THE NANNY STATE

David Hockney ponders Mayor Bloomberg; Ben Affleck defends Harvey Weinstein; Palm Beach's lost innocence; the gospel according to John Ashcroft; feeling Gwyneth's pain; Plimpton in the air

LETTERS

New York used to be a sophisticated city. Now it seems to me the peasants have taken over ["Breaking the Law in Michael Bloomberg's New York," by Graydon Carter, and "I Fought the Law," by Christopher Hitchens, February]. Is there still a Bohemia? By definition, you can't have a smoke-free Bohemia. Bohemians accept human frailty. Once we had Prohibition, but within weeks the speakeasies had opened. What's wrong now?

It's all gone too far. At a time when America needs bravery and courage, they've made everybody frightened to death of cigarette smoke. It's ridiculous.

The New York Times has a lot to do with this hysteria. When Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping died, aged 92, a health commissar from Berkeley wrote to say he was a bad example to the young, as he always had a Panda cigarette in his hand or mouth. I wrote back saying, How old do you have to be? (92 seemed pretty good to me), and that the logic of the commissar was that Adolf Hitler would be a good example for the young—he didn't smoke. Of course, the Times didn't print it. It's against its agenda.

In Europe they have taken half the cigarette packet to tell you smoking kills. I'm going to insist it should also say on the back, "Death awaits you whether you smoke or not." They seem to have forgotten this.

I was born and spent the first 20 years of my life in one of the smokiest cities on earth, Bradford, Yorkshire. Some die young, some die old. The harsh truth is that the cause of death is birth, so enjoy life. People who smoke take a pause and ponder things. Think of Einstein and Bertrand Russell with their pipes.

We need more pauses and a little more pondering. Not bossyboots stuff like Bossyboots Bloomberg. Cole Porter must be spinning in his grave. Once we had lively, smoky, talkative places. Now everywhere has to be sanitized and the same. Why? Just in case Emily with Asthma might want to go in? This means Emily with Asthma is dictating things for everybody. Get real. Do New Yorkers really want their taxes to be spent on cops looking for ashtrays?

It's bonkers. Bonkers Bossyboots Bloomberg. I don't want him telling me how to live, or his pathetic band of peasant supporters.

If Dr. Atkins had known he was going to slip on the street, he could have gorged himself on French fries for six months.

Life's like that, a marvelous mystery that we will never get to the bottom of. Accept it.

DAVID HOCKNEY London, England

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS inaccurately included smoking bans among truly petty prohibitions like sitting on milk crates and feeding pigeons. Worse, this faulty logic also cropped up in Graydon Carter's column and the letter from Maura Moynihan.

Even deluded tobacco junkies must acknowledge that a person's right to perform a self-destructive act ends at the point where the health of others is put at risk. Just imagine Hitchens defending the right of SARS patients to cough and sneeze freely in the faces of fellow restaurant patrons.

And despite Hitchens's repeated claims, much more than "pseudo-research" has been produced over the past 30 years to indicate, again and again, the harmful effects of exposure to secondhand smoke. Even if it hadn't, any reasonable person could figure out for himself that if tobacco smoke hurts one's own body it probably hurts others' as well. The emotional intensity of smokers' attempts to refute the evidence is just more proof of the amazing grip that tobacco holds on its victims.

Both my parents died of smoking-related illnesses, and I don't want the same fate for myself. Yes, it is my choice to patronize or avoid a smoking establishment. But why should I have to miss out on live music or social gatherings because of an addict's "right" to blow smoke at me?

MARY DICKIE Toronto, Ontario

UNTIL NOW, I'd believed that Quebec's restrictive language and sign laws, along with its infamous Language Police (or Tongue Troopers), were the laughingstock of North America.

Dang you, Americans, for once again outdoing your northern neighbors!

STEPHANIE EIN Montreal, Quebec

I AM A 22-YEAR-OLD recent graduate of the University of Tennessee and a smoker.

I am visiting your city for the first time this March, and I'm concerned about this no-smoking thing. Like most 22-year-olds, I plan on partying while in New York, and, frankly, not being able to smoke is going to take a little away from my ability to have fun. Bloomberg's asinine laws are a violation of true privacy and democracy. I don't like politicians' dictating what I can and cannot do to my own body. Americans need to take the European attitude and enjoy life. For many people, that means having a drink and a smoke to unwind at the end of the day. I, especially, as a tourist to your fine city, would like to do that on my vacation.

BAILY PERRY Knoxville, Tennessee

SAN FRANCISCO went through all the footstomping, hand-wringing, "We're going down the tubes!" angst that you describe, but, nevertheless, nonsmoking became the law of our world. Now we are enlightened people with clean lungs who look at the rest of the world and go, "Tsk, tsk, tsk." Someday you'll look back at New York's dark, smoky existence and wonder, What were we thinking?

CAROL HOLLAND PARLETTE San Francisco, California

FACE IT, GRAYDON: you've lost and you've lost big-time, and no amount of bitterness is going to change that.

It makes me especially angry, as a nonsmoker and as someone who works in New York City bars, that you never consider my health or my desire to come home without other people's addictions plastered to my clothes and hair. Unlike you, I cannot afford to have very many clothes, to dry-clean them, or even to do my laundry all that often, so I prefer to wear my jeans several times over. Also unlike you, I have to work in bars in order to make a living.

BEN RYAN New York, New York

STANDING BY HARVEY

AFTER READING THE EXCERPT from Peter Biskind's book printed in your February issue ["The Weinstein Way"] I felt obliged to write. Having read the book in its sour entirety I regret cooperating with him. I did so with the understanding that he was trying to write the definitive book on independent film in the 1990s, and I was honored to be asked to participate. As it turned out, Mr. Biskind was yet another gossip columnist masquerading as an "entertainment journalist" who had written his story before even bothering to research it. When the research directly contradicted what he so desperately wanted to say he ignored the facts and went ahead with his slanderous, often ad hominem attack on Harvey Weinstein. What was sold to me as an academic work proved nothing more than character assassination.

Since Mr. Biskind makes it clear that he disdains both the movies about which he writes and everyone involved in making them, it seems clear this book was written simply to line his pocket at the expense of people like Mr. Weinstein—people of accomplishment and achievement.

Mr. Biskind ignored what I told him about my experience making Good Will Hunting and working with Miramax and instead used my language selectively in order to further his hypothesis and maximize the salaciousness quotient in order to ship a few more copies of what is ultimately a long gossip column.

Harvey Weinstein is the only reason Good Will Hunting got made. He is the reason many, many excellent movies were made during the period about which Mr. Biskind writes. Down and Dirty Pictures accuses Mr. Weinstein of taking advantage of Matt and me. He did not. It characterizes Mr. Weinstein's legendary generosity in paying for others' medical care as being the result of a "God complex." This is absolutely not my impression of Harvey. I have seen the man do countless kind and selfless gestures for those less fortunate than he who are ailing—I never got the sense that he did it for anything other than the good feeling one gets from helping another. I certainly never got the feeling that Harvey thinks he is God. It's hard to believe you're a deity with that many crumbs on your shirt. Plus, you'd think the Almighty might have been wiser than to make Reindeer Games—although with a cast like that...

The book asserts that Harvey yells. In the immortal words of John Gielgud as the butler in Arthur, "Alert the media." Harvey is a famous yeller. While Biskind maintains that he doesn't engage in this behavior "in the presence of actors," I can promise you he's wrong about that. Harvey yelled at me just last week. He called me "petulant" (an incident worthy of inclusion in the Dictionary of Cliches under the listing "pot and kettle"). One of the best things about Harvey is you always know where you stand. I can honestly say that I trust what Harvey Weinstein tells me more than any other person in town.

I also told Mr. Biskind that I objected to the way almost every quote of mine was being used and that they were out of context and misleading. He never got back to me ... until, that is, the time when I didn't get married. Then he e-mailed me and said, "A lot has happened and I thought you might have something to add." I replied that I wasn't sure what my personal life in 2003 had to do with independent film in the 1990s. I didn't hear back from him until he e-mailed to tell me that he was working on a theory about Harvey being "involved in politics because he wants to be ambassador to Israel." The last time I heard from Biskind he wrote to say that he had read a quote from me in Entertainment Weekly he thought was a "jab at Harvey and Miramax" (it was actually a lament over the nature of marketing movies in the current climate), and he whined "if you're going to bash Harvey ... do it to meee" (italics his, seriously).

Harvey is a wonderful, terrible, brilliant, fascinating man. He is also a friend of mine. He has fought and scrapped his way in this business. He has done things people were unhappy with. He has done things I am unhappy with. He has flaws and some of the torrid tales in the book may be true. Many definitely are not. I find this a complicated business and Harvey is a complicated man. Hunter Thompson famously called Hollywood a "cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs." He's right, and if you grade on a curve in this town, Harvey Weinstein is a saint. If you find that hard to buy, at least understand that Harvey certainly warrants better and more sophisticated treatment than Down and Dirty Pictures, which is merely a meanspirited, sour piece of trash. If you want to read an account of independent film in the 90s, try Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes, by John Pierson.

BEN AFFLECK Los Angeles, California

PETER BISKIND REPLIES: I'm sorry Ben Affleck didn't like Down and Dirty Pictures. Affleck saw every quote of his that I used, and, after having initially assured me that he wouldn't do so, asked to change many of his quotes to make them more Miramax-friendly. I agreed to 99 percent of his changes. Far from telling me that he "objected to every quote" of his that I used, he was flattering saying he couldn't wait to read the book. But he is right that Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes is a good account, from one player's point of view, of the early days of the indie movement—published in 1995, not so coincidentally, by Miramax.

THE PALM BEACH WAY

I READ WITH INTEREST "Palm Beach Exclusive" [by Bob Colacello, February]. I was fortunate enough to have lived there for most of the 70s.

George Hamilton is right when he says money was not necessary. As long as you were reasonably attractive, knew how to dress and behave in polite society, you were welcome.

It was a small town then. My three-yearold son received a letter addressed simply to "Corky Aderhold, Palm Beach, Fla." It was delivered by the postman to our front door. Credit cards were not necessary. I had an account at all my favorite restaurants and bars and was sent a bill at the end of the month. It was indeed "the best of times." I am not so sure I would want to live there today.

E. DAN ADERHOLD San Francisco, California

YOUR ARTICLE CONFIRMED the fact that discrimination in Palm Beach went from being overt to covert. I grew up in Palm Beach during the 1950s and 60s. I was the first person to be Bar Mitzvahed in Palm Beach, at Temple Emanuel, and I was acutely aware of overt discrimination. No Jews were allowed at the Bath and Tennis Club, the Sailfish Club, the Beach Club, and the Everglades Club, and the kids I went to school with were the children of members.

I attended K~9 at Palm Beach Public School. Due to the great work of public professionals—the teachers, policemen, judges, community leaders—we were taught that character and what you could do for your country were the most important values. Palm Beach's overt discrimination disappeared. It was replaced, however, with covert discrimination—being judged on how many zeroes you have in your bankbook.

Thankfully, I now live in West Palm Beach, where all forms of discrimination are banned and your bank-account balance is not a requirement to be a good citizen.

ALAN MILLER West Palm Beach, Florida

IN THE 1970s, my late wife, Evangeline, and I were members of the Everglades Club and Palm Beach Bath and Tennis Club (we were acceptable "old money" Wasps). We resigned, however, because of the discriminatory policies. We were active in the social and art scenes during the 1960s and 70s, during which I had a show at the Norton Gallery of Art and my wife became a founder of the Palm Beach Arts Festival. Most of our friends were Jewish or gay. They were interesting, creative, and supported the arts. While your article talked about the discrimination against Jews, it did not mention that gays need not apply to these clubs, either. I was not the only gay or bisexual member on the tennis court. If my sexual orientation had been known, I would have been asked to resign from both clubs. To be honest and live an authentic life in that white-lie atmosphere is an impossibility, damaging to one's creativity, growth, and free thought. Not much has changed with the Palm Beach clubs— heirs and heiresses with a false sense of importance.

CHARLES MERRILL West Palm Beach, Florida

I WAS VERY TAKEN with Jonathan Becker's picture of pharmaceutical heir Laddie Merck and his wife, Dede, on their yacht, which is the size of the one Ari Onassis used to have. Very impressive. Now I know where my senior-citizen drug costs are going, and it doesn't seem to be research. It looks as if I and all the other senior citizens of this country are giving the Merck family and their kind a very lavish lifestyle.

I have senior friends in Yorkshire, England. They live a far more relaxed retirement than the majority of U.S. senior citizens because they have no health-care costs or worries. In fact, I came very close to marrying a Yorkshireman, not for his money but for his subsidized health care.

SHIRLEY A. PRATHER Farmington Hills, Michigan

THE CHRISTIAN CABINET

"JOHN ASHCROFT'S Patriot Games" [by Judy Bachrach, February] scared the hell out of me. How could such a religious bigot, beaten by a dead candidate in a Senate race in Missouri, slide past congressional hearings and be approved as attorney general despite a glaring track record of sexism, racism, homophobia, and disregard for the truth?

Under Ashcroft and his cronies, we've apparently moved from a democracy to a theocracy (with Jesus as America's king), and Brother John has anointed himself both prophet and Christian soldier in his war on terrorism, via the Draconian and misnamed Patriot Act. This act is not a fire wall against terrorism. It's a tool for controlling anyone who disagrees with those in power.

The enemy at the gate isn't Islamic fundamentalism. The real enemy is Christian fundamentalism running riot in the Justice Department, branches of federal, state, and local governments, school boards—anywhere that morality is legislated by true believers such as Ashcroft and his ilk. The Patriot Act doesn't make me feel safer. Separation of church and state does.

GORDON JOHNSTON Portland, Oregon

I READ WITH ASTONISHMENT how our fearless attorney general was able to avoid compulsory military service during the Vietnam era by somehow managing to obtain an incredible seven deferments. I was unable to obtain even one deferment. A classic example of how connections can aid the well-heeled in avoiding their obligation to serve their country while other poor souls end up dying in the jungles of Vietnam.

CLIFFORD J. HUTCHINS Rochester, Washington

AS SOMEONE BROUGHT UP in the mental concentration camp of Christian fundamentalist thinking, I sympathize with those under the thumb of parents, leaders, or employers who are convinced they hold the only correct answers.

Ironically, Christian fundamentalism and Communism have something in common: both rely on coercion. Relatively few people buy into either ideology completely voluntarily. To paraphrase Dick Gregory on democracy, if it's so good, why do we have to push it down people's throats?

R. WRIGHTSMAN Vancouver, British Columbia

GWYNNIE AGONISTES

GWYNETH PALTROW should think twice before expressing even a hint of ingratitude for her lifestyle ["Gwyneth in Love," by Krista Smith, February]. Losing a parent is certainly devastating no matter who you are, but when her father died Ms. Paltrow was financially able to take a year off from lucrative, artistically fulfilling film projects to contemplate her suffering and fall in love. When my fiance lost his father, he suffered just as much, but he had to return immediately after the funeral to his crappy job at the post office. He grieved while staring at a computer screen and typing Zip Codes for hours on end. No, Gwyneth's life may not be "perfect," but certainly she is spared the drudgery and fear that most of us live with, and she should remember that when she chides her public for thinking her life is ideal.

SUSAN J. JACKS New York, New York

CELEBRATING GEORGE

I APPRECIATED DOMINICK DUNNE'S mention, in the February issue, of George Plimpton's passing ["Banned in Monte Carlo"]. However, I would like to clear up a misconception. Mr. Dunne refers to George's "Fourth of July fireworks display in East Hampton." For the past 23 summers, George Plimpton was the narrator and driving force for Boys & Girls Harbor's annual Fireworks Benefit, which is indeed in July, but held on the third Saturday of the month.

George did a wonderful thing, bringing together the Harbor with the Grucci family to create an event that has raised millions of dollars for our work with innercity youths in Harlem and at our camp in East Hampton. When we founded the Harbor in 1937, it was a small summer camp for immigrant boys, but in the years since then we have grown into a year-round agency that works with 6,000 young people and their families. We offer programs from pre-school to college preparation. George Plimpton was a terrific friend to me and to Boys & Girls Harbor. I miss him dearly, as do so many.

ANTHONY DREXEL DUKE Founder and president Boys & Girls Harbor, Inc. New York, New York

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