LETTERS
LETTERS Megalopolimaniac Katherine Boo’s “Wolves in Cheap Clothing” [July/August] in many ways exemplifies the style and substance that makes The Washington Monthly great. It did, however, make...
...And this will achieve one of our aims, which is to have a more concerned and participating electorate...
...After all, what Mauro describes belies one of your oft-mentioned objectives-that a significant proportion of government employees should be political appointees...
...Why else would he end a coherent piece of left-wing advocacy with such a boneheaded recommendation-that Democrats should campaign openly for left-wing court decisions...
...Graphics Consultant Christine Solomon...
...What surprises me, however, i:j that you actually printed the article, or at least printed it without jeers...
...Murderers, Mexican torture-doctors, drug dealers, and aggressive homeless people do not win many votes...
...Send correspondence concerning subscriptions, undelivered copies, and changes of address to Box 587, Mount Moms E, 61054...
...It’s safe to say you’ll find concurrence among the populace of Tacoma, Lubbock, or, for that matter, Queens...
...Reagan and Bush will be responsible for the erosion of liberty and personal freedom in this country-and they will have done it using your prescription: appoint like-minded people whose loyalty is to the political extremes of their masters, not to the principles of the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, or the country as a whole...
...RICHARD S. TYKSINSKl Buffalo, New York See “Share the Health” by Stephanie Mencimer on page The editors reply: 11...
...Circulation Director Stephanie Mencimer...
...the Social Science Index, and Ulrichs International Periodicals Directory and may be obtained on microfilm from Univemity Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI 48106...
...Ruskin became infatuated with Rose La Touche when she was 10 and he 37...
...The appointees would certainly be more accountable, because they could be fired if they didn’t perform well...
...Massachusetts I read with interest Mauro’s article...
...Somehow I sense this view is not entirely consistent with your vigorous championing over the years of opening more federal positions to patronage appointments...
...In a way, Boo’s decision to focus on the Big Apple was a wise one, since she would have found little to support her theories elsewhere...
...Having now had a fair chance to see the true result of your principle in action, would you care to reconsider...
...Reproduction by any method whatsoever without permission is prohibited...
...I resent being lumped with “perked” congressmen...
...Career federal employees pay, on average, 60 percent of their total health insurance premiums and have few dental and optical benefits...
...Subscription rates: US...
...many co-pay on provider services...
...Assistant to the Editor Pam Matthews...
...Editors Katherine Boo, Christopher Georges, David Segal...
...No fair...
...I mention this because Boo uses her Gothamocentric observations in support of her speculations on impending sociological change in the United States...
...Ruskin was many things: a great critic, an extraordinary draughtsman and watercolorist, a bit of a crank, a confirmed prude...
...Writing such a comment in the context of “official perks” for White House staff and congressmen is disingenuous...
...The point is simply that many changes that rock the Lower West Side pass unnoted in the rest of the country...
...FRED FACI-ET Warrenville, Illinois I noted with interest your comment in “Tilting at Windmills” [September 19921 deploring the inability of talented civil servants to rise to the top of their departments and agencies...
...In fact, as Professor Fish surely knows, Ruskin’s sexual life was notable chiefly for its sad uneventfulness...
...hoofers Joy Florentz, John Kalajian, Ray Laraja, James Lee, Linda McIntyre, John Shellenberger, Thad Williamson...
...Postmaster: Send change of address to The Washington Monthly, Box 587, Mount Moms IL, 61054...
...One thing he was not, however, was a pedophile, notorious or otherwise...
...made many young girls the object of his affection...
...He did not engage in sexual relations with them (he was, by all accounts, impotent), and it is this fact that leads Kimball to insist that he was not a pedophile...
...Unsolicited manuscripts must Ix: accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
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...0 1992 The Washington Monthly Co...
...It is quite impossible for most of us to achieve the intended level of giddiness or dread about these changes when their harbingers exist, so far as we can see, only in a magazine...
...Fish and chicks In his review of Martin Anderson’s Imposters in the Temple [Political Booknotes, July/August], Stanley Fish comments that John Ruskin was “one of the more notorious pedophiles of his time...
...In the years following their meeting he attached himself to her family, travelled with the young girl, and wrote her long, anguished love letters...
...Editorial Advisory Board Graham Allison, James David Barber, Edgar Cahn, David Halberstam, Murray Kempton, Richard Reeve:;, Hugh Sidey...
...It certainly confirmed for me what I had suspected all along, that the Reagan and Bush administrations have been stacking the lower federal courts with inept judges who tend to be closet Brown Shirts...
...Production Manager/Art Director Elliott Beard...
...The Washington Monthly is indexed in the Book Review Index, Political Science Abstracts, Public Maim Information Service, the Readers’ Gui(je to Periodical Literam...
...Sure, T-shirts may currently outnumber polos, but, generally speaking, most of America’s bistro-todiner ratio has remained constant...
...Back isues, $4.50...
...It has long been known, however, that pedophiles tend not to enact their fantasies but instead maneuver themselves into the positions of voyeur and distant admirer...
...ALAN K. CAMPBELL Philadelphia, Pennsylvania MK Camp bell is the former chairman of the US...
...All rights reserved...
...Like too many essays that hinge on identifying cultural trends, Boo’s article never ventures out of a slender geographic and demographic sliver of Manhattan (most articles about Big Trends attempt at least a pretense of balance by examining Beverly Hills as well...
...It did, however, make me feel a bit as though I had read an account of a distant foreign land, and the cause is obvious...
...May I suggest that your “generous” insinuation, although serving a noble purpose (Le., national health care), is reportorially careless and violates your own standards of candor and truthfulness...
...two years, $65...
...Health feud Charles Peters’ June “Tilting at Windmills” reports that “all federal employees are eligible for generous health insurance programs...
...Also, situating your comment in the context of the need for national health care is hardly fair...
...A desire for continuity would also lead us to increase the number of civil servants at the top levels of governmentat the White House and in the offices of cabinet and agency heads-where they have been virtually nonexistent...
...Our other aim is to have a more accountable bureaucracy, which can be achieved by turning roughly half of the positions currently under civil service into two-and-a-half year appointments, renewable up to 10 years...
...For Canadian and foreign subscriptions, add $7 for surface delivery...
...But note that we would lewe half the jobs under civil service because this has the advantage of providing continuity...
...The Oxford Companion to English Literature reports that “in middle and old age he The Editor in Chief Charles Peters...
...However legitimate the need to support a national health program, it is not served by degrading federal employees, whose health benefits are not a perk but part of their salary...
...To the vast majority of Milwaukee residents, “downscaling’’ is an obscure fashion of which we are but dimly aware and certainly not to the extent that we feel compelled to adjust our lifestyles...
...This would guarantee a steady infusion of new blood that would, because there is no seduction of tenure, tend to be bolder and more risk-taking than the present incumbents...
...air mail delivery add $32...
...Fish’s intervention only compounds the irony...
...Published monthly except combined July/August and Januaryffebruary issues by The Washington Monthly Company, 1611 Connecticut Ave...
...I suspect he is a secret agent of the Bush reelection campaign...
...ROGER KIMBALL New York, New York The author replies: Webster’s defines pedophilia as a condition in which children are the preferred sexual object...
...three years, $90...
...Judged by the prevailing private sector standards, or by similar benefit programs offered by most state and local government employers, this is hardly “generous...
...There can be little doubt of Ruskin’s proclivities as surveyed by a recent biographer, Wolfgang Kemp, who concludes by assigning him “to the ranks of ‘nympholectics,’ the lovers of little girls...
...One might want to debate whether nympholectic or pedophiliac should be the preferred term, but my point, with respect to Anderson’s book, remains the same: John Ruskin is a curious choice of authority for someone inveighing against adults whose erotic objects are young children...
...Advertising Director Mary T. Beiro...
...I hope the Monrhly is not planning to add its name to that ignominious list...
...I take issue with “generous...
...Fish finds Anderson’s use of Ruskin’s observation that the “essence of lying is in deception, not in words” ironic...
...Contributing Editors Jonathan Alter, Thomas N. Bethell, Tom Bethell, Taylor Branch, Matthew Cooper, Gregg Easterbrook, James Fallows, Paul Glastris, Peter Gray, Mickey Kaus, Phil Keisling, Michael Kinsley, Nicholas Lemann, Suzannah Lessard, Arthur Levine, Timothy Noah, Joseph Nocera, Leonard Reed, John Rothchild, Jonathan Rowe, Walter Shapiro, Scott Shuger, Steven Waldman...
...Civil Service Commission...
...Well, here we see that with a vengeance...
...You’ve often written to the effect that one way to make an elected official’s policy work is to enable that official to appoint the bureaucrats who will carry out xhe policy...
...If the people understand the harm that can be done by such appointments, whether to the judiciary or to the civil service, they will be more likely to vote with care...
...Znterns Kevin Prufer, Tanya Bielski...
...Reprints of articles zre available to individuals or schools at $1.50 each (prepaid...
...What slogan would Tony Mauro suggest for this Democratic campaign-“ One, two, many Willie Hortons...
...Second class postage paid at Mechanicsburg, PA...
...He would visit them, romp with them, and tell them of his devotion to Rose...
...ISSN 00430633...
...HUGO S. CUNNINGHAM Somerville...
...WILLIAM L. h4EYER Brookfield, Wisconsin Court disappointments You should hire the Ross Perot detective agency to check out your contributor Tony Mauro [“High Stakes, Low Courts,” July/August...
...As a rule, the only people who take seriously the caprices of Manhattan socialites are Manhattan socialites...
...The problem with the current arrangement is that, as administrations have changed, a deplorable loss of institutional memory has occurred: One set of politicians leaves to be replaced by another that is often shockingly ignorant of the lessons of the past...
...The editors reply: The Reagan-Bush court appointments illustrate the danger of having the wrong administration make tenured appointments...
...and possessions: one year, $35...
...For reprint rights for all or part of an article call Elliott Beard at (202) 4624128...
Vol. 24 • October 1992 • No. 10
