Category: Letter

St. Paul high school seniors Ana and Erin traveled to Florida during their spring break. They visited the Everglades Holiday Park where peacocks roam freely. This bird exposed himself in the background of the The Rake issue with the cover feature, “Exposed!”

Me and your excellent magazine at the Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, AK.
Mendenhall Glacier is in the Tongass National Forest and falls under the
jusrisdiction of the National Forest Service. The have an excellent
visitor’s center and trail system around the area and down the glacial
morraine. This was my fourth trip to Alaska and Mendenhall and it has
been neat to see how it has changed over the twenty-plus years.

Athens. 2006. It’s hot. The Acropolis on its hilltop is floating above the city on a shimmer of heat. But here on the hotel balcony I’m cool. I’m reading The Rake. Everyone who reads The Rake is cool!

The Rake & supplement in front of CBs Gallery and one of the whole group in front of the Bowery Poetry Club across the street of CBGBs.

As an American Muslim, I think it was an ingenious idea to go to and report—very generously—on the closely confined Saudi Arabia [“Postcards from Saudi Arabia,” December]. For Peter Schilling to penetrate Saudi and report on it firsthand is absolutely honorable, since the Saudi government obstructs others (including many Muslims) from coming into its country to learn, live, or understand what Saudi Arabia is. What is admirable is that someone, against many odds, decided to report on a culture that many western governments try very hard to thrash, demean, and typify as close-minded and backward. Oh, not to mention a terrorist-breeding nation. Mr. Schilling’s report proves to many wary and cynical people that Muslims are generous—“unexpected generosity” took Mr. Schilling by storm! And although “unexpected,” Muslims the world over are just that. Failure to reach out to the rest of the world is what barricades most Westerners from realizing what is actually out there and real. It’s exactly why people such as “Fearful Jim” exist the world over, wary of Muslims and who they really are.

CLOSED DOORS
After reading the cover story “Postcards from Saudi Arabia,” I am so thrilled for Peter Schilling that he experienced such wonderful hospitality while visiting the desert kingdom. Luckily for him, he didn’t get caught in a homosexual act, which is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia (public beheading and stoning are two popular methods). He was also fortunate to have been able to drink bootleg liquor in the confines of a protected compound—had he imbibed anywhere else in the country, he might have ended up being publicly flogged. Ditto or worse if Mr. Schilling had criticized the Saudi government, which could lead to a long torture session in a prison for dissidents. Had he shoplifted, he would have had his hand amputated, sans anesthesia. Mr. Schilling is especially lucky that he’s not Jewish, as Jews are not allowed to enter Saudi Arabia, period. It’s also a good thing his wife didn’t try to drive, as women are forbidden to. I shudder to think what would have happened had Mr. Schilling tried to practice any religion but Islam. Schilling also failed to mention the alarming numbers of victims of human trafficking in Saudi Arabia, where male-chauvinistic laws allow men to repeatedly rape and abuse women, with no fear of reprisal. What a nice vacation spot: a thoroughly repressive, hateful, misogynistic, homophobic, bigoted country with one of the world’s worst human rights records, which also happens to export much of the world’s terrorism through its support of radical Wahhabist Islam. I’ll have to visit someday—oh, wait, that’s right, they don’t let Jews in.

MORE GENEROUS THAN GRATEFUL
Maybe it’s just me, but your series of “Giving and Getting” articles [December, 2006] seem much more weighted to the giving aspect. Even in “Rules of the Game,” which starts with “Giving and Getting,” and seems like it’s going to cover both topics equally, giving is placed before getting. All Penny Winton says about getting is, “Giving comes first. You can’t go out and try to get without giving.” In the other pieces, any discussion of receiving gifts focuses on lousy gifts. For every action of giving, there is necessarily a recipient. Nathan Dungan’s family and friends bemoaned the culture of consumerism and came up with the solution of share checks. Great idea, but still told from the standpoint of the givers. I would have loved to have read one of the letters Dungan had received from a recipient of a share check. And what did Mary Lucia’s sibling do with that gorilla suit, anyway?

Riding home recently on the Metro, I spotted an ad for a bank at the Foggy Bottom station that read, “Remember when there were no oversight committees? That train has left the station.” There have been, of course, a lot of leave-takings in Washington in the wake of the November elections. Last month—December 8, to be precise, the last day of work for the 109th Congressional Republicans ousted in the November elections—there were no fewer than three “For Sale” signs posted along the short route between the Metro’s Dupont Circle stop and my own place. Untold numbers of apartments had gone up for lease again, and moving vans seemed to be parked on every other block.
Studies, polls, and D.C.-based think tanks don’t bother to address getting and spending among politicians and the legions who service them—whether as a reflection of personal style and taste or as the usual quid pro quo arrangements for which Washington is known. But food, clothing, hairdos, and literature have always been associated with leadership style. Remember Reagan’s JellyBelly obsession? The news flashes over Clinton’s fast-food choices, followed by his salad days? When Bush II took office GOP Pork Rinds got heavily marketed in D.C. and at conventions, barbecues surged in popularity, and people dusted off the cowboy boots shelved when Reagan left office.
So with this latest shift in power comes yet another round in the dance D.C. does every few years, changing not just partners, but opinions about appropriate personal style. Things have moved beyond boxers vs. briefs, as I learned over drinks at the Reliable Source, the bar at the National Press Club, from former and current State Department employees, an aging reporter, an international aid worker, and a couple of Georgetown professors. For instance, natural lipstick shades are replacing more garish hues like Tangerine Burst. And blonde—that was so 109th. Going to the salon for a few low-lights now becomes an act of political defiance for D.C. women, they said (and so tinting eyebrows a shade or two darker is, I gathered, almost revolutionary). But while laced shoes are replacing tasseled loafers, on the whole, Democrats—at least lately—seem less concerned with their wardrobes, considering how worn their khakis and tweeds are. Digital accessories, too, matter little unless they’re wired: In D.C. it’s far more common to watch commuters knocking down emails on BlackBerries than it is to see them fiddling with iPods.
Then there are the new twists on book-browsing in the nation’s capital. Books are personal purchases and possessions for anyone, but what Washington reads influences how Washington leads or bleeds. Erstwhile Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr knew this. It’s what led to his subpoena of Kramerbooks’ sales records in 1998, when he was sniffing out the personal affairs of Monica Lewinsky. Kramerbooks has been a socio-political force in this city since the end of World War II, when the Capital’s interest in books helped inform how politics, economics, and geopolitical studies could aid in rebuilding nations devastated by war.
Some say a new trend along similar lines has begun. Just before Election Day—when Minnesotans elected Keith Ellison, the nation’s first Black Muslim, to Congress—Kramerbooks reported its bestseller to be Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour, a book about Black Power that many, not least the white liberal activists streaming into D.C. to begin their new jobs, interpret as a template for restructuring society. Other pre-election bestsellers included Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope; Dangerous Nation: America’s Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the 20th Century by Robert Kagan; and Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction, by David Kuo.
“Such trends are nothing new,” said Mitch Brown, the general manager of Kramerbooks, of the recent spate of political titles. “Some of it’s angry, some of it’s bitter. Most of it is similar to what we saw getting published eight or nine years ago. The only difference is that the attacks flip back and forth between parties based on who’s in power here.” During the waning years of the Clinton Administration, he pointed out, popular books tackled the same kinds of “who-are-we-and-where-are-going-as-a-nation?” questions from the other side.
“And then there are always the parody books,” Brown added. “They once made fun of Bill and Monica. Today, it’s Bush’s intelligence.” It’s just a matter of weeks, or months, he said, before the next victims of the humor/parody genre emerge.

Thank you for the wonderful article on Circle Pines’ history [“A People’s History of Circle Pines,” November]. My family and I are moving back to the area after a ten-year stint in the Northwest (we grew up in Columbia Heights). We just purchased a house in Circle Pines, have become curious about the cooperative history, and found your article as a result. A progressive to the bone, I am encouraged that the Republican state senator and representative were voted out recently. I hope to do my best to counter the rightward leanings of the area and promote local business as much as possible. I love the fact that the utilities are cooperatively owned.

During his three-month stint in Thailand earlier this year, Lee Temte of Minneapolis dined at the memorably named Cabbages & Condoms Restaurant, whose edible fare is “guaranteed not to cause pregnancy.” Established to help fund the work of the Population and Community
Development Association, the eatery serves food that “is traditional Thai,” Temte writes, “but the decor is pure condom.” Red, white, and blue prophylactics adorn the surface of the glass-top tables, and decorative figures on display are dressed in clothes made entirely of condoms. And in place of an after-dinner mint? You guessed it; each diner leaves with a condom.

Send along your Rakish travel snaps by snail mail or to prodmail@rakemag.com, and if we publish yours, we’ll send you a nonthermal, nonextreme Rake T-shirt and a $25 gift certificate from West Photo (21 University Ave. N.E., Minneapolis). Want to see more? Visit us each month at www.rakemag.com for more Red-Handed photos and the stories behind them.