eventually affect them and that they will once again become homeless. Things can happen in a New York minute.

Peter Zaccone
Manhattan

PRISONER OF LOVE

Re Chris Thompson's 'Holding Pattern' [December 19–25, 2007]: Here in India, we're discussing this story about Narinder Singh, and we're wondering about the role of his wife—like why she was not present at the airport when Singh returned to the U.S. from India. Was she apprehensive for some reason? Was she not getting assistance from the government about Singh's situation?

Raj Pawar
Via e-mail

CAVEAT EMPTY

Re Bret Gladstone's 'Radiohead's In Rainbows [Disc 2] '[December 19–25, 2007]: Never have I read a review less clear as to whether I should buy the album or not.

Poerba
Via e-mail

KILLING THEM LEFT AND RIGHT

Re Nat Hentoff's'Darfur? It's Only Black Muslims' [November 28–December 4, 2007]: You all have got to be kidding me. You are using the ruthless genocide of 500 people each day as a way to attack the left. Darfur is not a political issue; it is a humanitarian crisis—although I agree that the Bush administration has abandoned its desire to help the victims. The fact of the matter is that the world has watched the monstrosities occur and not done anything about them.

Kevin P.
Via e-mail

HIT AFTER HIT AFTER HIT

Re Scott Foundas's 'Badlands' [November 7–13, 2007]: You recommended No Country for Old Men as a great movie. I'm sorry, but it was completely gratuitous blood porn that gave a pass to the gross police incompetence of the lone-wolf sheriff and his "country wisdom." The effect of this genre on our society is to view this casual brutality as the norm and as sensible. With all respect, Scott Foundas, your judgement is flawed. Please come back to earth, read some real literature, listen to Bach, and pay attention to a string of good films to get your judgment back.

But it's not just you. Obviously the U.S. film industry has sunk to a very low standard and is blindly stoking anxiety so high that we can barely recognize brutality for what it is. The Voice and other papers give this film a maximum rating as if it were Shakespeare or Tolstoy. This is how warped we are as a society. This is how deep our numbness to wholesale death goes.

toosinbeymen
Via e-mail