Example: Andres Vera Martinez

What ran with the Wiffle Ball article! It's more of a "Field of Dreams" feel.

Andres Vera Martinez is a recent SVA grad. I first saw his work at the end of 3rd year and was ASTOUNDED by the leaps and bounds he had made by graduation. As you guys enter your last year, really crank out the work, start thinking about where you'd like to end up (editorial? books? other?), and keep your end goals in mind while shaping your portfolio.

Letters: Pope Pill

Yours Truly did a Letters Page illustration yesterday. It's about the Catholic Church and the Pill:



I actually wanted to do something more like this one (below), but we ran into some problems depicting a crucifix. That may work with some clients, but the Times is very conscious about offending people, so it didn't fly. I had about an hour to do the sketches, and another hour to do the final.

Letters: Wiffle Ball

Hey, Grown-Ups, Let the Kids Play Wiffle Ball!

[These letters reference a story about a group of kids in Connecticut who built an elaborate Wiffle Ball field in their suburb. The neighbours didn't appreciate it and had the city dismantle it.]

To the Editor:


Re “Build a Wiffle Ball Field in Greenwich, and Lawyers Will Come” (Our Towns column, front page, July 10):

“We did it on our own,” 16-year-old Vincent Provenzano says in Peter Applebome’s column about a bunch of kids who caused controversy when they built an unauthorized version of Fenway Park in a vacant lot in Greenwich, Conn. “Maybe people think that’s unusual.”

It is, in fact, alarmingly unusual. Studies show that time for unprogrammed free play outdoors has declined in recent years. And many of us are asking how the next generation will have the imagination and initiative to solve the social and environmental problems they will face without such childhood play.

Don’t dismantle that Wiffle ball field. Instead, make time and space for unadulterated play in every neighborhood.

Edward Miller

Wellfleet, Mass., July 10, 2008

The writer is a founding member of the New York Coalition for Play and a director of Alliance for Childhood.

•

To the Editor:

As a teacher of college undergraduates — and as someone who grew up playing ball in every open space and against every blank wall in my Westchester County hometown — I was more than a little cranky after reading Peter Applebome’s column.

Parents: Forget about improving SAT scores. Please give me more students who are imaginative and energetic enough to take this kind of initiative.

It is great for kids to “color outside the lines.” That is where intellectual, commercial and artistic innovation originates. These kids should be encouraged by being left alone.

Isn’t there something wrong with a society that automatically invokes the phrase “too good to be true”? Are we that pessimistic about our lot in the world? These kids have a different perspective, one we should emulate.

Allen S. Miller

Charlottesville, Va., July 10, 2008

•

To the Editor:

In addition to having lost our collective minds about kids having fun on their own, we have also forgotten our collective responsibility to society, which includes kids.

Do we, the village that is raising these kids, want them to go inside and play Grand Theft Auto (rated M, for mature, which means that content may include “intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language”) so we can have peace and quiet when we get home from work?

Or do we want these kids outside where we can observe them engaging in play that is creative, collaborative, physical and free? Christine Hall

Stamford, Conn., July 10, 2008

•

To the Editor:

I support the Greenwich, Conn., teenagers who built the Wiffle ball field. Let them play! I’m just a few months removed from college, and already I miss those lazy summer afternoons playing sports outside. How wholesome are those memories!

Perhaps property value in this Greenwich neighborhood will decline, but in this present market, I doubt anyone is buying. And even if the field is a drainage pit, grass is everlasting and will always grow back. But these kids have only so much childhood left, and soon all they’ll have are memories.

Let them remember their field of dreams, thwacking pitches and running bases. Believe me, it’s much more fulfilling than killing aliens on Halo.

Timothy R. Smith

Alexandria, Va., July 10, 2008

•

To the Editor:

In Greenwich, Conn., a town known for its teardowns and mini-mansions, I would think residents would prefer the sounds of kids playing Wiffle ball over the sound of jackhammers and construction crews. Susan Gilbert

Exeter, N.H., July 10, 2008

•

To the Editor:

To paraphrase a saying, a kid’s right to swing his Wiffle ball bat ends where the other guy’s Nice Overpriced Suburban Escape begins. Michael A. Salinger

Newton, Mass., July 10, 2008

Letters: Drugs

Failures in the Fight Against Drugs

To the Editor:
“Not Winning the War on Drugs,” your July 2 editorial about the importance of treating drug addicts and recognizing that drug abuse is a public health problem and not just a criminal problem, is on the mark.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University has done analyses of the nation’s prison population that show that 80 percent of felony inmates and juvenile arrestees either committed their crime while high on alcohol or drugs, stole money to buy drugs, have a history of drug and/or alcohol abuse and addiction, violated the alcohol or drug laws, or share some combination of those characteristics.

The reports of our analyses demonstrate that if all inmates and arrestees who need treatment received it and the success rate were only 10 percent, the cost of treatment would be recouped in a year, and thereafter the economic benefits in productivity, taxes and reduction in criminal activity would approach $10 billion a year.

Moreover, we would experience a dramatic reduction in crime since experts estimate that an addict averages between 89 and 191 crimes a year.

Joseph A. Califano Jr.

New York, July 2, 2008

The writer is chairman and president, National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

•

To the Editor:

It is time to recognize that the war on drugs is simply not winnable. Prohibition didn’t stop people from consuming alcohol, and the war on drugs will never stop them from using drugs.

Until our policy makers come to grips with that reality, we will continue to suffer from a drug policy that creates a vicious black market economy and wastes billions of dollars on futile interdiction efforts.

Jerry Wallingford

San Diego, July 2, 2008

•

To the Editor:

Your editorial, while accurate, misses the overarching point. Prohibition failed in the past, and it is not working now. The scarce tax dollars currently being wasted by the White House on quixotic interdiction adventures pale in comparison to the decades of tax revenues we haven’t been collecting because of prohibition.

These funds could help pay for honest drug education, free drug treatment on demand and better health care — all things we need right now.

Instead of flawed government hype, we need policy alternatives to the drug war that uphold the sovereignty of individuals over their minds and bodies and are grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.

Anthony Papa

Communications Specialist

Drug Policy Alliance

New York, July 2, 2008

•

To the Editor:

Your editorial includes powerful information on the futility of the United States war on drugs but then makes the fatuous recommendation that the next administration should provide funds to reform Mexico’s judicial system — a process that is already under way.

Mexico faces a killing spree affecting thousands of innocent people that is financed by American money going to the drug cartels that fight for dominance of the lucrative United States market for illegal drugs. The earnings from this trade amount to at least $15 billion a year — enough to buy arms to outgun the Mexican police and bribe underpaid security officials.

We can’t buy our way out of this culpability with a few hundred million dollars of aid and irrelevant advice. The remedies lie on our side of the border. We need to curb demand by treating our addicts and by decriminalizing drug use, reduce the street price of drugs and thus the gains of the drug lords.

Sidney Weintraub

Washington, July 2, 2008

The writer is an economist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

•

To the Editor:

Your editorial made an important point about the need for more effort to reduce the demand for drugs.

The United States should devote more resources to preventing and treating substance abuse and dependence. But these resources should be allocated based on need.

Alcohol is the drug of choice for the overwhelming majority of people suffering from a substance use disorder. According to the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, nearly 16 million Americans were dependent on or abusing alcohol. That’s five times greater than the number of people who were dependent on or abusing illicit drugs and almost 15 times greater than the number of people dependent on or abusing cocaine.

Rather than spend billions of dollars on foreign intrigues and high-profile cocaine seizures, the next administration should do more to address the greatest source of drug-related problems in the United States: alcohol.

David R. Anderson

Washington, July 3, 2008

The writer is communications director and senior research scientist in the department of health policy, George Washington University Medical Center.

Letters: Global Obama

To the Editor:

Re “Obama on the Nile” (column, June 11):

When Thomas L. Friedman reveals that “many Egyptians and other Arab Muslims really like” Barack Obama and “hope that he wins the presidency,” he knows that such endorsements will hurt the presumptive Democratic nominee’s chances among some voters.

On the other hand, the connecting link between Main Street and the Arab street would, in all probability, be perceived as a positive sign among change-oriented voters.

Intent on sowing the seeds of reconciliation, Mr. Obama has said that one of his first official acts as president would be to address the United Nations and declare, “America is back.”

When this country’s first African-American president utters such words of promise, it is not hard to imagine the instantaneous eruption of cheers and the standing ovation around the world.

If this should come to pass, our capacity for reinvention and self-correction will reclaim the idea that this is indeed a “country of new beginnings,” poised to lead by example.

Barbara Allen Kenney
Atlanta, June 12, 2008

•

To the Editor:

I read Thomas L. Friedman’s column while sitting in the lobby of my hotel in Dakar, Senegal. The wireless network is in and out, and because of rolling power outages, the hotel has power only because of its generator. In recent months there have been rice riots here, and in the past few days a major gas shortage.

Nonetheless, the excitement about Barack Obama is palpable. For Senegalese, though they are largely Muslim, Mr. Obama is exciting as a black candidate with an African heritage.

The idea that a black man could become president of the most powerful country in the world has sent a wave of optimism throughout the city.

I couldn’t agree more that his nomination has lifted the image of the United States abroad. It has offered many Senegalese a welcome distraction from grinding poverty.

Ellen E. Foley
Dakar, Senegal, June 11, 2008

The writer is an assistant professor of international development and social change at Clark University.

•

To the Editor:

After spending two weeks in Iran recently, I can say that Thomas L. Friedman’s observations about Barack Obama’s popularity in Egypt also apply to the Iranians.

I would note that at least some of that affection is because Mr. Obama is seen as more of an antidote to the current oppressive regime in Iran than the Bush administration’s eight years of rhetoric. I suppose the desire for change is universal.

Ramin Abrishamian
Needham, Mass., June 11, 2008

Example: Letters

Hi,

I found his prehistoric Letters page illustration and thought you guys might find it interesting. It's about balancing motherhood and working life. Notice the level of detail (these are spots, like we spoke about in class).

I haven't gotten any feedback regarding a schedule. Let's try to post sketches by Wednesday and/or a final by Friday.

-J

Letters: Barefoot in the Park

Hey guys, 

So it looks like we're accumulating people! Excellent. Feel free to pass this on to your fellow Seniors if you think they'd enjoy it.

I was going to post this on Monday, but what the hoo. Here's the first mini-project. 

We'll start off easy. The Op-Ed page also runs small illustrations to accompany the Letters to the Editor. We'll say the final art is 2x2.5 inches (width x height, always), b&w, which is the typical size for that slot.

Here are the letters, in response to this article about the potential harm of walking barefoot in NYC parks:

Go Ahead, Go Barefoot. The Grass Is Fine.
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To the Editor:

Re “Barefoot in the Park? Watch Your Step” (news article, May 26):

For those who cannot abide the thought of venturing off their blankets, lest they be consumed by armies of bacteria, fungi and viruses: good luck in your quest for sterility. The air and soil around us are teeming with microorganisms, and guess what? You are a mammal! And not a particularly clean one at that.

Get over your quest for sterility, and dip your toe into that little bitty patch of dirt. It’s O.K. Really. And you know, it actually feels good. Much better than shoes and socks on concrete. Trust me, I’m a doctor.

Douglas Binder
Albuquerque, May 27, 2008
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To the Editor:

I was saddened by your article about the hidden dangers of walking barefoot on the grass. I don’t need an expert to tell me there are bacteria or parasites “lurking” in the grass, and as a graduate in biochemistry I am not scared by their names and worst-case consequences. I am, however, disturbed by a parasite named fear continually feeding on the nation.

In Britain, where I’m from, the well-being of children is rated among the lowest in Europe. The Children’s Society believes that this is because the climate of fear and confusion that now surrounds children and young people can lead to mental health problems. As part of a report to improve the lives of children, it is asking people to reflect on happy memories from the first few years of their lives. Running around barefoot ought to be one.

Sarah Gordon
Washington, May 28, 2008
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Read my comment in the last post re: sketches. What do you guys think is best in terms of posting schedule?

Post your work as a new blog entry (to those of you new to blogger, it should be pretty easy to use but let me know if you need any help).

-J