A parent's remorse: Joanne Green's "Rough Love" (June 22) article was compelling, moving, heart-wrenching excellent reporting.
Green wrote a story that brought me to tears. Over the past six years I have read more than 200 articles on WWASPS. Some are excellent, some are vague, but hers was not only informative it was chilling. The ending totally knocked the wind out of me and moved me to tears.
As a parent who was defrauded by WWASP, I have a daughter who was abused by them I have fought hard to bring the awareness to other parents so they won't make the same mistakes we did.
Thank you for allowing her to be a voice for so many that are silenced. Two thumbs up for Joanne Green!
Sue Scheff
Weston
A call for action: I thought this article by Joanne Green, "Rough Love," is a good start to help educate the public about what is happening there in Treasure Beach, Jamaica. Please take a moment to understand that the kids at Tranquility Bay are just that: kids.
I would like to recommend that you provide a link to ISAC Corporation in future articles, if any. The Website address is www.isaccorp.org. There is a wealth of factually based information about TB and the other WWASPS facilities there. In your article, you mentioned something about the BBC. In fact, the BBC did not release their story in the USA because of a deal they made with WWASPS to "keep it under wraps," so to speak. The same kind of deal exists with the French film. This is a huge story that needs to be told in as many venues as possible. The State Department, Attorney General, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and other agencies refuse to act upon reports, complaints, and overwhelming evidence that serious problems exist at TB and other WWASPS facilities. I hope that you will expand your reporting of this issue as soon as possible.
William Earnshaw Sr.
Midland, Virginia
You get what you ask for: Yeah.... Haulovers is the hot new kick-it spot! That's my initial response to your original hipster spill of a club review ("Rampage: Haul On Over," June 15). According to your review, this club has an incredibly ill black homo night (true!). And a house night on Fridays.... My only question after laughing at how Jamaican cock repulsed you is what were you expecting? At reggae and hip-hop clubs that's how they dance. I'll admit now you did seem to have an extraordinary case of wackass niggaitis.... Which was hilarious, but the cadence of your article seemed to insinuate that you knew that spot was garbage from the moment you agreed to do the article.... Maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe you need to step outside of your realm as a standup comic and write articles on spots that are actually good places to chill. If you need help finding, just ask. Until then, thanks for the comedy.
P.S. Don't shake your ass at clubs to Sean Paul if you're "repulsed at men's bulges" 'cause that's about all you're going to be feeling behind you.... Me and my boys were laughing off of that one. Thanks, Camille.
Roderick Deal
Miami
Latter-Day Saints debate theological history: Francisco Alvarado has done a lot of work and has produced a good "hands-on" description of Mormon missionary work in his story "Sidewalk Salvation" (June 15). Of course it is hard to describe something as new and complex as Mormonism without making any errors, but the only one serious enough to be reported comes from his reliance on a disaffected member from North Carolina who is simply uninformed about attempts to explain the origins of the Book of Mormon, among other things. She relied on the 160-year-old and constantly repeated claim that the Book of Mormon was somehow derived from an unpublished manuscript by Solomon Spaulding. That theory had some surface plausibility until the actual Spaulding manuscript showed up more than one hundred years ago in the University of Hawaii archives in a collection of nineteenth-century papers. Because there is so little resemblance between the two, even the most assiduous anti-Mormons have stopped using that theory. The current status of this debate is that every theory that has been advanced to this point to explain the origins of the Book of Mormon differently than Joseph Smith explained them has proven rather obviously inadequate, and none has garnered general support from even a small percentage of informed anti-Mormons or scholars.
Noel Reynolds
Plantation
The opiate of the masses: While I give Francisco Alvarado credit for digging deep into the hocus-pocus of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the story "Sidewalk Salvation" was about five pages too long.
After all, all he had to say was his topic was about a brand of "organized religion" pick any one and add these words: It's all bullcrap meant to fleece the moronic masses out of their hard-earned money while using scare tactics to keep them from murdering their fellow religious loonies.
I do give the Mormon freaks Alvarado wrote about credit for trying to convert the weakest and poorest among us Haitians from Christianity to Mormonism (Why not the Jews?).
In closing, just this reminder: Jesus was a Jew! Shalom! Oh, and keep the faith to yourself!
Harvey Slavin
Hollywood
A queer sense of entitlement: Regarding Forrest Norman's "Wedding Trasher" (June 15): Like it or not, mainstream Christianity by and large does not approve of homosexuality. Private businesses do have the right to refuse service. Your attempted humiliation of this business owner for exercising his right not to serve them is exhibiting the same kind of intolerance you are editorializing against. While I feel sorry for Misses Waters and Villagra for going through what they went through, they should know that there are many wedding-invitation providers on Miracle Mile, and even some that cater to the gay community. All this has exposed is the petulant insistence that some in the gay community feel that they must be praised or accepted or they'll label people "homophobic." Sometimes life isn't fair. I learned that in the third grade, and I have a feeling Misses Waters and Villagra might need that lesson.
Heather P.
Miami
Oranges and lemons: In reference to "Target Demographic" by The Bitch (June 1): The term Hispanic is an improper language usage, is ignorance, and an insulting adjective to refer to a group of people. Furthermore, they have not been questioned about their opinion on the subject.
The etymology is from the Latin hispanicus, from Hispania, meaning the Iberian Peninsula, better known as Spain. "Hispanola" is the name given by the conquistadors to the island shared by Haiti and Dominican Republic. The name is official to this day.
Sometimes the idea of conspiracy doesn't sound so farfetched. How do Latin American people and Latin American descendents living in the U.S. especially end up being labeled Hispanic as a group? It is a new meaning, an imposed language usage.
To call ourselves Hispanic is to imply that we owe our culture and roots to Spain solely, that we are basically a spur of that country, and that we should name ourselves as such because we owe to Cortez and his herds recognition and gratitude for having done us the favor of "colonizing" our countries and taking us out of our "animalistic" state of being.
Many would probably complain and raise up their voices to say that what they really did was to kill brutalized and oppressed human beings in a most savage way and to destroy in the most brutal manner wonderful cultures and cities of grandiosity they never saw in Europe. That is why many feel offended to be called Hispanic. Marketers take notes.
The terms "Latin countries," "Latin languages," and thus "Latin people" are derived from the common root language: LATIN, the base of French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Haitian languages. Kreyol, by the way, is a full-blown language as well not a patois as most people believe.
Latin is a more appropriate term and we use it because it implies the complexity that makes up our culture, our Latin culture.
How about a poll, New Times? Let's hear what the community has to say.
One good point for the sweet canine: her review of the Andalucian Festival, which was hilarious! But her reporting about Haitian music and art a few weeks ago was a great disservice and an outrage. You will hear about it!
Pavel Claudio Patino
Miami
An incorrect date was provided for the interview with Stephen Brooks in "Local Boy Makes Food" (June 22). It took place June 5.