Letters from the Issue of December 14, 2006

Anyway, You Have Some Nerve

My boyfriend is on his way over: I read Brandon K. Thorp’s stage review “Road to Self-Satisfaction” (December 7), and I must say it sounds like it was written by a guy who could barely graduate from a community college. I cannot believe you have someone who has such a lack of command for the English language to work for your paper. Starting a paragraph with “Anyway” — who is editing this stuff? You’re not writing a letter to your boyfriend. Be more professional next time you decide to write a review.

Danny Gates

Margate

Roll What?

These guys got it: I loved Julienne Gage’s article “Surf, Reggae, Roll” (November 30). These are wonderful and honest musicians.

Gervasio Goris

Miami

Monster Talk

Pets breathe: I applaud Jean Carey for her recent “Creating Monsters” (November 30) piece about the horrendously irresponsible article by Joann Biondi that appears in the laughable Ocean Drive offshoot magazine Florida InsideOut.

It is absolutely appalling with the state of affairs regarding unwanted and abandoned animals that once again the frothy, meaningless Ocean Drive organization would publish an article in one of its zillion publications imploring its shallow, dim-witted readers to spend thousands of dollars on mutts, just because said magazine deems it cool and hip.

Jean Carey’s story was one of the most intelligent pieces of writing I have ever read. As an avid animal lover and advocate, I am beyond outraged at the smug and cold ignorance of the InsideOut article, and also of that magazine’s cold indifference to Ms. Carey when she dared to question such an outrageous travesty.

There are thousands of poor, abandoned animals that are no less worthy of love and adoption than the “designer” breeds that Florida InsideOut insists are “the latest must-have and accessory,” adding, in case the point wasn’t made, that they “cost a bundle.”

Someone needs to tell this moron Joann Biondi and her ridiculous editor Linda Lee — who, by the way, is no Katharine Graham — that pets are not accessories. They are living, breathing creatures.

I hope the day comes when one by one, the shallow, substanceless fools who read, advertise, and gravitate to magazines like Ocean Drive and its offshoot publications wake up and live in the real world, and take up real causes — real people, places, and things — and not, Heaven help us, the people, places, and things according to Ocean Drive.

Buck Winthrop

New York, New York

Mills grind: Thank you so much for The Bitch’s article “Creating Monsters,” and I hope to see many more like it! We need to tell people about the mill dogs as well. Could this be your next project?

Christa Whitaker

Cape Coral

A Brother Bereaved

A vet remembered: When my daughter e-mailed me a copy of the article written about the hit-and-run of my brother Samuel Render, “Crash Dummies” (November 2) by Francisco Alvarado, I had to ask myself if I wanted to open the door to Pandora’s box, so to speak. When my brother was in Vietnam, he witnessed friends dying in front of him. He saw heads shot off and people’s legs shot out from under them. He saw things you and I will never see. I have enclosed a poem that will help others better understand him:

A Tribute to My Brother, Samuel Render

They went to war. They paid the price

For the mother ship, we call paradise.

From a melting pot of many nations,

They marched forward without hesitation.

They fought for freedom,

They fought for peace.

They fought for you,

They fought for me.

Some were shipped home, to be laid to rest.

Others came lamed, crippled, blamed, and distressed.

Now their lives are so incomplete

From a war they tried their best to beat.

These men and women fought hard to keep us safe.

Must they fight alone for a place?

I spoke with a war hero just the other day.

Listen carefully to what he had to say:

“I’m a lonely soldier, who struggles to defeat,

The spirits of my past that won’t let my life be complete.

America, I have fought my best for thee.

Can you find it in your hearts to understand

What now lives inside of me?

I cannot rebuild my dreams alone,

I now need your support, which is why I have come home.”

Veterans they are now called, in the war

They were soldiers known to us all.

Now will you look at our streets,

They are full of homeless feet.

We have developed Stand Down to let them know

That through our programs of rehabilitation

Their lives can once again grow.

Henry Etta Render Mason

Roseville, California