The blacklist, lepers, and more.
Silver Screen Stalinists Stephen Schwartz may be optimistic that the blacklist mythology is fading from modern memory, but I am less sure ("Modern Mythology," July 9). On July 4, Turner Classic...
...The Dangerous Book for Boys may be a clever creation and a service to children, but it's hard to see how a single children's book could be the decisive culture-war white knight that Kimball makes it out to be...
...One can't be too careful...
...Would Mikey Like It...
...Joanne Butler Alexandria, Va...
...On July 4, Turner Classic Movies ran the movie musical 1776, whose cast included Howard Da Silva—whom, Robert Osborne (the evening TCM host) gravely reminded us, was a blacklisted actor...
...Ron Gooden Atlanta, Ga...
...Must be satire, I figured, but in this age of correctness, who would dare use leprosy for humor...
...Or will a road-to-Damascus experience bring him to reconsider the sour views on American health care propagandized in Sicko...
...Claypoole...
...Personally, I have a bit more faith in human nature...
...Swift's A Modest Proposal led to thousands of infants being baked, fried, boiled, broiled, or fricasseed in Ireland before word got out that it was only satire...
...The book's mundane remarks on gender differences and its focus on courage could only be that revolutionary if children are permanently and sweepingly shaped by what they read...
...Childish Observations Roger Kimball's "Boys Will Be . . . " (June 25 / July 2) has an ironic undercurrent: Kimball tacitly assumes the very psychological theories that inspire political correctness...
...Young boys (and girls) are cunning creatures, too shrewd to be taken in for life by the remarks of a single book...
...Robert Friel Seattle, Wash...
...Don't Laugh at Leprosy Joe Queenan's "No Amnesty for Lepers" (July 16) left me puzzled...
...My wager is that he'll opt for the very best surgeon that privilege can buy, along with a private hospital suite, armed security guards, and media handlers primed to spin away the irony...
...If Kimball assumes this, it's easy to picture him as a prissy legislator of political correctness, only with a different definition of the term—it's still a matter of supreme importance what Johnny reads about gender, though Kimball would have Johnny consume a different dogma...
...I must admit that knowing about Faulk's red past added zest to my moviewatch-ing, as Faulk gave a scene-stealing performance as a George Wallace clone, segregationist governor T.T...
...Regarding John Podhoretz's "Reverend Mike" (July 9): One wonders if triple-chinned filmmaker Michael Moore, when his own arteries finally clog shut from trying to personally rid the world of donuts, will seriously consider a Cuban hospital for his bypass surgery...
...Arnold Beichman Stanford, Calif...
...Four days later, TCM screened Gore Vidal's 1964 political drama The Best Man, with John Henry Faulk in a minor role, and the daytime host, Ben Mankiewicz, earnestly told us that he too was a blacklist victim...
...At first, I thought it was a parody—but on your last page, you always label a parody as such...
...So just to be sure, I called the Centers for Disease Control and was told that their latest report on leprosy recorded 96 cases in 2002...
...Films like 1776 and The Best Man are rich in interesting side details, and we might hear about them too, if only those TCM hosts would give up their blacklist fixation...
...James G. Baird Woodstock, Ga...
...In tne first paragraph Queenan mentions that there are 7,000 cases of leprosy in the United States, according to Lou Dobbs...
...Based on this (partial) information from the CDC, I decided the article was indeed satire—which can be a dangerous thing...
...Treacherous Words Regarding Paul Hollander's "Book of Memories" (July 9): Hollander's powerful attack on the translation from Hungarian into English of George Konrad's A Guest in My Own Country confirms the Italian punning phrase, "traduttori, traditori," that is, translators are traitors...
Vol. 12 • July 2007 • No. 43
