Separating Men From Boys
I’m looking at your January 19 front page, “Women Vs. Men’s Video Game Obsessions”
(by Suzy Hansen), and observing the “menacing” transformer robot man. I’m thinking
“Boy’s” obsession must be more appropriate. Surely, adult men aren’t interested
in silly-ass crap like this?
– Alex Clark, Charlotte
Drug War Worse Than Drugs
Regarding Nate Blakeslee’s Jan. 19 “The People Left Behind”: When it comes to the drug war, mandatory minimum sentences have done little other than turn the alleged land of the free into the world’s biggest jailer. If draconian penalties deterred illegal drug use, the goal of a “drug-free” America would have been achieved decades ago. Instead of adding to what is already the highest incarceration rate in the world, we should be funding drug treatment.
The drug war is a cure that is worse than the disease. Drug prohibition finances organized crime at home and terrorism abroad, which is then used to justify increased drug war spending. It’s time to end this madness and instead treat all substance abuse, legal or otherwise, as the public health problem it is.
Apparently mandatory minimum sentences, civil asset forfeiture, random drug testing and racial profiling are not necessarily the most cost-effective means of discouraging unhealthy choices. Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse.
– Robert Sharpe, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington, DC
Into the Fierce Void
Regarding “Dance Fever,” by Timothy C. Davis (Scene & Herd, Jan. 12): DJs are
NOT musicians — except in the rarest occasions. However, a great DJ is
a helluva lot more than a guy with a great record collection. The problem is
that we’re living in a time when everybody thinks they’re a DJ. First
and foremost — a DJ in the truest sense of the word doesn’t play the hits
— they make the hits.
Any club kids worth their space on the dance floor remember the first time a DJ changed their musical consciousness by playing a song or a group they had never heard at pivotal moment in the evening when they were ready and willing to accept it. DJs have the power to create a mood on a dance floor that even musicians respect — especially musicians who realize that their CDs and records will end up in the hands of a DJ who can choose to introduce their music to hundreds, if not thousands of fans.
Being a DJ is about reading the mood of a crowd, understanding a changing ebb and flow of energy and emotions on any given night and, most of all, having the balls to step away from mainstream radio hits and into the fierce void of the musical unknown.
I’ve always assumed that CL doesn’t focus on Charlotte’s DJs or club culture because the music writers deemed this (place artistic sniff here) beneath them — unless of course it’s a big name pulling in the big bucks. But there are some real stars right in here in Charlotte who can take a dance floor far beyond what’s blasting out of the local meat market. They deserve to be part of CL‘s regular entertainment coverage.
– Lesa Kastanas, Charlotte
King and the Megastate
John Sugg is right — Martin Luther King was a revolutionary, not a conservative
(“Remembering King by Erasing Him,” Jan. 12). I’ve been trying to convince my
Republican friends for years their party’s invocation of King proves the GOP’s
rejection of genuine conservatism.
But Sugg missed the point. King has been transformed from a failed radical into America’s second secular saint, right behind Lincoln. Both are powerful icons for the benevolent megastate, which takes our taxes and rights so it can remake the world. Sugg approves of King’s vision of Big Government taking taxpayers’ money and giving it to the poor, and condemns the neocons’ vision of taking money from taxpayers and giving it to corporations. Problem is, a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have. And “big enough” is the neocons’ actual goal. They invoke Lincoln and King to sanction their empire-building, including open borders, the unconstitutional Patriot Act, as well as the Iraq invasion, while condemning the opposition as “racist” and “un-American.”
I object even more to Sugg’s characterization of Southerners as “green-toothed, Confederate-flag-waving redneck bigots.” (No hatred in that statement!) Traditional cultures, including Southern culture, are an organic foundation for smaller, more human-scaled states, which are the only viable alternative to the “welfare-warfare” con game of the centralized megastate. All over the world, peoples are breaking free of externally imposed central control, and are attaining self-determination. This global trend has finally touched our shores, as seen in the rise of such diverse independence movements as Move On California, Free Vermont, and the League of the South. Respecting the rights of others to their own loyalties and values is the foundation of genuine peace and justice.
– Michael C. Tuggle, State Chairman, NC League of the South
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2005.
