Dear Editor
I agree with actor Kurt Russell’s prediction, in a recent newspaper article, that the current motion picture, “Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story,” will become a classic American family film.

In “Dreamer,” the preeminent child actress of our time, Dakota Fanning, takes us from the depths of despair the heights of exhilarated joy. In her role as the spunky Gale Crane, her unwavering faith in the winning potential of popsicle-loving racehorse, “Sonador,” is quite inspirational. In an emotional scene, with tears running down her cheeks, she says to her day, “Please don’t treat me like a little kid!”. Performances by Russell, Krist Kristofferson and Elisabeth Shue perfectly compliment Fanning’s phenomenal acting prowess.

The film is sentimental but never saccharine. The sound track is devoid of loud music and bad language. It’s easy on the ears of children and senior citizens. This is a movie the whole family can enjoy. To quote Kris Kristofferson, from a dramatic scene in the film, “Cale’s a beautiful kid.” And Dakota Fanning, Cale’s portrayer, stars in a beautiful motion picture. It’s guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Don’t miss it. Hurry to see it in a theater near you.

Sincerely yours,
Robert J. Parton

PS The article referred to appeared in the 10/26/05 edition of “The Buffalo News.”

Dear Robert,
Thank you for taking the time to pen this unsolicited, though heartfelt, review. Thanks, too, for giving us the opportunity to inform our readers that, because we’re American patriots and concerned citizens like everyone else, we participate in a special government-sponsored mail-screening program. Working in conjunction with the FBI, which provides us with intelligence gatherers, censors and forensic psychologists, we’re able to assist law enforcement in identifying potential criminals from among our readership. It also makes our jobs a lot easier because we receive so many letters. The Bureau’s people are trained to flag letters containing coded language, ciphers or other inappropriate words or phrases suggesting nefarious intent or a felonious predisposition.

In your case, agents were alerted by your fixation with 11-year-old Fanning; specifically, your selective quotation of her line from the movie, “Please don’t treat me like a little kid!” The agents referred your letter to Bureau headquarters for analysis and profiling. (As I am sure you can appreciate, in her position as a juvenile public figure and hence a target for stalkers, kidnappers and sex offenders, Fanning is accorded special treatment by authorities.) We at the BEAST are not calling you a nutcase, pervert or a loner with latent pedophiliac tendencies. No, those are the FBI’s words.

The thing is, we’re genuinely concerned about you and we’d like to help you out. So, we’re distributing your telephone number in the hopes some mature woman might give you a call, cure you of your unhealthy obsession and help you avoid a brief but incredibly unpleasant prison term. Of course, we can’t guarantee a group of community vigilantes won’t track you down using a reverse directory and beat you to death in your driveway one night. I guess you’ll just have to hope the FBI gets to you first.

PS Dakota says, “Hey, Robert, you big stud. Ooh, I really liked your letter and I’ve just been thinking about you sitting in the theater, in the dark, watching me up there on the screen. That’s why I do it, Rob, for guys like you. Mmm, yeah, baby. Anyway, I’ll try to write to you in prison. Maybe I’ll get to send some pictures, hopefully before I grow pubes.”

CAPTAIN OBVIOUS

Years ago, America was looked too as the leading Democracy in world. My, how the mighty have fallen.

First and foremost, religion. There simply is no longer room in America for non-Christians. Our neo conservative, Christian leaders have recently prevented a ‘morning after’ drug used to prevent unwanted pregnancies from being available with out a prescription. The neo consevatives want to put and end to abortion and contraception because of their beliefs. They insist that we who don’t share their beliefs do not have access to them too. The anti abortion movement has even become violent. One would think that people were forcing Americans to have abortions, but, the entire anti abortion movement exist to stop Americans that do not share their values, from having an abortion.

Recently, a ‘red’ State has attempted to get ‘intelligent design’ in school. Not a religious school, but public school. Ten years ago, no one would’ve imagined a debate about teaching religion in public school. How can we even talk about this and make non-christians comfortable with American religious freedom?

The problem can be rightly attributed to America’s Republican/Conservative leadership. Our President is an often confessed Evangelical. He enjoys a solid backing of neo conservatives with a large number of religious supporters. The biggest problem here is that so many have used religion in the past to hide their truly evil agenda’s, and the ultra religious have been incredibly naive.

Some Christians take symbolism, like ‘bread’ as the body of Christ, and ‘wine’ as his blood, and keep going with it. They go so far that just saying ‘I’m an Evangelical’ to them means I have morals, I am good. Is Jim Bakker good? How about Fred Phelps?

We cannot count the number of fallen Evangelicals. As a matter of fact, religion is one of the first things a con-man will turn to to make money. Frankly, it’s the easiest way to get easy money, because the victims must have ‘blind faith’ to begin with.

GW is praying for our troops, yet they are in Iraq only because GW lied to to get them there. He prays for the hopeless and down trodden, yet he willingly cuts the programs that benefit them. It’s sort of like praying for the health of seniors but cutting medicare, which is exactly what they have done.

Morally, this makes them liars. How can one ‘preach’ peace and Jesus Christ, and give the go ahead to the ‘substandard’ treatment of people not even charged with crimes? How is it that our leaders have sunk to the tactics of a Sodom Hussein or Slobodan Milosovich? We have been duped into thinking that the Wolves are sheep.

It’s time for us to wake up.

Wake up to big tax cuts for the rich, to an unchecked predatory corporate America, raping and pillaging an unprotected and unsuspecting populace. Record deficits for our children, record profits for our oil companies. We need to wake up. Or we never will.

It is time for responsible leadership to break up all the new monopolies, especially in news media and telecommunications. We must take aim first at corrupt corporations for they are funding a corrupt leadership.

Who will have the guts to lead the charge?
Bernard Rice, Buffalo

We nominate you, Bernard Rice, to lead us! Your courageous words have not been uttered in vain or to anyone who might disagree with you. Thank you, O Bernard, for enlightening us to the problems we have been informing you of for years. That bit about ‘Intelligent Design,’ wow is that scary! Or the fact that religious people sometimes don’t live up to their own standards! Whoah, that’s just nutty! Thanks for waking us up, Bernard! Now go spread the word to other needy minds—try MoveOn.org or the staff over at Harper’s.

CONCISE

Fuck you uthman.
-Mike Clark

Oh wah wah, Clark. ‘I wrote a letter to The BEAST, and they were mean to me!’ What did you expect?

THE ETERNAL QUESTION

al,
how do i get a beast shirt without having to buy a free paper?
Craig

That all depends, Craig. How passable are you in a blonde wig and heels?

COMICS BY NAME ONLY

Hello,
I'm a senior at SUNY Fredonia and the editor of the campus newspaper's comic section (The Leader Lamp[Oo]n). I've been doing comics for almost 3 years now and recently finished an internship at Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

I've noticed that you repeat a couple of comics in the Beast (Perry Bible Fellowship and Bob the Angry Flower) and was wondering if you'd take a moment to consider adding one of my comics to your hilarious publication.

I've attached samples of two comics that I create weekly for The Leader; Hobo Village and Crawling Together. Both comics have four examples included. I've also attatched my resume. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, Kevin Lieber

We checked out your samples, Kevin, and were impressed by your having worked with Conan O’Brien, who may not be much of an interviewer, but did write the entire Monorail episode of “The Simpsons” (you know, “The ring came off my pudding can.” “Take my penknife, my good man!”). Unfortunately, we specialize in “funny” comics. Since that’s clearly not the direction you’re going in, we’re afraid we’re going to have to let you down. If, in the future, you become funny, please let us know. Thanks.

MEET SOME DOGS--& THEIR PETS!

Hi Allan I thought you might be interested in a unique story. (release attached) My company, AnimalAttraction.com, the leading online dating and community website for pet owners, has teamed up with the Buffalo Jills Cheerleaders to help raise money for the SPCA Serving Erie County while bringing pet lovers together. The promotion is called "AnimalAttraction.com Tailgate 2005" and the tag line is "Wanted: Guys who LOVE dogs, not guys who ARE dogs!". In a nutshell, people signing up on our site have a chance to meet some of the Jills Cheerleaders AND THEIR DOGS at a private Tailgate Party. For every sign-up, we're making a $1 donation to SPCAEC.

There are some GREAT pictures of the Jills Cheerleaders and their dogs on www.animalattraction.com/tailgate.asp Pictures are available for your use if you'd like, and interviews/quotes with Cheerleaders or representatives of my company are also readily available.

Please let me know your thoughts if/when you get a chance. Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Dan Cohen Founder & President Animal Attraction Washington, D.C.

What a great concept, Dan! As serious dog lovers, we have always been fans of the Buffalo Jills! If we may offer a suggestion, perhaps name tags would be helpful, to better distinguish the cheerleaders from their pets. The Jills certainly are an ‘animal attraction!’

STOP BEATING FEEBS

I think that you'll agree that the safety of our elderly is a very important issue. Something must be done to curtail these home invasion attacks on our senior citizens. They are our mothers, fathers and grandparents.

What is happening makes me sick. To think that there are people so sick in the head, to attack a person in their 70s and 80s is appalling. This and the attacks on pizza workers who are just trying to make an honest paycheck.

We have the technology to make a device that is small enough to wear as a ring, a bracelet, or on a belt, that can have a GPS system(global positioning system) and have it set to call emergeny 9-11 for help.

Why not create this device for people like the elderly, pizza drivers and regular everyday people, thus having a simple device to alert the police when you are in immediate danger.

It's a good step to have a medical alert system, a cell phone that has GPS, but this would combine them all into a small unit that with the push of a button, can bring police response to save your life ASAP.

JAMES ZIOLKOWSKI BUFFALO, NY
YOUR FRIENDLY TEN YEAR NAVY VET 1982-1992 DISABLED
PS AND NO, I DON'T WORK FOR HALLIBURTON.

Attacking the elderly may be appalling, James, but it is also incredibly easy. And if pizza boys don’t want to get beat up, they ought to stop carrying hot, delicious pizza pies around with them! Sign us up for one of your cool GPS/emergency rings when the price falls below $547,000.

SHITHEAD v. DUMBASS

damn. things are more fucked up in the world than imagineable hey? some can wipe their asses wth hundred dollar bills but, we're no better off than they were in 1918 as far as flu shit goes. and bush has been off to china promoting freedom of religion! what a god damned hipocrate. freedom of whose religion? freedom to force their religion on me? that'll be our next crusade. as soon as the bastard rescinds the what ever amendment (23rd?) that limits his terms in office. and tell that asshole who writes like if he talked, he'd have a fucking bone in his nose or a plate in his lip that hey, they're lookin for people in liberia mother fucker! look what they did over there! quit yer bitchin you poor opressed bastard. go join a basketball teem after your shift at the greyhound station. maybe you'll learn english instead of GURGLING, asshole!
aghh, that felt good

dog....

Richard Cyrankowski

You are an ignorant asshole. You make Drew Collins look like a fucking brain surgeon, you submoronic piece of shit. Don’t ever defend us; you’re exactly the kind of brain-dead fuck we hate. Die.

SWING STATE SUICIDE

Hey, Beastlies,
We miss your bushbashings, are sorely stuck down here in Jeb's sorry state. Only question is: To whom do we make the money order out? We want desparately to subscribe to what's black and white and read all over. So, assuming Wilma doesn't destroy us (her Mother, Nature, willing) - although wiping this dangling dinglingberry of a state off the map wouldn't be such a bad thing, damned entitlements - you could mail your wonderful rag to:

Lisa Carwile, Fort Myers FL

And let us know who the twenty-six bux are payable to asap so you can pay off your dealer and replenish your stash.

Great Lisa, you can make your check payable to: Allan Uthman (NOT Paul Fallon). Or just drop the cash in the envelope and send it to Al, not Paul. Don’t worry, it’s all good. Just don’t tell Paul. Paul, if you’re reading this, I’m just kidding. (Lisa, I’m not kidding.) That was a joke (not really).

BRONX JEER

Hi, My cousin got me a subscription to The Beast but you got the apartment number wrong. 2C Bronx, NY (not 2G) Please make this correction since almost no one in this borough even speaks English, much less is able to read it.

Ningún problema. Realizaremos el cambio enseguida. Apesadumbrado para la inconveniencia

LEGSHOW

Hello. I'd like to subscribe to the Beast for three years. Please don't give or sell my name or address to any mailing lists. I hate mail. Please don't stop publishing. Truth is dying. Willingness to offend helps. Thanks. If you send a t-shirt, please not an extra large. Preferably medium if you have. A sticker for the guitar case would be good.
RK

Robert Klein, is that you? We’re glad we got a hold of you before it was too late. We have important news: “I can’t stop my leg” is getting kind of old. Do it again, one more time, and we’ll stop your leg, Klein, we’ll stop it. Watch your back—er, leg.