Correspondence
Museum of American Art, to observe that it demonstrates "just how fragile the arts community feels its position to be and how concerned they are about the future of the arts." Their...
...Elizabeth M Whelan Executive Director, American Council on Science and Health New York, New York I very much enjoyed "Chicken Koop" in the June TAS...
...The surest way to avoid sexually transmitted AIDS is to avoid sexual encounters with an HIV infected individual and the best way to do that is to abstain from sex or establish a monogamous relationship with a non-infected person...
...Post writer Julia Preston shared the byline on the report with Michael Isikoff...
...RET CORRESPONDENCE More Mindless Cannibalism I am holding in my hand the March 1989 American Spectator...
...Somehow—I don't know why—I find the idea that he's a two-Martini-at-lunch man comforting...
...I have long been fascinated...
...Michael Isikoff Washington, D.C...
...This dramatic improvement in New Hampshire's financial situation did, as stated, lead to our regaining the AAA credit rating lost by the previous Democratic administration, with a consequent saving in interest costs...
...Their concern is justified...
...But he has hung the charge on the wrong guy—Koop, unlike so many of his colleagues in Washington, didn't waste time squishing ants, he aimed his gun at the public health elephants...
...All this in a state which has no sales tax or state income tax...
...Brock correctly notes our observation that the home of Mario Arango, a Medellin city council member with close ties to the city's drug cartel, is decorated with a portrait of Stalin...
...Rodriguez Gacha has also been linked to the November 1987 murder of Marxist labor leader Jaime Pardo Leal...
...The point is that the drug cartels have their own agenda, which transcends the boundaries of the East-West conflict...
...I agree with 1Yrrell's general premise that we are an overwarned society and that "regulatory nannies" (as Jeane Kirkpatrick is fond of saying) are creating here a nation of healthy hypochondriacs...
...Regarding second-hand smoke, there is solid scientific evidence of increased respiratory illness in individuals exposed to socalled passive smoking, and the headaches and tearing which occur in sensitive people is far more significant than RET's analogy of exposure to perfume...
...Most informed observers agree it is fruitless to depict the drug traffickers as either left wingers or right wingers (although, with the possible exception of Carlos Lehder, a political oddball whom the traffickers themselves turned in, most of them prefer to identify themselves with the capitalist ruling class rather than with Marxist rebels...
...The Chinese TWentyseventh Army crushed the democracy movement in Peking's Square of Heavenly Peace, and in New York organizers of the annual Gay and Lesbian Pride March announced that they will not attempt to call attention to AIDS by releasing 10,000 balloons for fear that they might endanger turtles and other sea life long held to be friendly to the homosexual cause...
...as did the left-wing journalist, Mr...
...Museum of American Art, to observe that it demonstrates "just how fragile the arts community feels its position to be and how concerned they are about the future of the arts...
...On the cover are featured two (at the time) haughty and powerful stalwarts of the House of Representatives: Speaker Jim Wright and Majority Whip Tony Coelho...
...On June 16 twelve staff members of The American Spectator were asked to leave the Annandale Bowling Center in beautiful Annandale, Virginia, after a nearby foursome complained to the management about the staff members' "lack of bowling etiquette...
...Mr...
...It was unfortunate to see a small portion of our article used to bolster a wobbly case to the contrary...
...Does RET know, does anyone know, can anyone find out the source/sources of all that fruit salad he wears...
...What would Tyne11 have Dr...
...Philip Averbuck Watertown, Massachusetts Drug Cartel Ideology To support his curious thesis that an alliance between Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries and Colombian cocaine traffickers is behind our current drug problems, David Brock ("The World of Narcoterrorism," TAS, June 1989) selectively quotes from a brief portion of an article of mine and Eugene Robinson in the January 8 Washington Post...
...I'm a recovered alcoholic...
...Isikoff for having given readers the mistaken impression that he agreed with my "curious" and "wobbly" thesis about narcoterrorism...
...Isikoff may be coming around after all...
...Now, I'm wondering if Mr...
...The arrests came at a time when U.S...
...Why shouldn't the national guardian of public health make a daily Big Deal out of that...
...Guy S. Paschal, 87, the developer of Airwick, an early neoconservative solution to air pollution...
...In his second budget, he convinced the legislature to use the state's surplus to establish a "rainy day fund" which has been invested by the state treasurer to accumulate income until it is needed to cover some future shortfall in revenue...
...Yet he seems to have missed virtually everything else we reported, including most significantly the growing ties between leading cartel traffickers, on the one hand, and conservative land barons and right-wing elements of the Colombian military, on the other...
...Eric Alterman Washington, D.0 The Great Sununu Although very much in agreement with Joe Mysak that John Sununu may well be the best hope in Washington for "the partisans of tax exemption" for municipal bonds ("The Beauty of Municipal Bonds," TAS, June 1989), I think that he has understated the achievements of our former governor...
...You and all your colleagues at TAS should feel proud of this accomplishment, and inspired to strike for new victories...
...law enforcement agencies say they have detected a dramatic surge in drug smuggling flights over Cuban territory, suggesting the country is becoming a major transshipment point for cocaine traffic into the United States...
...This is quite a bit more than can be said for his "report" of the event ("Looking for Loons," TAS, June 1989...
...Sununu not only "cut" the deficit left by his Democratic predecessor but also balanced his first budget while paying it off...
...John S. Lawton The Weirs, New Hampshire Just Doing His Job In his June 1989 article on C. Everett Koop, M.D...
...Sydney S. Stern, designer of the Ritz Crackers box, died at the age of 99...
...So it is back to polo, colleagues...
...On AIDS: no one, including Koop, argues that condoms are better than abstinence or monogamy...
...I Was There First the mind goes, then the eyes...
...Last year, a Colombian judge indicted two of the most notorious cartel traffickers— Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha—along with several military officers in a series of brutal massacres of leftist labor organizers and peasants in the Uribe banana planting region...
...Koop do—preach abstinence, remain mute about the protection offered by condoms and stand by while hundreds of thousands of Americans become infected with a deadly virus...
...Inside your magazine is a long, detailed article chronicling the petty and major crimes of these two scoundrels ("The Big Fix," by James Ring Adams...
...Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of premature disease and death, responsible, according to the latest peer review study, for nearly 500,000 deaths annually in this country...
...I. E Stone, 81, a man who in the large issues of his time was wrong more than 90 percent of the time...
...M. Alexis Lichine, the suave internationally renowned wine expert, conked out at the age of 76...
...on small issues he was even more defective...
...in reporting one of his more astute observations, I should have noted that his article showed no sign that he understood the implications of his own reporting...
...Several weeks after my article appeared, I picked up the front page of the Washington Post and read (I'll quote from the beginning so as not to be charged with "selectivity"): "The Cuban government said yesterday that one of its most distinguished military commanders and eight other high-level officials have been arrested on charges of drug trafficking or corruption...
...Mapplethorpe died in March of AIDS...
...David Brock replies: I had planned to apologize to Mr...
...Jacques R. Hebert North Miami Beach, Florida THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1989...
...Meanwhile, while the cartels have cooperated with leftist guerrillas in some coca-growing regions in the south of Colombia, they have elsewhere waged war against them...
...One of those "middle-aged radicals" RET alleges to have seen "slouching" around McNair Hall at Georgetown is only 29 —still young enough to be trusted...
...Given, however, that the reality does not mesh with the ideal for millions of Americans, it seems appropriate for the chief medical officer of the United States to offer advice on reducing the risk of disease and death...
...As I write to you today, less than three months after your expose appeared, one of the crooks has resigned, and the other one will certainly be gone by the end of this week—probably before you read these words...
...Miss Fran Allison, 81, the human component of "Kukla, Fran and 011ie" passed away, along with Mr...
...Chicken Koop"), RET appears to criticize Surgeon General Koop for confronting head-on the nation's two leading public health problems: cigarette smoking and AIDS, which for me is tantamount to criticizing him for doing his job...
Vol. 22 • August 1989 • No. 8
