Letters
From the Far East…
To the editor:
It appears the Bush administration is about to plunge the world into even greater crisis than it now faces. This time, if we go to war for artificial and inflated reasons, the American people cannot say we were not warned. Journalists from a number of newspapers have continued to document this administration’s increasingly confrontational attitude toward Iran, as well as the fact that many of its accusations are not as damning as the White House would have us believe.
The serious matter now, and thus the need for urgency, is the fact that this administration has chosen a strategy in Iraq likely to produce a situation similar to the one that triggered the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, and its accompanying bombing campaign in Lebanon. American soldiers, scattered around Baghdad in platoon-sized and smaller elements, are vulnerable to being overwhelmed and kidnapped, especially if we start breaking in the doors of Shiite militia members.
In Iraq, many Shiites with guns have some tie to the Iranians. We must not be surprised if this administration uses a captured American soldier as a pretext to unleash a bombing campaign against Iran. This administration’s judgment, with respect to this war, has been consistently and dangerously wrong. That same judgment now is being used to set the stage for a military confrontation with Iran.
Over the next few months, this administration, if it chooses, will be able to find an excuse to retaliate militarily against Iran. It has, essentially, engineered a situation designed to create such an excuse. If it does, if American troops get captured in Iraq, and we start bombing targets in Iran, we must recognize it immediately for what it is: a deceitful and cynical waste of American soldiers as an excuse to start a war. We must be willing to help our elected representatives put a stop to it. If it happens, we must not let ourselves be deluded into believing in the good intentions of this administration.
The White House seems to want this war, but if you don’t, go to the McClatchy Newspaper Home Page and read a few of their articles about Iran yourselves. McClatchy reporters, incidentally, have consistently been proven right in their tough-minded reporting about the progress of, and the reasons for, the current war in Iraq. If this war expands to Iran, we have to be willing, in the words of the late Molly Ivins, “to be out in the street banging pots and pans.”
Bob Crabtree
369 North Zhongshan Road
Shanghai, People’s Republic of China
Real estate adjustment
To the editor:
I read Sharman Egan’s article in the recent issue of Lagniappe on the proposed development of the Busby property. We appreciate the coverage.
Unfortunately, you were mistaken on one crucial fact. Your article stated, in part, “The project is scheduled to go before the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) on Feb. 1. Since Cummings heads up the BZA, some neighbors fear the board will rubber stamp the project.”
You are correct that I am currently Chairman of the City of Mobile Board of Zoning Adjustment. However, this development plan, as is the case with all development plans, will be heard by the City of Mobile Planning Commission. The Board of Zoning Adjustment has nothing whatsoever to do with planning and rezoning. When the matter is heard at the Planning Commission, I will have to make a case for approval as all developers do when pursuing a particular development.
We would appreciate a correction in your next available issue. Otherwise, I enjoyed your article, and would love to speak with you again as things progress.
J. Reid Cummings, CCIM, CSM
America South Realty, LLC
Mobile
No bitter grapes
To the editor:
Let me start by extending kudos for a publication that has amused, entertained, informed and only occasionally exasperated both my wife and me since its inception. We look forward with much anticipation to each issue. For my part, I would deny a Lagniappe addiction, but as is the case with our evening glass (or two) of red, your bi-weekly certainly qualifies as both pleasurable and habit forming.
There have been several instances over the course of our readership when we vowed separately or jointly to bend the collective ears of the Lagniappe staff for transgressions real or imagined. In general, we often find the writing, while creative, to err on the side of subjectivity and circumlocution … perhaps an overindulgence in the intoxicating power of editorial and artistic license.
None of that detracts, however, from our overall enjoyment. Unlike radio or TV where audiovisual stimulus compels attention, with Lagniappe we can tune out somewhere in the middle of the third ‘graph if this issue’s subject is too over the top for even our liberalized sensibilities.
However, (and just in case you didn’t tune out during my third ‘graph), we have both reached the end of our rope with Matt Devan, the self-proclaimed “Wine Guy.” I certainly hope you aren’t paying him for the “efforts” he puts into his column.
In the world of wine, it is cliché to be a wine snob (cork dork). Many of his previous columns assumed that his readers were practically Parkeresque in their knowledge of appellations and vintages. He intersperses whinier-than-thou (sic) interludes with nauseatingly overdone analogies. When he actually still lived in the same area as his readership, he never once (to my knowledge) touted any of the wine emporiums on the western side of Mobile Bay, sticking almost exclusively to Baldwin County wine stores and distributors.
He also seems to positively revel in vignettes of drunken excess, including but not limited to drinking to point of either insensibility or glorifying his latest ride on the porcelain bus.
His latest “effort” includes a slam at beer drinkers (I’m sure the new proprietors at the latest incarnation of the LoDa brew pub just loved that one). He goes on to mention that it “seems to be as tasteless coming up as it is going down.” I could go on, but taken as a whole, the entire column does absolutely NOTHING to entertain or inform what one would assume might be the target audience for a wine column.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Mobile is not Boston or San Fran. Culturally, we are making inroads, but we are hoeing a slow row. When WWF fills the Civic Center on the same night the Eroica Trio draws 150 at the Saenger … when most of the movers and shakers in town annually tithe to marching societies that throw junk in the gutters … we have a way to go before we can call ourselves a cultural Mecca (or even begin to develop our own cultural identity).
That doesn’t mean it ain’t a fight worth fighting, though. That is what I admire most about the spunk and the originality and the in-your-face we’re-here-to-stay-Mobile attitude of Lagniappe.
Bur for heaven’s sake, let’s do it with a little more class than a whine guy who wouldn’t be out of place on the Howard Stern show. If y’all take the WSJ, take a gander at the writing (and, perhaps more importantly, the underlying philosophy) behind Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher’s delightful “Tastings” column in the Weekend Journal section.
In a newspaper geared to the moneyed, they nonetheless know that the price point for most people for their nightly tipple is closer to $10-$15 price point than the $30-$100 bottles of wine that Devan routinely pushed.
They take time each year to reintroduce old concepts to new wine drinkers. They educate, not pontificate. They celebrate, not desecrate. They converse, not lecture … and they let their love of life inform their love of wine. Their overriding philosophy is always “it’s less the wine and more the occasion.”
There is so much a wine column in Lagniappe COULD do. There are many people drinking Riunite and “White Zin” who really want to move on to something with a little more substance but without breaking the bank. We could do interviews with distributors and the little gals and guys who run wine stores right here in Mobile and know wine and what’s available and will cheerfully point you to great bottles at any price point. We could start a Lagniappe Lappers club where readers could share their experiences and discoveries. We could inform about changing laws in wine buying and importation. We could tune the columns to the year … summer wines, holiday wines, wine/food pairings. Pun intentional … the ideas are bubbling.
I obviously don’t know the relationships forged and formed on the Lagniappe staff. Maybe Matt kept you all in tipple (hopefully not Ripple) and you owe him allegiance. But as a nightly wine drinker and an avid reader and a former journalist, my most fervent wish for your staff in this new year is that you find a replacement for Matt Devan worthy of Lagniappe.
Chris LaSonde
Different take on downtown Fairhope
To the Editor:
As a resident of Fairhope who lives without a car, the health and vitality of downtown Fairhope is very important to me. I suspect that Pete Gleszer, who wrote the recent cover story on Fairhope, has a very different idea from mine about what that downtown should be.
When I moved to Fairhope 12 years ago, downtown Fairhope had many unglamorous but useful businesses that served local residents rather than tourists: a department store, two dry cleaners, a shoe repair shop, a laundromat, and a fish market, for example. All of them are gone now, most replaced by gift shops, upscale ladies’ dress shops, or antique shops.
I’m not suggesting that Fairhope isn’t a tourist town, but if, as Bob Gentle is quoted as saying in the article, downtown is for citizens and not just tourists, there must be businesses that residents find useful. Mr. Gleszer gives as an example of “a downward trend – the decline of downtown Fairhope” the fact that the avant-garde gallery on the corner of Section and Fairhope Avenue has been replaced by a mailing and printing shop. I never spent a dime at the gallery, but I’ve had occasion to use the mailing and printing shop on several occasions.
It’s not as pretty as the gallery was, but when it comes to a truly vital downtown, maybe beauty is only skin deep.
Hilary E. Martin
Fairhope
Say it ain’t so, Boozie
To the editor:
I was surprised to see that “Boozie Beer Nues” choose to describe the Osiris Ball as “fag-ulous.” The ball was indeed fabulous, so I would assume she thought she was being cute. She was not, fag is a hateful word and it has no place in any newspaper. It is a shame that even though she was not able to figure this out, the editor of your newspaper also thought that it was fine for publication.
If a writer in your paper has thought they would use a racial slur in a “clever” way there is not a chance it would have been printed. It is known that some words promote hate, fag is clearly one of them. I wonder how many times gay men have heard the word fag yelled at them as they were beaten? I wonder how many gay men were murdered, and fag was the last word that they heard? Your casual use of that word only helps establish it as acceptable.
Ms.Beer-News certainly needs to write an apology in your paper, and not it her normal sarcastic style of writing. She needs to write a sincere apology as a journalist. Any less would show her to be a shallow and ignorant woman.
If your paper does not print an apology, perhaps you should change your slogan from “Keep Mobile Funky” to “Keep Mobile Backward.”
Stanley Buhite
Fairhope
Ms. Boozie Beer Nues
a.k.a. Ms. Susie Spear Cloos
Dear Ms. Cloos,
I have just read your column in the 31 January 2007 issue of Lagniappe. In this piece you reviewed, or at least attempted to review, the ball of the Order of Osiris. The attempt was a total failure and a public offense to Lagniappe readers.
It was the most vitriolic and petty piece of pseudo journalism it has ever been my misfortune to read. How can you possibly report on an event you haven’t even attended? Furthermore, your usage of the word “faggot,” or derivation thereof, is the most hate-filled message I have seen in a long time.
For someone who purports to be an arbiter of social usages you seem woefully ignorant of the horrible repercussions of the use of the word. People have been killed because they have been labeled with it. Is this what you are teaching your twin daughters to think is proper behavior? If it is, Mobile Society should and will turn its back on you.
This sort of reportage is disgusting. Lagniappe is supposed to be an alternative to stereotypical Mobile thought. This piece was the most stereotypical prejudice filled article imaginable. For years people in this city have worked tirelessly to peacefully erase all forms of discrimination. Now with the stroke a key you have thoughtlessly dismissed the success of their efforts.
How dare you and Lagniappe do this to Mobile. If this type of journalistic style is destined to become the norm in you publication, I believe you will soon find yourselves without corporate sponsorship or readers.
C. J. Torrey
Fairhope
Editor’s note: Boozie certainly meant no offense, but clearly a few folks were offended. Please see this issue’s Mobile Magnified column for Boozie’s explanation and apology. Also, please note that Boozie and Susie aren’t related. Boozie loves children, but wouldn’t know the first thing about raising twins.
Wrong! Do punish the parents
To the editor:
I believe Rob Holbert’s opinion about the new truancy law in Bayou La Batre is mistaken (Damn the Torpedoes, Jan. 31 – Feb. 13). If any problem exists with this law, it’s that it does not go far enough.
Most of the year, I live in Baltimore, where both the truancy and crime problems are far worse than here in Mobile. I have the misfortune to live along the most popular walking-to-school route for the local high school. On any given morning that I am watching, I’ll see quite a number of students strolling back towards home between 9 and 10:30 in the morning. Some days, they number in the dozens. Apparently they report for homeroom and their first period class, then bug out for the day. With no parents at home, it then becomes party time.
This happens because there are no consequences for a kid who cuts school, even those who do it habitually. One of my neighbors’ daughters missed 50 days in one semester, and was still promoted to the next grade. My granddaughter missed more than 30 days of school during her senior year, and still finished in the top 10 percent of her class.
Once or twice, we called the police to break up a party next door, in the middle of a school day. They ejected five or six teens from the house, and simply let them go on about their business, which undoubtedly meant continuing the party at someone else’s house. The high school has a computer system that calls the telephone number of the parent on the student’s record each time the kid has been absent or late. But the students have learned to circumvent this, either by giving out a phony number, or simply by intercepting the call, which comes at a fairly predictable time in the evening.
This is an example of how bad things can become if they are let go, and I pray that Bayou La Batre has not yet reached that point.
Parents have largely gutted the school system’s authority over their offspring. Children get away with truancy and aggressive behavior because these acts carry no immediate consequences. The schools have systematically been deprived the power to punish these actions, primarily from fear of legal reprisals by parents. So by holding the parents legally responsible, there’s a better chance that the parents will invent some consequences for their children that will matter to the kids.
It’s a messy solution, but I challenge anyone to propose a better one, given the current generation of parents and children. For example, it would be interesting to require community service, with the miscreant kids and their parents working on it together. But in households where both parents are present, often both are working, ostensibly with the idea of providing “The Good Life” for their children.
If you offered such parents the choice of community service or paying a fine, they’d pay up. Just part of the cost of doing business. In our RV travels around the country, we have seen quite a few instances where parents decided to yank the kids out of school a week early to get a jump start on summer vacation, or to have them report a week late for the same reason. In the bigger cities, it has become a problem convincing parents to get their children innoculated against the most common diseases. The Baltimore school system sent home 6,000 students earlier this year because of that problem. Too many of the current generation of parents have turned over the raising of the children to outsiders, starting as early as possible after their birth, and we are now seeing the results of the second or perhaps third generation of such hands-off parenting.
Those parents who see raising their offspring as their primary responsibility in life should not be adversely affected by this law. As for the others, the choice is theirs.
Stan Modjesky
...temporarily in Mobile, based in Gwynn Oak, MD.
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