The Undersigned

As a child I was delighted by open letters in support or (more typically) decry* of cultural/political this or political/cultural that. I read them most often in the Week in Review section of the Sunday New York Times. I imagine they find there way into print there still, but my weeks have gone unreviewed for many years now so I cant say for sure. Yesterday Andrew Sullivan linked one such letter he had recently added his name to. Upon reading it, and the lengthy list of co-signers, I felt some of the old thrill. I didn't know anything of the controversy it addressed until that very moment, but it seemed a reasonable enough complaint. More reasonable certainly than my own anger at never having been asked to sign it, or anything like it. The roster of co-complainants lacks the star-power of some of the standby names of my youth, there's not a Norman Mailer or Shelley Winters among them. I have to think the entire, barely luminous enterprise would not have been dragged down even one lousy micro-watt by the inclusion of:

A. Bender, open letter signatory, West Philadelphia/South Philadelphia

Have it your way, think-tank bitches and tenured stem-winders. I liked these names and ID's though:


Jiri Barta, Nadace Via
Nelly Bekus, writer
Alain Deletroz, International Crisis Group
Timothy Garton Ash, University of Oxford
Shpend Imeri, Association for Democratic Initiatives, Gostavar, Macedonia
Peter Jukes, author and screenwriter, London
Charles D. Klein, private investor
Ivan Krastev, Center for Liberal Strategies, Sofia
Teresa Leger de Fernandez, Nordhaus Law Firm, Santa Fe
Susan Neiman, Einstein Forum, Potsdam
Edward Orloff, The Wylie Agency
Jacqueline Rose, Queen Mary University of London
Domenico Scarpa, Universita degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale"

Mad love, envy and respect to Mr. John Leone and Ms. Patricia Schramm for letting their names stand alone, with no institutional or occupational apposition. Though I bet each one was a little pisssed the other had stolen their silent thunder.

*No, not a mistake, an innovation, or maybe a mistaken innovation. Usually I let my reformats of the language stand and fall on their own, but this one reads so strangely to some, and I like it so much, that I have to note it. I almost went with decrial, but why make up a new word when there's a perfectly good old word waiting for a new role in the grammar.