Dear Garrison:

Heard some of your comments yesterday afternoon on the radio about last Sunday, being Pentecost. Surely Pastor Liz did not say what you said she did regarding Pentecost??! Pentecost is not the event in which Jesus, risen from the grave, breathed on his followers! Pentecost (a Jewish feast day) during the year after Jesus was crucified, was the day in which the Holy Spirit, visible only as flames of fire over the heads of Jesus' followers,and felt as a "mighty wind", descended to earth to stay, as the power animating and endowing the church. It was actually the birth of the Christian church. Pentecost was not about the teaching of forgiveness, but about the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church.

Better get back to Pastor Liz about this.
Best Wishes,
Canon Cheryl J. Bower

My dear Canon, the Gospel text for Sunday June 12 was John 20 where Jesus gives his disciples the power to forgive sins, and though Pastor Liz touched on Pentecost and the descent of the Holy Spirit, she found it more pertinent, what with the flood of righteous comment on Congressman Weiner, to emphasize the Gospel text, and if she commingled the two in a confusing way, then she begs to be forgiven.

Suddenly one night last week there was a tidal wave of emails urging us to cancel the June 4 broadcast in Flagstaff in line with a boycott of Arizona ---- I hadn't been aware of any boycott, but evidently there is one ----  by people opposed to the new state law authorizing state troopers to stop the cars of people who appear to be Mexican and asking to see their papers.
 
The suddenness of the onslaught of mail (from people who were "shocked" or "horrified" or "outraged" by the idea of "A Prairie Home Companion" going to Flagstaff) suggested an organized campaign and many of the letters seemed to have been copied from a form. None of them tried to argue that our cancellation would actually affect real people in some positive way; mostly they were just plain angry righteous letters.
 
I questioned our decision to do a show in Flagstaff months ago, the day after Congresswoman Giffords was shot in the parking lot in Tucson and I spoke to our friends in public radio in Flagstaff and, while they completely understood my concern, they argued that Flagstaff is a hotbed of moderation, a college town, a very different place. Cancellation of the show would hurt the Flagstaff station financially. It would be a slap in the face. And I think that now is no time for public radio to retreat in the face of extremism. And the Flagstaff station is a loyal friend. So we're going to go.
 
The law in question strikes me as reminiscent of the old East Germany, but at the moment it is making its way through the courts and isn't affecting anybody.
 
I did plenty of boycotts back in the day ----- boycotted green grapes, non-union-made clothing, refused to buy a Volkswagen because it was after all a car sponsored by Hitler ----- and I don't mind people urging me to boycott whatever they think needs boycotting, but the bullying tone of the mail we got last week is something I resent deep in my Midwestern soul.
 
Instead of boycotting Flagstaff, I am going to protest California's inhumane overcrowding of prisons ----- 140,000 inmates in prisons designed to hold 80,000 ----- by boycotting California wines. (I don't drink, but it's the gesture that counts.) I am going to punish Wisconsin for its denial of collective bargaining for teachers by boycotting Harley Davidson. No hog for me. I am going to teach the Japanese a lesson about nuclear power plant safety by avoiding sushi. And show the French how I feel about sexual assault of hotel employees by refusing escargots. Call me a wild-eyed idealist but those are my positions and I am sticking to them. You can make your own decisions. But if I run into a guy on a Harley eating an escargot sushi while drinking a Napa Chardonnay, I am going to give him what for.

Dear Mr. Keillor,

Yesterday, Saturday 5/21/11, I happened to ride the subway from the West Side of Manhattan, the C train, downtown, at about 2pm. You and your wife stepped into my car at one stop, and I was thrilled to recognize you. A little later, before 59th St., by chance you actually sat down beside me. I thought to say Hello, but then thought better of it. You seemed so calm and thoughtful.

I sensed that few if any passengers recognized you. Did you get that sense -- of being somewhat anonymous in the Big City?

Tom Lewinson

That was us, Tom, rushing to make the curtain at the Stephen Sondheim Theater on West 43rd to see the 2 p.m. "Anything Goes" matinee and we did make it. Two seats in the back row of the orchestra and the show is terrific, Sutton Foster and Colin Donnell are great and Joel Grey, and two big tapdance routines, and at the end the audience stands up and whoops and yells. As for the subway, it's how we get around, of course, and I just never think about anonymity. Not an issue for a radio guy. Ever so often in New York, some young beautiful woman with a stern street face suddenly smiles at me on the street, violating the rule for young beautiful women, and that is shocking, and then I think, "Ah, there are benefits in this line of work."