Now that the fine officers of the BMPHA have been laid off, because of our financial mess, do we need to install CCTv Closed Circuit television monitors on each corner of a bad neighborhood?

It may not deter crime, because criminals will do and act stupid no matter what, but it would help catch them and provide evidence to prove their guilt in court.

It's a shame that we have gotten to the point of Orwellian surveillance, but when they lay off police and leave the citizens defenseless, what are the alternatives? I'm sure the Buffalo Police will do their very best, but they are being put at higher risk and danger due to the layoffs.

The police have 'one person' police cars and to be safe rather then dead, they would call and wait for backup, if their is a serious situation, and sometimes 'time' is very important, and a minute here or there can mean someone's life.

So do we sacrifice some of our personal liberties for saftey? I think so. What say you?
James Ziolkowski, Buffalo, NY

Oh, sure, James, that’s a great idea. But not for the safety reasons you cite. We want to see “Buffalo Surveillance Television,” or BSTV, on the air 24/7, just broadcasting whatever cameras are catching the most interesting action at the moment. What could be more entertaining than watching some poor guy get mugged and beaten just around the corner from your own house?

Hey, if we wanted to be really safe, we could equip the camera with x-ray capabilities so they could see through walls and directly into our homes! That way, if any of our neighbors are engaged in suspicious activity, we can raid their houses, take their stuff, and send them off for reprogramming. What a secure feeling that would give us, just knowing that the government was constantly watching over us, sort of like a big brother or something.

Only one more question, James—why did you put quotation marks around the word ‘time?’ Is it some kind of Einsteinian joke? Are you distancing yourself from the concept that time actually exists? Or are you just ‘one person’ who likes to put quotes around random words for no reason?

YADDA YADDA

Just shut up or I'll take out yer eye! OK, now relax. I'm sorry I had to beat you bloody and hog-tie you, but you just wouldn't listen. Woops, gotta run to a meeting. Woops gotta go to the bathroom. Woops, time for lunch. All I wanted was to sing you a song. Just a little song would have taken like 30 seconds out of your Very Important Day, but no, you don't have time for assholes like me, so you see this knife? I'm just going to carve out a little time for music. Out of Your day. So just sit there and shut...up... I think you would agree, you have no choice....

This little ditty is to be sung sheepishly, with a Texas accent:

Ahem...

Da-dat, da-dat dat dat Boom

Hello. . . Dolly, this is Dubya. . . Dolly,
Please excuse my stare, but your a special case,
You're looking swell. . . Dolly, I can't tell. . . Dolly,
'Tween your mother's wool and yours, you know, you have her face.
I am afraid. . . cloning, will mean folks. . . owning,
Three or four thousand slaves to do their bidding well. Hell,
Clones could be voters! I hope the GOP orders,
Three or four million new Republi-cans!

There. I feel a lot better now. I...apologize for getting in your face like that. Here, let me loosen those. This embryonic stem cell thing...it's got me all wiggy. Look, if you want to call the cops...I'll wait.
Enjoy your freedom!
Rick McGirr

Not bad, Rick, but the music needs work.

DON’T PUT ON ME

I'm a very loyal reader and just happened to stumble across "CJ" a few nights ago and saw who else but Tom Cruise. Big Bad Cruise suing a small independant paper that offers HARMLESS entertainment. Lighten the fuck up Cruise what do you not have any paparatzi to sue? You have a wife half your age and twice as attactive, life is good. Will putting a much needed refreshement to Western New Yorkers lives make you feel any any better? Thanks again guys love the paper.
SydBear20

Hey SydBear,
Thanks. Next time, try reading the e-mail before you hit 'send.’

SO 2½ MONTHS AGO

Eating up every issue when it rolls off the press, then starving two weeks to the next Beast feast. Binge. Purge. Binge.
Keep it up. Was a little disappointed that you hadn't jumped on the current Cruise Bashwagon (but you were on early, so that's cool), but that just made the Katie Holmes reference in the Batman review all the tastier. Mmmmm.
Jeff

Let’s face it, Jeff, we spearheaded the charge against Cruise, and now we’re getting no credit for our pioneering work in the Cruise-bashing field. We did it when it was still cool, causing him to act ever weirder in the process. Now Joe Scarborough makes fun of him. If all we did was repeat ourselves, well, we’d probably be successful. Get your own nemeses, mainstream media!

ANTI-OBSEQUIOUS

Gents,
In reading the letters to y'all this past issue I noticed that you've gone all *agreeable* or something. Oh sure, there was that one response by Uthman (if that's his real name), but that was more along the lines of a precisely logical rejoinder to a complete asshole, albeit one in which Uthman used all sorts of nasty words to call out the writer as a purulent boil.

But as for the other letters, nary a peep. Just, "Yup, we agree", and, "You bet! You're absolutely right!"

What's happened to the gratuitous insults to peeps that simply make the mistake of writing a semi-coherent letter to you? For crying out loud, that's 90% of the fun of it. If you keep it up I'm going to have to skip the letters section.

P.S. You're all dickwads. Tom Cruise is great, why are you attacking him? Why do you hate Bush, religion, and this great country? &tc.
Fast Eddy

Eddy,
Gee whiz! You’re absolutely right! We apologize, and we’ll try to be more disagreeable in the future! Thanks a lot for setting us straight, reader! And thanks for the letter!

TOP 4 LOATHSOME BUFFALONIANS

what's up guys..I would have to go with:

1)Joel the douchebag Giambra
2)fuckhead Giambra
3)split-chin, the county executive

and last but not least:

4)Joel "The fuckbag who deserves to have his chin split back open and his own balls inserted if he actually has any" Giambra.

sorry about all the bullshit

no I'm not

thanks
local9

Wow, local9, even we think #4’s a little harsh. Besides, after Giambra-cronies have been once again discovered working County jobs, who could possibly argue that he doesn’t have massive testicles?

HUNGRY FOR JUSTICE

Dear Editors and staff,
My friends and I have been reading the Beast for years. My partner brought home the 'Buffalo Summer Spectacular' issue and I began to read it tonight. It immediately became clear to me that as a member of the human race and as a woman, I needed to write to you.

I am enraged and disgusted by Josh Righter's article "Anorexic Realizes She Just Has to Eat." I cannot find words strong enough to express how deeply this article hurt and disturbed me. Every day or my life as a Bulimic/Anorexic I knew (as all who suffer from the disease do) that I needed to eat and keep my food down to stay alive.

This article displays extremely inappropriate humor towards the disease. I joke about my eating disorder. I am not saying you cannot find humor in the experience of being an eating disordered individual. What I am saying, is a man who has never had an eating disorder himself and who has never seen someone slowly and painfully die of starvation does not have the right to even suggest that the disease is easily curable.

I fought against this disease for years. I can personally say that I have never in my life put more effort, willpower, money, and heart into anything. After SEVEN YEARS and months in a treatment center with a locked bathroom door and supervised eating; I won. Not everyone is so lucky.

This article is greatly miseducating and misleading readers through the mere suggestion that there is truth to the myth that Anorexics simply need to eat. I understand it is a joke, but until the masses understand that eating disorders run tens of thousands of lives and kill five to ten percent of the afflicted- we cannot joke about it being a matter of stupidity.

I am beginning a boycott of the Beast on behalf of Righter's article. I hope to be joined by my friends, family and other recovered and suffering individuals.

With disappointment,
Anya A.

Anya,
So, you’ve been reading The Beast for years, you say? In other words, you have merrily laughed along as we made fun of old people, Christians, dying popes, the mentally disabled, battered women, torture subjects, the recently dead, closet homosexuals, minorities, children, vegetables and many other worthy targets. But as soon as we make a joke involving a group of people you yourself belong to, it’s a federal case. You have a sense of humor about everything but yourself. Well that’s too fucking bad, Anya.

To say an obviously phony article is “miseducating” is to make the mistake of assuming that it is in any way meant to inform people of anything, which it clearly isn’t. However, if you were at all thoughtful or perceptive, you might have noticed that the only thing that makes the article funny is the very absurdity of the notion that anorexics just haven’t figured out that they need to eat, when the situation is clearly more complicated than that. Read it again, and pay special attention to “Carlton Hicks,” who appears 7 paragraphs into the piece. Hicks is the one who first ‘enlightens’ the fictional anorexic that she must eat food. “God! Some people!” He says. “Eat some food, you freaks, and stop complaining!”

You see, the Hicks character represents a certain kind of dipshit we all encounter in this world, one who thinks everybody else’s problems are simple and easy to fix. That type of person is the true focus of derision in this article, not self-starving women. You might have noticed this, if you were a more perceptive person, by the way Hicks is praised for his insight in a ludicrous, over the top manner: “And that’s when it hit me: I just had to eat,” the anorexic says. “Thank God for Carlton,” she goes on, “that man is the genius of our times.” Too subtle for you? How about this: Hicks is then offered jobs by various pharmaceutical firms. A Merck spokesman lauds him for “setting a remarkable new trend in modern medicine: making everyone realize that they just have to stop being babies and just get better.” He advises a depression sufferer to “cheer the fuck up.” This is all very clearly a joke about the guy who says anorexics just need to eat, not about anorexics.

In other words, you have completely misunderstood the article. Congratulations.

You can’t really boycott a free paper, but hey, knock yourself out. In fact, if you could come down and picket our office, that’d be great. Just be sure and let us know when, so we can be sure and get some pictures of your fat ass.

GRAND OLE PERSECUTION COMPLEX

InKorrect Greetings From The Free State of PIG:

Thank you for the glowing compliments (Beast Blog 07/04/05). For the record, "left-bashing" and "liberal-haters" is the nicest thing anyone has called us in months. Recently, we were told - quite vociferously - that PIG is such a blight on Al Gore's Information Superhighway that we deserve to be forcibly exterminated by a hostile, Eminent Domain takeover. Compared with all that unrelenting hostility, your prose warms the cockles of our heart, assuming, of course, that dastardly dweebs like us have hearts...

Everyone in PIG's top secret bunker is thrilled spitless that we managed to register on the Buffalo Beast's radar. Why? Believe it or not, your publication is very popular here in the bunker. Curiously, our most recent melee - our publisher insists that we call them 'meetings' for same asinine reason - ensued during a punchout over which Buffalo Beast issue is our favorite. Although your Twerpy Tommy Cruise issue garnered the most votes, I'm still holding out for the issue that crowned Terry Schiavo "America's Favorite Vegetable". The cover shot for that issue was perfection!

On behalf of PIG, I sincerely apologize if our kind words about your entertaining publication in any way besmirched your reputation among the legions of enlightened "elites" who give the vast right-wingnut conspirators heartburn.

T. D. Treat
Executive Editor, The Politically Incorrect Gazette

Trust us, T.D., our reputation among orthodox bleeding hearts could not be further besmirched. Good luck fighting those oppressive, tyrannical liberals! It must be hard for you conservatives, only controlling three branches of the federal government. There’s gotta be what, like, ten of those? Hey, at least Republicans are tolerant and reasonable, right? Fight the power!