Can we borrow it back when Governor George “Bet ‘Em” Ryan goes into action? According to “Arts Wire Current” (April 20), the 1997 Better Government Association report “The Tourism Industry in Chicago: It’s the Arts, Stupid” helped the Coalition of Philadelphia Neighborhood Associations defeat a measure that would have introduced slot machines, video poker, and riverboat casinos to Pennsylvania.
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“By averting their glance from the anguish in America’s black communities–the incessant complaints of police harassment, racial ‘profiling’ in all institutions, the toll of the racist war on drugs, etc.–the mainstream media ignores the issues that fertilized Farrakhan’s growth,” writes Salim Muwakkil in In These Times (May 16). “A more responsible media would have related Farrakhan’s appeal to African-Americans’ real sense of despair and disappointment with white America’s lack of commitment to racial equality.”
“Speaking as one of the party whose tender feelings are under consideration, I don’t want the Bible rewritten so it won’t offend women,” writes Frederica Mathewes-Green in U.S. Catholic (May). “I think the Bible should offend women. It should offend men, figure skaters, plumbers, headwaiters, Alaskans, Ethiopians, baton twirlers, Jews, and Gentiles. If it’s not offending people, it’s not doing its job….Besides, updating gender references won’t go very far toward a goal of making the Bible palatable. Someone who balks at ‘a man’ is really going to be thrown for a loop when she hits ‘Take up your cross.’”
