FIRST AND SECOND MATES "Had I come across the pictures of Mr. Willis, Ms. Moore, and Mr. Kutcher on the speedboat and not known their identities, I would have assumed it was Dad escorting the kids on a fishing trip." -Susan Adler, New York, New York

The United States and England share sturdy democratic traditions, yet it is in the U.K. that we see rising Islamic militancy. Christopher Hitchens [“Londonistan Calling,” June] correctly identifies the policy of nurturing individual cultures within the U.K. as having unintended consequences, but I think a great deal of the problem lies with the welfare state of many European countries. Extremely generous welfare policies are what attract so many Muslims to the U.K. Yet welfare is a debilitating thing, ultimately. It creates legions of the idle and the underemployed, and that, in any culture, fosters anger, isolation, and resentment. When these particular immigrants look to their religion, they often hear that violence and virulent anti-Semitism are the answers.

In the U.S., while new immigrants rely somewhat on generous social services, it very quickly becomes evident that they must create their own success and work. Furthermore, becoming a full, working member of the economy means that they must interact more frequently with those who are different, so assimilation becomes more common. And so it goes that at least a grudging respect for the separation of religion and state becomes the norm.

MICHAEL REISNER Highland Park, Illinois

I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND why people who were allowed to migrate to the U.K. because they were unable to secure work in their own countries are eager to bite the hand that feeds them. What scares me is that these people were born and raised in the West, yet they still gravitate toward fanatical Islam, which is the death of those who believe in reason, tolerance, and coexistence. I grew up in Abbottabad, Pakistan (a small town in the country’s northwest frontier), and I saw these fanatics firsthand. But nothing in my life could have prepared me for the scenes I witnessed on TV of British Muslims (the majority of whom, regrettably, are linked to Pakistan in one way or another), and it terrifies me.

BILAL QURESHI Washington, D.C.

IT WAS NICE of Christopher Hitchens to pay a return visit to Finsbury Park, although I confess that as a current resident of the area I don’t recognize the place he describes, and the sense of threat he feels is something I’ve noticed only when Arsenal is playing Chelsea down the road, at Emirates Stadium. I can’t remember ever seeing a burka on Blackstock Road. And I recall that in the days following the bombings on July 7, 2005, nearly every Algerian shop in the area displayed posters condemning the attacks. Never let the facts get in the way of an opinion when you’re pandering to the prejudices of your neocon friends, though, Mr. Hitchens.

BEN MILNE London, England

I ASK CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS to turn his marvelous brain to the subject of what steps he believes should be taken by the British government in response to the situation in the U.K., which he described so vividly. I, for one, would value his thoughts on the matter very highly. (I am a British citizen who has lived in the U.S. for 42 years.) I assume he rules out the mass deportation of British Muslims—especially those younger ones who were born there and have to live there; I assume he would not imprison anyone because of what he believes; I assume he assumes that tens of thousands of young Muslims in the U.K. are not fundamentalists who hate the status quo. I have no reason to think that the Brown-led Cabinet would heed Hitchens’s “positive” response to the “negative” situation he told us about so insightfully, but I would love to know what the Cabinet would say.

PETER SMITH Buffalo, New York

GIULIANI JUDGMENTS

ALTHOUGH MICHAEL WOLFF says that Rudy Giuliani is “fun to write about,” I am hard-pressed to understand what Giuliani has done to make himself such an appealing presidential candidate [“Crazy for Rudy,” June]. What did he do during the crisis of 9/11 that any other civic leader would not have done? From what I’ve seen, Giuliani manages to capitalize on being in the right place at the wrong time, which hardly qualifies him for the presidency. And that’s not funny.

PHYLLIS LANDIS Los Angeles, California

MICHAEL WOLFF’S questioning of Mayor Giuliani’s sanity shows a complete lack of understanding of what makes a true New Yorker. We don’t hide our thoughts to look pretty; we state our thoughts to make a difference. With Giuliani, whether you agree with him or not, you always know where he stands. His honest disclosures are rational because they are necessary. His roughness of speech shows he means what he says, and the words he speaks are his alone. New York is a world unto itself, and although some people did not like Giuliani’s tenure as mayor, he made the majority of New Yorkers feel that their city was a decent place to live again. He was sane enough to make bettering New York his most important task. And I believe that makes him the sanest man of all.

CHARLES WOLFE McMELLON Brooklyn, New York

RAW FEELINGS

HAVING FOREVER praised Vanity Fair for its insightful articles on environmental and social issues, I was appalled by your article by Nick Tosches [“If You Knew Sushi,” June]. Glamorizing an industry which is decimating our eco-systems and fish populations to near extinction makes one want to go back to eating meat!

ANDREA B. STREET Austin, Texas

YOGA NATION

I COMMEND you on your beautiful portraits and descriptions of some of the leading yogis [“Planet Yoga,” June]. They are a testament to the power and universality of this amazing practice, and I’m glad to see that you’ve given them the same star treatment as the Hollywood entertainers, politicians, and athletes that grace your glossy pages. The profiled yoga teachers are stars in the truest sense: these leading lights have guided millions on a path of self-discovery and truth. Your article helped to show that yoga is a healing life practice for everyone, and that we can benefit deeply from it.

ANNELISE HAGEN Author, The Yoga Face Brooklyn, New York

AS BLACK YOGA teachers, we were somewhat dismayed, but not at all surprised, that none of us were represented in “Planet Yoga.” We realize that on the surface it appears that black people don’t practice yoga; our presence and participation often are disproportionately lacking at studios and retreat centers, so to some extent that is understandable.

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

MORE FROM THE V.F. MAILBAG

'I was on the fence in regard to renewing my subscription until I saw the cover of your June issue.” And? And? But there we will leave you, readers, balancing precariously alongside Clare M. Frost, of Dania, Florida, until the end of this column.

“I am an Englishman, as distinct from a ‘British person,’ which nowadays seems to include any pimp, whore, or comic singer who happens to have been born in the U.K. begins Roger Hughes, of Orlando, Florida, before removing the gloves. “As Christopher Hitchens correctly states, the British people are traditionally highly tolerant of revolutionaries in their midst, and consequently very slow to anger. But the problem with that is, when the kettle finally boils over, we don't get half mad_This backlash could be brutal, perhaps civil war, but one hopes it will cleanse the country, not only of murderous religious extremists but also of the blinkered do-gooder politicians who sanction them.”

More tea?

Another reader, scrawling by fax:

“Way Too Much info About Sushi ... Oh yeah and Your “Green' issue Sucks as Does Ed Costner & Diary Features also overuse of Eponymous!!! And your Get Bush Articles Every Freakin' Issue Have Led Me To Distrust ALL your writers and that Sir, is a Very Bad Thing For Those of us who Love THE Written Word.” Yes, the ill effects are already in evidence.

From Susan Adler, in New York City, regarding “Free Willis” [by Peter Biskind, June]: “No intended disrespect to Mr. Willis, Ms. Moore, or Mr. Kutcher, but had I come across the pictures of them on the speedboat and not known their identities, I would have assumed it was a photo of Dad escorting the kids on a fishing trip.”

And, finally, what of Ms. Frost, on the fence regarding that cover and her subscription? Turns out she's a “British vintage-motorcycle enthusiast” (13 bikes!) and her “yelp of joy” at the sight of the one under Bruce Willis “sent my dog under the couch.” The upshot: “Please renew for this ‘old biker chick’!”

We suspect, however, that no one even thought to include a black yoga master, because if you had looked you might have found Shola Arewa, Kofi Busia, Krishna Kaur, Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy, and many others. You also could have included notable black celebrities who are considered “masters” of yoga, such as Russell Simmons and Sonny Rollins. Contrary to popular perception, the number of black yoga masters, teachers, and practitioners is steadily growing.

MAYA BREUER Warwick, Rhode Island JANA LONG Baltimore, Maryland Registered yoga teachers

REAGAN, ONE DAY AT A TIME

YOUR EXCERPT from President Reagan’s diaries was magnificent [“Reagan, Unscripted,” by Douglas Brinkley, June]. It read as a history lesson and demonstrated to me—yet again—that Reagan was truly one of our greatest presidents. He knew how to handle a problem and was definitely no wimp when it came to dealing with the troublemakers of the world. He shot straight and treated everyone with honesty and truthfulness. He was a truly devoted husband, and the fact that he had problems with his kids showed me that the problems I had with mine were not unique.

ROBERT HOFAWGER Sterling, Virginia

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY’S retelling of how Bob Hope once asked President Reagan “how it felt to actually be the U.S. president—to sit in the very Oval Office where Abraham Lincoln paced during the Civil War” is based on untruth. First inhabited by William Taft, the Oval Office was not built until 1909.

WARREN SEABURY Sherman Oaks, California

REAGAN’S DIARIES illustrate the charm but essential shallowness of this man and his carefully scripted persona. I was shocked at the entry for September 2, 1983, the day the Soviets shot down a Korean airliner with 53 Americans aboard. He had to leave the ranch three days early and was “heartbroken” about the early departure back to Washington. Heartbreak would have been a much more appropriate sentiment about the American deaths. There is so much myth-building involved in anything written by or about Ronald Reagan, even among historians, that I doubt we will ever know the truth.

KAY SHOUDY Seattle, Washington

CORRECTIONS: The caption accompanying Michael O’Neill’s portrait of Dharma Mittra in the June issue’s “Planet Yoga” unintentionally plagiarized Tanya Lewis’s article “A Glimpse of Dharma Mittra,” published in the April/May 2003 issue of Yoga International and currently on the Web site of Dharma Mittra’s yoga center (dharmayogacenter.com). We regret the error.

On pagp 66 of the June issue (“Magnum Opus,” by David Friend), we misstated where Robert Capa died. He died in Southeast Asia.

On page 122 of the June issue (“If You Knew Sushi,” by Nick Tosches), we misstated the gender of Mr. Sasha Issenberg, the author of The Sushi Economy.

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.

POSTSCRIPT

Among a certain breed of New Yorker, December 7, 2004, is a date that will live in infamy. On that rain-swept day, workers hired by the management of 927 Fifth Avenue— where apartment prices approach $20 million-tore down, for the second time, the nest that a famous red-tailed hawk named Pale Male and his mate, Lola, had built atop a window molding just below roof level. In contrast to the removal of the first nest, in 1993, which drew a letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, this time the building's management did its regulatory homework. But it also seriously underestimated how much New Yorkers’ affection for Pale Male had grown in the 11 years since he’d become the first redtail on record to nest atop a city building.

Within days of the nest's destruction, an increasingly raucous demonstration began outside 927 Fifth. The media flocked to the scene, lured by the building’s famous hawks and residents, among them actress Mary Tyler Moore, who sided with the protesters, and CNN anchor Paula Zahn, who came under extra scrutiny because her husband, Richard Cohen, a real-estate developer and the president of 927 Fifth’s co-op board, had been instrumental in the removal of the nest.

Vanity Fair contributing editor Frank DiGiacomo's July 2005 article, “Ruffled Feathers on Fifth Avenue,” deconstructed the lucreversus-nature brouhaha that landed Cohen in the doghouse and Pale Male and Lola in a restored, architect-designed nest basket and cradle that, according to one building source, cost $250,000 by the time it was attached to the building.

Two and a half years down the road, New York City parks commissioner Adrian Benepe, who took part in the talks that reinstated the hawks at 927 Fifth, says, “There seems to be more peace in the animal kingdom than the human kingdom in that building.” Indeed, while Pale Male and Lola remain a couple—despite their failure to produce any offspring for a third consecutive year-divorce proceedings were initiated between Cohen and Zahn in April, around the time that press reports linked the CNN anchor to married ContiGroup C.E.O. Paul Fribourg. According to an “insider” quoted on the New York Post’s “Page Six,” “Things really started going downhill for Paula and Richard during the Pale Male and Lola incident,” though a friend of the estranged couple’s tells V.F., “That is not the reason [Zahn] sought solace elsewhere.”

If Zahn eventually does put her marriage and 927 Fifth behind her, she may find it hard to shake the specter of Pale Male, at least as long as she’s at CNN. That’s because “Pale Male Jr.,” a younger look-alike that has been identified in the press as Pale Male’s offspring—though paternity has not been established—loves to buzz the Time Warner Center, site of the cable news network’s broadcast center and Zahn’s office.

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