Martyrs and Morons

Regarding Stephen Lemons’ article “The
Devils’ Advocates” [September 5–11]: Has it ever occurred to any of you
stupid morons — and I am referring to the author of this totally one-sided
article, and all the so-called “artists” supporting this cause — that these
three blameless, long-suffering martyrs might actually be guilty of this
horrendous crime? I saw both HBO documentaries, and came away with the sneaking
suspicion that not only were the filmmakers doing their darnedest to implicate
good old-fashioned, down-home folk (read: stupid oafs), but that they had decided
— as has Lemons — from the get-go that it is much more commercially feasible
(and interesting!) to paint the probable perpetrators of this atrocity as a
species of gentle, misunderstood Wiccans, or whatever the fuck. Misskelley’s
confession — as anybody with half a brain who has seen these films would note
— was thoroughly damning. The fact that a person is mentally handicapped does
not necessarily prevent him from telling the truth. As a matter of fact,
it probably helps somewhat — as the clever and conniving Echols might agree.

Let me share a little story with your gullible readers: A friend of mine was
incarcerated for cocaine possession for two years in the hell-slot next to lovable
Tex Watson — surely a standup guy! Good old Tex converted to Christianity and
is always spouting the word of the Lord. (Surely had he been convicted of performing
unlawful C-sections in the current milieu he would have chosen Buddhism — much
more hip, eh?) My friend told me Tex came across as a perfect gentleman — the
only thing is that his breath smelled like shit. I’ll leave it to your enlightened
audience to ponder the implications of such a dilemma.

—Steve Lindeman
Toluca Lake

The Happiest Time Warp on Earth

Considering how well-written the L.A. Weekly usually
is, I was very surprised to see how ancient the details were in the “Keepers
of the Magic Kingdom” story [September 5–11]. Couldn’t the paper have asked
the writer to spend 20 to 22 minutes (the average length of a Disney show) to
update the details?

Why talk about looking at the construction site of a ride
that has been open for several months (Winnie-the-Pooh)? You missed some great
opportunities to talk about the low quality of Winnie-the-Pooh versus [the rides
in] Florida and Japan (any obsessive would tell you about it). Why didn’t the
reporter visit the construction site of Tower of Terror (opening 2004), the
revamp of Space Mountain (not open until 2005) and the Aladdin show (nicely
done) that replaced Blast (great show)?

I understand that you hold stories until there is space.
Next time, update them a little before they hit the street.

—Ryan Balas
West Los Angeles

 

With respect to the story about the folks who visit Disneyland
several times a week: It sounds like most of them have Asperger’s syndrome,
a form of high-functioning autism, characterized by one or more obsessive interests.
Many fit the “absent-minded professor” stereotype. If the public had a greater
awareness of Asperger’s syndrome, it would be easier to understand people who
visit Disneyland daily to ride Indiana Jones, as well as Trekkies and folks
with other obsessions.

—Beth Tiggelaar
Grapevine, Texas

Oh Say, You Can’t See

Yeah! Love the way I now need a MAGNIFYING GLASS to read
Rockie Horoscope! Why not print the whole paper in a microscopic and very delicate
font so I can just INTUIT what might be on the page? The column has the same
amount of space, so why the delicate, unreadable font? And trying to copy and
paste the column from your site is very labor-intensive, since it downloads
in colors that need to be worked over and over to get a plain black-and-white
version.

Always a great idea to take a good thing and make it worse!
May your eyeglass prescription increase tenfold!

—Lorrie Marlow
West Hollywood

Ethnic Mix-up

Regarding Jonny Whiteside’s piece on Johnny Legend [“The
Ghastly World of Johnny Legend,” August 29– September 4]: Ronnie Weiser
is Italian, not German.

—Jon Johnson
Boston, Massachusetts

Great Leap Backward

In reference to Alex Markels’ article about the Earth
Liberation Front [“The Monkey Wrench Guerrillas,”
August 29–September 4], I was a little disturbed by the lighthearted reference
to Mao’s Little Red Book in an organization that takes no responsibility for
the actions of its members.

Did the author realize that Mao may have been an anarchist
as a writer, but he was an authoritarian in government? His anarchic tactics
led to a totalitarian state where his word was gospel, neighbors informed on
one another, society was veiled in suspicion, and the news was strictly censored
— in order to make future rebellions impossible.

To flush out possible enemies, Mao would periodically
relax censorship (e.g., the Hundred Flowers and Democracy Wall) and then impose
it again. This would allow Mao to silence dissent before his catastrophic campaigns
(e.g., the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution). Scapegoats would
be created later to ensure that Mao escaped blame.

Perhaps someone in the press should point this out to
our neo-anarchists — if they don’t know about it, that is.

—Joe Donohue
Groton, Connecticut

Coffee Breakdown

Regarding Christopher Jolly’s article in A Considerable
Town about seeing Al Gore in a Starbucks [“Coffee
Achievers,” August 29–September 4]: Oh, Christopher! What a moment of weakness.
Well, here’s mine. I would have got down on my hands and knees, and begged
Al Gore to save us from this madness! Not that he necessarily could. But being
a girl (and that’s not saying anything either way), it just woulda happened.
It just woulda made better copy. I wish I was there. Oh yeah, I would’ve flipped
the bird to Marlon Brando in his H2 on the way over as well . . .

—Molly McCarron
Los Angeles

Sleuthless

Is Sam Feirstein suffering from visions of omniscience
[“Six Degrees of Sofia,” September 5–11]? Okay, so he runs into a number
of high-octane Hollywood types at Virgin Records and is appalled that they don’t
greet one another . . . in his presence. For all we know, they may have already
made their hellos and howdy-dos long before our sleuth arrived on the job. They
may even have shared a ride or a mocha frappuccino before Columbo happened upon
them. Let’s get it straight, man — all we want to know is what DVDs they were
checking out, and that, boys and girls, was the only bit of information that
we didn’t get. Better to have played the obvious goof and got the story than
to have acted cool and come up empty.

—J.C. Jaress
Altadena

Kick Starter

Thank you so very much for your courage to publish an article [“Turn
On, Meet God, Get Straight,” August 22–28] about a Schedule 1 (no medical
value) plant called iboga that is the only non-opioid that can take away opioid
physical addiction.

I personally stopped cold turkey (with iboga) using a dose of 263 ml a day
of methadone (the clinic starts 20-year heroin junkies off at 30 ml). This is
a miracle cure, and it is simply being suppressed in the media. It should be
on the front page of every paper, but it’s not.

The NIH and FDA cannot suppress this miracle cure for much longer. The word
has been getting out for 30 years now, and other countries have been using it
successfully for years.

—Jason Bursey
Arlington, Texas

Redoubts of Uptight
Political Correctness

Michael Simmons may be too old and myopic to notice,
but universities have come a long way since 1978, when Animal House was
first released [A Considerable
Town, “Old School,” August 29–September 4]. They’re no longer uptight conservative
institutions, but left-wing redoubts of political correctness.

Dean Wormer has been replaced by former Clinton economic adviser Lawrence
Summers, the new president of Harvard. “Double-secret probation” has been supplanted
by “the tunnel of oppression,” a mandatory exercise on many campuses intended
to “sensitize” students to the problems of minorities. Tunnel-goers are cast
as Jews in a Nazi gas chamber, for instance, or else chained to a wall in order
to simulate the experience of slavery.

The contemporary champions of free speech are no longer the campus liberals,
who instead support “speech codes” that bar any dissent from the leftist orthodoxy.
That’s right, the oppressors on campus are no longer uptight conservatives,
but the even more uptight, self-righteous liberals. And the true campus radicals
aren’t the leftists, who dominate every aspect of academia, but conservatives.

Simmons appears to have forgotten that infamous scene where Bluto smashes
the guitar of the one hippie at the party. I sure haven’t. All conservatives
who’ve entered college since the release of Animal House love that film.
Anyone who tried acting like Bluto for one day on a modern campus would be instantly
banished as a misogynistic, violence-prone, alcoholic hate-crime perpetrator
in dire need of counseling.

—Alistair Latour
Los Angeles

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