BE FAIR TO THE LAMA

Painting with words can be both real life and impressionistic. Re: sham-a-lama ding-dong’s creator, he painted with a very, very broad brush, and it looked like one shade of black (“Letters to AV,” Artvoice v5n38). I rather prefer the full spectrum of rainbow and subtleties, sometimes with the pot of gold at the end. The University at Buffalo seems to use the liberal version of the word “universal,” not a “state-sponsored class in ‘interfaith services.’ The Dalai Lama’s visit was about exposure to cultural aspects of life, not selling a belief system. Most religions may be shams, but not entirely. Anything considered at least 50 percent or more of value, as is Buddhism as well as other faiths, is worth providing a glimpse to the public. That the public and media can make no sense of the tenets is not surprising. Even the woman paying $20 million for a ride to the ISS is referred to as a “space visitor,” not an astronaut. There are qualifications and distinctions. That broad brush convinces very, very few.

David Conners

Amherst

ON TOM TOLES

What an obsequious piece (“The Uncensored Tom Toles,” Artvoice v5n39)!

I realized Toles was both an ass and stupid when he ran a cartoon about a year ago suggesting that the terrible 2005 hurricane season was Gawd’s retribution for Floridians not having overwhelmingly/unquestionably elected Al Gore President. Now we know: Gawd’s a Democrat. This is surely the reason California gets hit by earthquakes and mudslides (Reagan/Schwartzenegger). Probably the reason for 9/11 (Giuliani/Pataki.) Of course Toles hasn’t joked about California/New York disasters because those are cool places…unlike the South, which remains an available butt for any fool’s mindless jokes. Think I’m regionally sensitive? Bet your ass…but with good cause.

Never mind that the reason the Gore-Bush contest was so close was that about as many Floridians voted for Gore as Bush.

Natural disasters that kill and destroy ain’t funny. Some knee-jerk, hack political spin on same ain’t witty. Toles is no Herblock. Not even close.

Mary Tillotson

Those who just skim over the back pages of the Buffalo News missed a recent report on a forum on freedom of speech hosted by cartoonist Tom Toles. It was one of those stunning incidents one would say couldn’t have happened, but did. As an example of his art, Toles shared a cartoon in which he lampooned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He thought no more about the program until he received an official-looking letter, which was not from Rumsfeld but from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And it was sent not to Toles himself, but to his boss, the Washington Post. There were no specific threats in the letter, just a low-key warning to refrain from such disrespectful cartoons in the future.

It would be all too easy to dismiss the letter as just a case of some flunky in the Pentagon trying to earn goody points with Rumsfeld at Toles’ expense. If Toles had somehow obtained classified material and incorporated it into his cartoon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reaction would be understandable. But for them to spit on the First Amendment by making vague threats against Toles—that’s unconscionable.

The tiniest justification for Rummy’s pique would be that such cartoons are bad for morale, especially when we’re at war. But nothing is better for morale than a good laugh. An illustrated history book on the Civil War would give examples of cartoons lampooning Lincoln himself using language we couldn’t print today. And Lincoln responded in kind, with cartoons drawn by his newspaper friends against his attackers. It was a time when the First Amendment right of free speech was taken seriously. Rummy ands the Chiefs ought to check out such a book from the Library of Congress, that is, if they haven’t already taped over the political humor section.

Ken Rummenie

East Aurora

ON CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS

Lumping Mary Baker Eddy in with Norman Vincent Peale and the fast-growing positive-thinking groups in America in the 1950s is misleading and factually inaccurate. Barbara Ehrenreich makes such a generalization in your cover story “The Futile American Dream” by Grace Hood (Artvoice v5n39).

From my personal observation in the 1950s and 1960s, many who were looking for a positive-thinking elixir visited the Christian Science church that Eddy founded. When they found that the religion was grounded in the Bible and teachings of Jesus it became clear that it required the hard work of Christian discipleship and not the easy pop psychology of the prevailing “think positive” groups. Many of these visitors left as quickly as they came.

As for the “blaming the victim” mentality that Ehrenreich sees in today’s culture, Christian Scientists stand behind the classic Bible account about the blind boy whose sight was recovered. The people around him where trying to determine the fault or guilt that caused the original blindness. Was it the sin of the boy or the parents? Jesus maintained a no-fault position by explaining (John 9:3), “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

Although positive in outlook and certainly not fatalistic, Christian Science as Eddy taught it is fundamentally different from groups that teach that power resides in positive thinking and that misfortune is the fault of the misfortunate.

Larry Wojno

Kenmore