Some Catch

I enjoyed your editorial in JCK‘s August issue (“Fashionably Late,” p. 128), but I must question your use of the phrase “Catch-22.” From what I recall of the novel, Yossarian told the doctor that he needed to get out of the airforce, and he asked the doctor how he could do that. The doctor replied that if he was crazy he could get out, because who wants a crazy pilot? But Yossarian would have to inform the doctor that he was crazy, and if he did that the doctor would have to conclude that Yossarian was sane because only a crazy man would want to pilot those planes in war. And so on. The doctor says, “I call that Catch-22.” Yossarian says, “That’s some catch, that Catch-22.”

But the purchasing practices of retailers and wholesalers are different. They make a choice (to keep inventories low) with the possibility of the negative consequence that they may not be able to fill every order in peak periods. These are choices that could turn out to be the wrong ones depending on factors beyond our control.

That’s called “life.”

Peter Elliffe
Crystal World, South Hackensack, N.J.

Religion Not Germane

I object to the writing in a news item in the August 2003 issue of JCK.

In the section titled “Investigations, Arrests Rock 47th Street” (Up Front, p. 24), a reference is made to the religion of several New Yorkers who were recently charged with laundering money for Colombian drug dealers. The religion of the accused money launderers is not germane to the story.

Linda Scanlon