To the editor:

Your Ian Pugh’s slavering praise for Quentin Tarantino’s latest bloodbath demands a response—even though I’ve not seen it and never will. I gave up on such trash back in the days of Sam Peckinpah, whose films were breathlessly lauded for their sheer nastiness. In a recent interview Streisand happily admitted she avoided such films, saying (in effect) she respects movies too much and finds their images so powerful they stay with her, so she just doesn’t “want to carry that trash around in my head.” Brava, Barbra!

Not that your reviewer stands out in his enthusiasm: other perpetual-adolescent males writing on film—Ebert & partner with their “two thumbs way up” yet again; Corliss in Time; that pack of cub scouts reviewing for The New York Times—match Pugh’s gushing praise. But this near-unanimous chorus doesn’t alter the fact all are endorsing what has become the new American pornography: graphic violence featuring hacking of limbs, decapitation, multiple piercings of flesh with fountains of blood. By comparison, standard porn, where two adults consent to be photograph pleasuring one another, seems relatively benign.

At a time when the U.S. has blundered yet again into international situations where we must murder enemies intent on ejecting our invading forces, such frontier vengeance fantasies seem especially repugnant. I fear for the moral and mental health of my country when its citizens flock to laud this puerile junk by dubbing it “exhilarating”...“wildly  funny!”...or (to quote your critic) “A Masterpiece!”

To counter their embrace of sadistic titillation, I need only point that Taranantino’s basic revenge-fantasy plot is hoary and maudlin, that the “code names” your critic worshipfully quotes for the major characters are comic-book clichés, and that every line of dialog quoted in a laudatory review so far has been laughably inept.

So what’s to like, guys? That endless flow of human blood while sexy babes hack at each other? It would be nice to think you boobs will eventually grow up—though not, of course, before you’ve all got faithfully back in line to slobber over February’s Volume Two!

Alfred Lees

Callicoon, NY

To the editor:

I have wondered every morning when I wake and watch the news on television and hear of another “soldier or soldiers” that have died in Iraq and think to myself, “They have forgotten them already.” I haven’t. I pray for them and still have my yellow ribbons on my car and my house and wish I would see this everywhere!

Yellow ribbons and letters are so important to these brave heroes! But some have forgotten that there is still a war going on, and they need support for all of us!

Please America, hang yellow ribbons, write letters to the brace people in Iraq. Let them know we haven’t and never will forget that they are doing and dying for America.

God bless our armed forces all over the world.

Judy Melchick

Livingston Manor, NY

To the editor:

I have a few questions I would like to ask the present Board of Education of Sullivan West.

Where are you going to find a superintendent who has been involved with the construction and renovations at Sullivan West since its inception? A superintendent who has sat in on all the meetings with all persons concerned with the construction and renovations, which have been completed and those that are yet to be completed. Mr. Johndrow is very knowledgeable on all aspects of the ongoing construction and renovations. Will you be able to find someone to fill his shoes in this capacity? What is going to happen when the district is faced with legal actions regarding construction and excavating at the new high school site?

Don’t you want someone who has been onboard during the entire process so that he or she knows what they are talking about?

It is my understanding that when you hire a person to be a superintendent. It is his duty to oversee the daily operation of the entire district and see that all the schools are running as efficiently as possible and all curriculum requirements are being met. From what I understand, the students by and large are happy with all aspects of the new high school. The students are able to take courses that would not have been offered in the schools as they were. From all accounts I think Mr. Johndrow and the staff have done an outstanding job.

What are you thinking? Changing a horse in mid-stream does not make good sense. Mr. Johndrow knows the district, since he has been at the helms since its birth. A new person would come in stone cold and have to start at square one. Should any problem arise Regarding the construction or renovations, Mr. Johndrow will know what to do, as he will have first hand knowledge. This knowledge he has accumulated cannot be passed on to another person or acquired by a new person.

Also, do you think you will be able to hire a new superintendent at the same salary as Mr. Johndrow is presently receiving, $104,000? I am sure the new superintendent will receive quite an increase in salary. Quite a difference, wouldn’t you say?

So let’s use good common sense and extend Mr. Johndrow’s contract for another two years and go from there.

Loretta L. Kratz

Callicoon, NY

To the editor:

I offer a perceptive observation to what makes Bush tick. As an inexperienced leader for his party entrenched in Congress and the common people has now begun to really appear.

While our men and women in service are being killed off and wounded still defending a conflict of choice even as body bags are returning to the country almost daily.

In his to take for oneself before others the political invasion based on an assumed prominent threat posed by Iraq. Which so far failed to appear as if from nowhere. With his foreign policy team in an unending discord with itself trying to resolve the mess in Iraq.

While our stagnant economy programs and the much-too-long neglecting without proper attention our being infringed upon existing domestic affairs. While he is flying around with his ever-present group of attendants around our country calling forth and collecting monetary donations for the pending campaigns of his party and for himself.

It must be remembered. History cannot put a patina of a good excuse on what is morally wrong. What is untruthful today will be a falsehood tomorrow. And what is false today will be an untruth in the near future and still be contrary to any truth.

Chas. J. Sidlowski

Beach Lake, PA

To the editor:

I heard something very disturbing on Democracy Now, carried by WJFF public radio at 9:00 a.m. weekdays...it seemed important enough to share  with your readers.

According to their radio broadcast of Octber 24, 2003, the bodies of American servicemen are not being returned directly to their home towns, but are being sent to military bases, where the media is not allowed, thereby making sure there are no photographs or TV footage to remind us of their deaths. The same broadcast pointed out that President Bush has not attended any memorial services.

So these young people, in their late teens and early twenties, whose lives have been cut short, are to be the forgotten ones, the unreported, unremarked, unmemorialized children our present administration put in harms way. Just as many, if not more have died in the quagmire of post invasion Iraq as died in the invasion itself, which got blow-by-blow media coverage. There is no plan to end this steady, daily loss of American lives any time soon.  

These kids were brought up by their parents to believe in our country and to believe there was honor in serving it. They are not being treated honorably.

It is important that we know these facts, these inconvenient truths our government is successfully suppressing. WaynePeace, a local citizens group, has begun a “Get Out the Facts” series of free informational video presentations, and I believe the next meeting is scheduled for Friday, November 7, 2003, at the Grace Episcopal Church in Honesdale. Check the newspaper and/or their website to verify time and subject. Contact waynepeace.org.

Susan Sullivan

Narrowsburg, NY