Cochise salutes Apache
To The Editor:
Re “R.I.P., Apache” (Scoopy’s Notebook, May 10):
Rest in peace, Apache. You’ll always be remembered for the person that you was and still are: a street warrior, youth advocate, the L.E.S. DJ who lovingly moved the hearts of the people toward a positive path, a father to many and a guiding light to your own family. I salute you.
“Dynamite Brothers, forever! Forever, Dynamite Brothers!”
Jose Quiles a.k.a. Cochise
No L train? No big deal
To The Editor:
We had an important transportation test two weekends ago. The L train shut down for the weekend. So, every politician and policy maker could see whether the “L train catastrophe” would occur in this closure.
I personally rode the 14th St. crosstown buses several times at different hours on both days. Again, this was on a weekend bus schedule.
I asked every bus driver if his or her bus was taking on more passengers and if there was unusual crowding. The majority said there was an increased passenger load, but almost all said no unusual crowding.
This is an important finding. It reinforces the opinion that most people in our neighborhood have — namely, that only a modest readjustment of the 14th St. bus lines is needed. There is no need for “Select Bus Service” and other measures that, for ideological reasons, would be used to throttle and destroy the ability of 14th St. to carry vehicular traffic.
The one major problem with traffic congestion occurred Saturday because the city approved a street fair on Second Ave. between E. 14th and E. Eighth Sts.
John Wetherhold
Blood on Stewart’s hands
To The Editor:
Your April 27 issue, with its full-page worship of Lynne Stewart (“Lynne Stewart lionized as ‘people’s attorney’ at Midtown memorial”) has your paper hitting a new low!
Lynne Stewart had blood on her hands! She helped transmit a fatwa from The Blind Sheikh to his followers that led to deaths in Egypt! I remind you that the translator in the case got 20 years! Lynne only got 10 but deserved much more! Why don’t you print the names of the people massacred in Egypt?
Joseph Marra
Amusing Atzmon articles
To The Editor:
Re “ ‘This is lunacy’: Radical attorney slams protest vs. Theatre 80 political panel” (news article, thevillager.com, April 28) and “Flirting with the Devil: Gilad Atzmon and the ‘tyranny’ of free speech” (news article, May 4):
Thank you for your amusing coverage of the controversy over the recent panel at Theatre 80 St. Mark’s
Stanley Cohen declares the protesters “lunatic” and “fascist” for exercising their right to free speech through public picketing, plus attempts to intimidate them through threats of unspecified retaliation — and claims he is actually the victim of attempted censorship. Then (according to Sarah Ferguson’s sharply observed May 4 report), when Atzmon, at the panel discussion, begins to say things that might verify the protesters’ point, Cohen moves to shut him up.
Lorcan Otway performs the well-known comedic trope of self-aggrandizing martyr, comparing his critics to Joseph McCarthy, himself to M.L.K., and — for reasons never quite explained — banging on about Trump’s dangers. Then, he comes awfully close to suggesting the community has an obligation to fund him.
I don’t know much about Atzmon, but the protesters have made specific charges of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Rather than respond to these criticisms’ substance, Cohen and Otway reach for that all-purpose defense of “free speech.” For the U.S. left, cries of “censorship” are the signal to turn off your critical faculties.
Don’t think it is right for a private theater owner to provide a forum for fascism? “Censorship!” Talk about “the insular view of the American left.”
Cormac Flynn
E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager, Letters to the Editor, 1 MetroTech North, 10th floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel. Anonymous letters will not be published.
