Letters to the Editor - August 03 2005

Letters to the Editor

Come on, ride the train

Thanks very much for your piece in this week’s CL about commuter rail (Humbug Square, “The great train robbery,” July 28). We need to keep the subject in front of everybody and continue to expose the misinformation and lack of vision.

-- Steve Vogel

president, Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers

Refreshing perspective

Your recent review in CL was great (Arts, “Something weird grows in Brooklyn,” July 28). It’s rather refreshing to see such innovative work being brought to Atlanta. I was also extremely impressed with the presentation at Romo Gallery and glad to finally see something fresh in the Atlanta art scene.

-- Thomas Vanderbilt, Atlanta

Hit home

I am a recovering meth addict. I will have one year and six months [clean] on the second of August. I will be 31 years old at the end of August. I was an IV drug abuser and had to hit a lot of deep bottoms before it was time to surrender. I am actively involved in NA.

I wanted to thank you for painting a realistic picture of what meth addiction really is and how devastating it is (“Faces of meth,” July 21). Education is the only way people will understand how horrible it is to be addicted to this particular substance, though I see no clear lines in substance separation — addiction is addiction.

-- Roger Coker, Marietta

Thank you so much for the report on meth. You did a wonderful job with it. I too am in recovery and this drug is such a problem here in Atlanta. I am literally shaking after reading this because you hit home with this very accurate and compassionate report.

-- Zachary Juno, Atlanta

What’s everyone talking about?

Thanks for your honest review of Me and You and Everyone We Know (Flicks, “It’s a small world after all,” July 21). I saw the film last month as part of the Atlanta Film Festival and my response was, “What’s the big deal?” and “Why did I bother paying $10 for the film plus parking downtown for the screening?”

-- Jen Bain, Avondale Estates

What a summary

Well, your anti-Wal-Mart rant just fell seamlessly in lock-step with all the usual anti-capitalist key points common with the armchair, little guy defenders (Humbug Square, “Welfare queen from Arkansas,” July 21). Perhaps it hadn’t occurred to you that what was previously a pristine lot in Acworth is now going to be home to about a hundred more jobs (gasp! and more overseas). Wal-Mart is a place to buy clothes, furniture and home items, groceries (sometimes), and more. Which wonderful mom-and-pop stores, that you would presumably shop at, in Acworth, are going to be so ruthlessly driven into the ground by this?

And you say a job at Wal-Mart will entitle me to family health care coverage for $155 a month? For low-skilled labor? Sign me up! Instead, you expect that evil corporation to foot that bill to save us stingy tax loathers from greedy PeachCare moms, who might have used that money for their cell phone bill or beer (No! No! It’s for organic produce!). It’s just all “junk we didn’t need in the first place” that they sell, and you would rather take that choice away from the everyday people who choose to shop there.

Then you just knock it home by explaining, ever-so-logically, how Wal-Mart is somehow responsible for leading us into a peak-oil crisis and nuclear war with China, all with Bush’s help (had to tie him in!), of course. You just really summed it all up for us in two pages there, Doug.

-- John Simmons, Atlanta

Get her offa me!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for saving me from a psychotic episode at the new IKEA (Moodswing, “Crowd control,” July 14). I can only shudder at the thought of my poor boyfriend having to pull me off some crowd controller telling me which way I had to go.

-- Jenn Talarski, Smyrna

Opposite view

I enjoyed your review of Pretty Things (Flicks, “Pretty is as pretty does,” July 14). I expected to feel the way you did before I watched Pretty Things. I knew that the filmmaker had featured her own journey throughout the film, before I saw it, and expected that it would annoy me.

Upon seeing the film, I did not see her inclusion of herself as self-indulgent as much as I thought that she simply documented her own physical exploration of and fascination with her subject matter. If you think she glorified herself, you might want to watch it again.

It was quite the opposite. By contrast, she illustrated just how much burlesque is truly an art form. Without the juxtaposition of the filmmaker stumbling through her own process, the viewer may not fully appreciate the depth of skill and technique that was required to be successful as a burlesque dancer. If the filmmaker had been an accomplished dancer and shredded every scene with her performance, then I would agree with you, but I don’t think that was the case nor her intention.

I also wonder if calling someone self-indulgent — or in your words “showboating” — when they include themselves in a documentary that is not specifically about them, is not a bit of a knee-jerk, pat, reaction? Is it not acceptable to document oneself ever? I ask this because it was my belief before I saw the doc, but I came away feeling I was wrong in this case. I also think there was a sense of humor to her inclusion of herself and her performance at the end that seems to be overlooked in your review.

-- Jeff Snyder, Los Angeles, Calif.