LOVING A LEGEND

LETTERS

Show of horse; presidential comparisons; high on Sly; scrutinizing The Simpsons; a pastoral fantasy; yogi stereotyping; torture talk; and more

As someone who fell in love with Barbara, followed every day of his recovery, and read everything written about him, I can say nothing has evoked emotions inside me quite like Buzz Bissinger’s insightful account [“Gone Like the Wind,” August] describing the ups and downs of the beloved horse’s struggle, the passion of those who tried desperately to save him, and, most of all, the dignity, poise, and will to live that this magnificent creature displayed throughout his ordeal. The impact of Barbaro and his legacy can never be overestimated. His story will continue to stir the deepest feelings and leave the question of “What if... ?” forever unanswered.

KATHLEEN PARSONS Redondo Beach, California

THANKS TO Buzz Bissinger for a beautifully written article about Barbaro and to those who cared for him and loved him. Bissinger captured with eloquence what I have felt but a lump in my throat would not allow me to say: Barbara’s life and struggle allowed us to regain our compassion and human kindness once again.

CANDACE SERVISS Loda, Illinois

BARBARO WAS not, as Buzz Bissinger wrote, “betrayed by his own Thoroughbred body.” He was betrayed by the people who advocate the use of animals in a sport that pushes them beyond their limits for profit and entertainment. He was betrayed again by the very people who claimed to love him when they forced him to endure the pain and suffering of multiple surgeries and long, unsuccessful attempts at recovery. How utterly selfish.

CAROLYN LAWRIE Toronto, Ontario

THANK YOU for the beautifully written and photographed story on Barbaro. Unfortunately, I, too, broke the cardinal rule: I fell in love with a horse.

LINDA LIGHTNER Glen Mills, Pennsylvania

YOUR ARTICLE on Barbaro rightly describes a horse with an amazing combination of speed and personality, but does little to condemn the industry that led to his demise.

The analogy used by Peter Brette is apt: “Is he a boy or a man?” Horses don’t reach full physical maturity until five to six years of age, but the racing industry has established a universal birthday for all Thoroughbreds and sets top races for twoand three-year-olds. At two and a half, when most horses hit their peak racing stride for Grade 1 races, they are approaching the developmental benchmarks for a 14-year-old kid. Bones are still fragile, tendons pliant, everything still very much a work in progress. When you run this work of art at top speeds, coupled with the ever present influence of barbiturates injected prior to every race to numb the pain sensors (which tell the body to stop prior to serious injury), it can come as no surprise that a potentially fatal disaster is waiting behind every race. We are running boys in a system that requires the stamina of men.

Fans proclaim that they love Barbara for his heart, heroism, and spirit—and the mementos sent to his recovery hospital from around the world bear this out—but these same fans sit idly by while the racing industry continues to toss two-year-old colts and fillies into the gristmill of racing. To say you love the horse, without a demand that the industry mend its ways to adopt more humane standards, indicates that you merely love horse racing, rather than the horse himself.

CARRIE TIPTON Vienna, Virginia

DO WE HUMANS ascribe spirit and stamina and sauciness to horses on our own? Or do horses cause us to by tugging on our heartstrings? I’m a busy mom and working-class schmo, and as a result Barbara’s plight merely blipped across my radar. But when I read Buzz Bissinger’s piece, I cried. Lots. Always fall in love with a horse.

LINDA RICHTER Niles, Ohio

SUCH AN INDULGENT sport Thoroughbred racing is, one in which wfor-moneyed people, such as the Jacksons, can count these horses and their winnings as assets, in the same way one does a yacht, or a Rolls-Royce. What compels them to push these remarkable animals beyond the limits of their abilities and anatomies? Simple answer: money. I don’t doubt for a moment that the inner circle touched by Barbara loved him. We all loved him, for his spirit and determination to win our races and then simply to survive. What a remarkable horse, but what a seemingly unnecessary tragedy.

MARY ANN BASHAW Phoenix, Arizona

WHEN I READ on gossip Web sites that the cover of the August Vanity Fair almost went to the racehorse Barbara instead of rising teen actor Shia LaBeouf, I thought, No contest—the cover’s got to be of the kid. But after finishing Buzz Bissinger’s enthralling chronicle of that magnificent horse’s rise and fall, I found myself with tears in my eyes. Not because of Bissinger’s flawless writing, or the story’s stellar cast of characters—the steadfast owners, the steely trainer, the intrepid doctor. It was because of Barbara—a legend destined to live (like the great equine luminaries before him) far beyond our time, and far beyond a time when anyone will remember who this year's “hot” teen actor was. Barbara on your cover would have been a keeper.

SIRENA J. SCALES Washington, D.C.

I CANNOT THINK of the last time that a Vanity Fair article sent shivers down my spine the way “Gone Like the Wind” did. I have never been to a horse race; I have never bet on a horse. Really, I couldn’t care less about horses. But this story, like Barbara, grabbed me and never let go. My thanks to V.F. and the talented Buzz Bissinger for bringing this amazing story home to readers like me.

MJ JAFFRAY Goodwood, Ontario

BARBARO never knew of or thought about Triple Crowns, winnings, or stud fees. He never knew of or thought about his owners’ egos or financial ambitions, the fans’ need for thrills, or their desire to make money off of him. Barbara was expected to perform whether he felt like it or not. Barbara, through his suffering, taught us that horse racing is a cruel “sport.”

FOR MORE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, GO TO VF.COM.

MORE FROM THE V.F. MAILBAG

Barbara grief, mainly. Buzz Bissinger’s “Gone Like the Wind” struck a nerve, or anyway a tear duct, among many V.F. readers: “I’m sobbing” (Donna Piccoli, Exton, Pennsylvania); “I was totally crying” (Danita Cardey, of Riverside, California); “I was brought to tears” (Annette McDaniels, Ellicott City, Maryland); “tears streaming down my face” (Alicia Stiteler, La Verne, California); “I was in tears” (Diane Yoder, New Carlisle, Ohio); and, at press time, “I’m still crying” (Diane Beeman, Aliso Viejo, California). Kimberly Dotseth, of San Diego, says, “My tears were crazy bad for the loss of this beloved and beautiful horse.”

Finally, what a difference 18 minutes can make: “I got through one paragraph and cringed ... Come on, people! Let a horse person help you!” That’s Lynne Blackwell, of Shorter, Alabama, e-mailing us on a Wednesday afternoon at 3:38. Then, at 3:56: “I take it back. You did a good job on the article after all.”

David Kamp’s “Sly Stone’s Higher Power” drew forth a number of memories of the sui generis performer back in the (hey)day. Susan Corrado Goldberg, of Delray Beach, Florida, remembers a 1970 Tampa concert where, after the requisite hour's delay, “oh, baby!!... [Sly] sauntered in with the ’family’ and funked the house.” Mercy Baron, of Los Angeles, has a 1971 anecdote, the first 15 words of which are “To my surprise, out came Sly from this bedroom and asked if we wanted to” (sorry, that’s all we have room for). Steve Glatt, also of Los Angeles, remembers a 1973 show at the L.A. Coliseum (yes, it started an hour late): “It was fancy hats, glitter, and feathers with Sly walking around ... with these enormous golf gloves. He kept prancing around the stage, occasionally sniffing something from the gloves. After about 15 minutes of this, people started yelling, ’Why don't you just play?’ Sly grabs the microphone and for another 20 minutes starts rambling incoherently about ‘the Man' and revolution while arguing with the audience. Finally he gets behind the keyboards and the band launches into ‘Everyday People.’... Halfway through the song. Sly yells, ‘This f-ing keyboard is out of tune!’ He storms off' the stage and 20 roadies start crawling around trying to fix the problem.”

The Mailbag has its own Sly Stone story—circa 1972—but we’re still awaiting legal advice regarding certain fine points relating to the statute of limitations. Besides, here’s something far more interesting from Casey Stewart, of Rancho Cordova, California: “I loved your article on my Uncle Sly.”

Unde Sly!

From Anne Lovett, of Atlanta, helpful leads on the Anne Bass mystery: “I kept thinking I had heard of that plot before. It was on a tape of a class for romance writers given by Cheryl Ann Porter. I would tell the police to look for some writer-actor types—and I might add it doesn't take a medical professional to know how to give injections. Any diabetic knows how.”

“Well, managed to get to page 67 without seeing ‘eponymous.’ Enough already.” If you're reading this, Christina Neumeyer, of Carlsbad, California, this time you’ve already gotten to page 142.

According to news reports, Barbara now has a brother, a full brother. Will we be subjected to the same sad story all over again? Or could Barbara’s brother be the symbol for a new era in the care of racehorses?

JUDITH M. HANSEL Reno, Nevada

STATE OF DELUSION

“THE HISTORY BOYS” [August] reminds us of how much we will miss the insightful political commentary of David Halberstam. We are told that Harry Truman was a largely unpopular leader who, despite intense political pressures, was determined to limit the war in Korea. Our current leader, George W. Bush, on the other hand, squandered the enormous goodwill showered upon him after 9/11 on a retaliatory war he had wrongly believed would be popular with an angry nation. Both men may have been embattled and besieged, their poll numbers eroding during a difficult war, but the similarities end there.

JEFF CHEN San Mateo, California

DAVID HALBERSTAM’S last dispatch is a must-read. It is sad that he left us when we need him most. His only misstatement is calling Dick Cheney “seemingly the toughest tough guy of them all.” I believe that most of Dick Cheney’s failings can be attributed directly to the fact that he is most profoundly an unmanly man who is trying to live up to a masculine ideal against which he falls desperately short.

MELITTA RORTY Benicia, California

IF THERE IS SUCH A THING as Karma or justice in this world or the next, David Halberstam is now walking with the angels. Meanwhile Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the “History Boys” will spend eternity with the consequences of what they have wrought upon the world: the anguished cries of the dead, maimed, wounded, tortured, and grieving forever ringing in their ears.

MARIE COLACCHIO Norwich, Vermont

I AM SURPRISED that the late, great David Halberstam, in his devastating critique of the Bush administration, did not mention two more big differences between George W. Bush and Harry Truman. Truman believed in accountability and had a prominent sign on his desk to that effect: THE BUCK STOPS HERE. By contrast, no one is ever held accountable in the current administration. Indeed, the most incompetent are promoted and rewarded—witness the presidential medals awarded to General Tommy Franks, former C.I.A. director George Tenet, and former American proconsul for Iraq Paul Bremer. Truman also loathed war profiteering, which he likened to treason. Again by contrast, Halliburton and other multi-nationals have routinely overcharged for services in Iraq, and this president has nary a word to say about it. Bush as a latterday Truman? I don’t think so.

ANTHONY MARX Queensland, Australia

THE ULTIMATE FUNKMASTER

DAVID KAMP’S article on Sly Stone [“Sly Stone’s Higher Power,” August] was phenomenal. I was born and raised in San Francisco and grew up listening to Sly’s music. As a matter of fact, some of my family members had ties to Sly back in the day. He’s a living legend and will forever remain one of the greatest contributors to music. Thanks for giving us a glimpse into his life.

SHEILA CHADWICK Indianapolis, Indiana

IN DAVID KAMP’S article about Sly Stone, he called the rock band the Great Society the precursor to the Jefferson Airplane. Having grown up and lived in San Francisco during the 1960s, I can tell you for a fact that Grace Slick left the Great Society and sang her first concert with the Jefferson Airplane on October 16, 1966, at the Fillmore Auditorium. She joined the Airplane, already in existence, after its original female lead singer, Signe Anderson, departed following the band’s first album. Slick brought two songs with her when she joined the band, “Somebody to Love,” written by her brother-in-law, Darby Slick, and her composition “White Rabbit.”

DAVID FRIEDLANDER Nashville, Tennessee

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO THE SIMPSONS

I LOVE THEATER of the absurd as much as anyone—Antonin Artaud, the Marx Brothers, Seinfeld—but The Simpsons is another matter [“Simpson Family Values,” by John Ortved, August], Assuming that Homer Simpson is taken from the character of that name in Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust, I would say a sober rereading of the 1937 classic and viewing of the later movie with Donald Sutherland will show how savagely this animated program has contributed to the decay of American civilization and to an aggressive lack of fellowship in the nation. While not the cup of tea for Bush Sr., this show is very much an emblem for Bush Jr. and his cynical, radical fellow travelers.

DAVID T. JOHANNESEN Dartmouth, Massachusetts

JOHN ORTVED’S assertion that “prime time had not seen an animated sitcom since The Flintstones, in the 1960s,” is not accurate. Hanna-Barbera’s Wait ’til Your Father Gets Home, which featured actor Tom Bosley (Happy Days) in the lead voice role, first ran in syndication from 1972 to 1974, more than a decade and a half before America’s favorite yellow family.

HARRY ALLEN New York, New York

THE TRUTH ABOUT SOUTH KENT

I COULDN’T HELP but smile at Michael Shnayerson’s description of my hometown, as featured in his August article, “Something Happened at Anne’s!”—not at Anne Bass’s misfortune but at the portrait of a dreamlike idyll, generally untouched by the rhythms of modern life and accessible only to a select few. While this is a pleasant enough patina for my small, quiet town, it is grounded more in the fantasies of a handful of fabulously wealthy part-time residents than in reality.

South Kent is unmarked not due to its cachet but because it is merely a neighborhood postal district within the town of Kent. As to the charming assertion that Kent is a community of genteel farmers, there are a few struggling local farms, but almost everyone has an ordinary middle-class job. In fact, most “farming” occurs only in the Marie Antoinette (or shall we say Anne Bass?) sense.

AMELIA CASON New York, New York

OM, SWEET, OM

I WAS SADDENED to see that Maya Breuer and Jana Long consider themselves black yoga teachers rather than yoga teachers who happen to be black [Letters, August]. But I think it is the tone of their letter that I found so off-putting. How can they use yoga, which means “union” or “yoke,” for racial polarization where none exists?

Perhaps Vanity Fair failed to include teachers and masters who are black. However, V.F. also failed to include yoga teachers who are Jewish, Muslim, dwarfs, twins, physically challenged, blind, or in assisted-living facilities. The list of omissions is endless. It is O.K. to mention to V.F. that your group exists and that the magazine should take notice. It is quite different to assume that black people were omitted because no one knew that people of color practice yoga.

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PHYLLIS MASS Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

AMERICAN TORTURE

KATHERINE EBAN’S recent article for VF.com on terrorist interrogations [“Rorschach and Awe,” July 17] is gravely flawed. For starters, the terrorist Abu Zubaydah provided virtually all of his valuable intelligence during C.I.A. questioning. That process was lawful and successful.

Initially, Abu Zubaydah was evasive. There may be people elsewhere who believe they built some sort of rapport with him in those early days, but neither Abu Zubaydah’s conduct nor, most important, the production of intelligence from him backs that up. It was, most of all, the efforts of the C.I.A. that led Abu Zubaydah to share concrete, actionable information that our government used to identify other terrorist figures and disrupt their activities.

A great deal of myth has grown up around the C.I.A.’s terrorist-detention program. That is the cost of denying alQaeda knowledge of the interrogation methods used so effectively against its operatives. In fact, the effort has been small, legal, carefully run, and reviewed within the executive branch and by Congress.

POSTSCRIPT

In 1998, a 25-year-old journalist named Stephen Glass was the hottest young star in the competitive orbit of Washington journalism. An associate editor for The New Republic, he routinely managed to find the pitch-perfect quote and the trenchant observation in every story he wrote. He was earning more than $100,000 a year and also attending Georgetown Law at night. Glass seemed too good to be true, which of course he was. As contributing editor Buzz Bissinger chronicled in Vanity Fair (“Shattered Glass,” September 1998), Glass’s spectacular rise was outdone only by his even more spectacular fall, in which it was discovered that 27 of his 41 stories for T.N.R. contained fabrications.

Today, the name Stephen Glass still looms large, and T.N.R., despite a rich history as one of the country's leading voices, has never fully recovered from one of the greatest discovered frauds in journalistic history. The release of the highly acclaimed 2003 film Shattered Glass (based on the V.F. article), which enjoys a continued life on DVD, hasn't helped, either.

For those who had worked with Glass and were still looking for a genuine apology, the 2003 publication of his novel. The Fabulist, formulated in part on his experiences at T.N.R., was seen as a crassly selfserving enterprise. The book failed both critically and commercially.

Now T.N.R. finds itself embroiled in a new, similar controversy. This time around, the trouble concerns the magazine's “Baghdad Diarist" column. Written by an American soldier under the pseudonym of Scott Thomas—in July he revealed himself to be army private Scott Thomas Beauchamp of the First Infantry Division and the husband of a New Republic reporter-researcher—the column has been laced with disturbing anecdotes of military misbehavior that conservative publications and bloggers charge have been manufactured. In writing about the new allegations of fraud, the media have routinely invoked Glass's name. But it may also be a case of guilt by association. Army investigators, after conducting their own inquiry, said that Beauchamp's stories for the magazine were false, but did not elaborate on what exactly was incorrect. T.N.R., in its own investigation, said Beauchamp's accounts were corroborated by five members of his unit, with the exception of the location of one incident. New Republic editor Franklin Foer, who stands by its columns, acknowledges that the shadow of Glass has “created some unfair assumptions.”

Glass, who now lives in Los Angeles with his longtime girlfriend, did not return phone calls from V.F. But about a year ago, Billy Ray, the director of Shattered Glass, met Glass for the first time, at a party in the Hollywood Hills. According to Ray and other sources. Glass has been working at a small law firm, apparently in a paralegal capacity. Their chat was amiable, said Ray, who noted that Glass “said everything a person who was contrite would say.... Knowing his history, I can hope that was sincere, but that’s just hope.” Glass also continues to try to entertain, no longer through fictional journalism, but in firstperson storytelling sketches with the L.A.based comedy troupe Un-Cabaret.

To read the original story, please visit VANITYFAIR.COM.

It has also been highly productive, providing a unique window into al-Qaeda that has helped our country, and others, foil terrorist plots and save innocent lives. Had Eban asked me about Abu Zubaydah, I would have tried to correct the misimpressions that wound up shaping her story.

PAUL GIMIGLIANO Deputy director of public affairs Central Intelligence Agency Washington, D.C.

KATHERINE EBAN REPLIES: What shaped my story was a 10-month reporting effort and interviews with more than 70 diverse sources, out of which emerged a consistent viewpoint: that coercive interrogation techniques of the kind employed at black sites by the C.I.A. do not work any better than traditional rapport building.

It was humane interrogation that got Abu Zubaydah to reveal the identity of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as 9/11’s master planner. Many experts and insiders I interviewed say that American interrogators could have stayed within the Geneva Convention guidelines and achieved equal intelligence gains, with far less stain on our reputation abroad. Instead, the C.I.A. turned its interrogation training over to two psychologists who reportedly lacked real-world experience and advocated untested methods.

Mr. Gimigliano’s claims of success are impossible to verify, since the evidence for them remains classified. Meanwhile, he neglects to mention that some within the C.I.A. opposed the agency’s use of coercion and, to this day, doubt the approach’s utility.

LAST REBEL STANDING

I WONDERED for years why a magazine such as Vanity Fair had not published a piece on the doings of Mort Sahl [“Mort the Knife,” by James Wolcott, August]. Saul is by far the most genius political satirist in American cultural history. While Lenny Bruce was the visceral and ultimately tragic voice in exposing the bigotry and hypocrisy of modern America, Sahl’s voice was, and still is, like a slingshot of reverberant truth in the brain cells of anyone with an intellect.

I still listen to his recordings from the hungry i, and his perceptions are even more relevant today than they were then. That he is teaching at 80 gives me hope that America has not been entirely lost to the ignorant, warmongering Fascists currently in charge of your government.

LOUISE McKELVIE Vancouver, British Columbia

READING ABOUT MORT SAHL in your August issue rekindled a cherished memory from the 1960s: I encountered the comic standing in front of me in line at a market in Studio City, California. The specific interchange has long been lost to memory, but an offhanded quip from this Burbank English teacher so tickled the great Mort Sahl that it made him laugh—and quite loudly! He doesn’t just create humor; he relishes it in others as well.

STEVE CAMPBELL Burbank, California

AS GOOD AS IT GOT

I WAS THRILLED to come upon “Expats in Wonderland” [by John Richardson, August], because I have always appreciated the lives of the Murphys. But while it was quite informational, I felt that it did not do the couple justice. Though it is true that there has been cause for speculation regarding Gerald Murphy’s sexuality, and indeed he may have been sexually conflicted, there has been no conclusive evidence that, as was so eloquently stated, he was a “closet case.”

Furthermore, I felt that the story did not effectively convey the enchantment and beauty of the world which this quintessential dazzling couple created and in which they lived. Donald Ogden Stewart, the playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter, likened them to a fairy tale: “Once upon a time there was a prince and a princess.... They were both rich; he was handsome; she was beautiful; they had three golden children.” Always, their world revolved around family and good friends and happy times. After all, theirs was a life well lived.

VINCENT UGARO Montclair, New Jersey

CORRECTION: On page 131 of the August issue (“Something Happened at Anne’s!,” by Michael Shnayerson), we misstated the paternal parentage of billionaire Sid Bass and his three brothers. Their father was Perry Richardson Bass.

Letters to the editor should be sent electronically with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number to letters@vf.com. Letters to the editor will also be accepted via fax at 212-286-4324. All requests for back issues should be sent to subscriptions@vf.com. All other queries should be sent to vfmail@vf.com. The magazine reserves the right to edit submissions, which may be published or otherwise used in any medium. All submissions become the property of Vanity Fair.