Letters

Through a Glass, Dorkly
Regarding Tony Perez-Giese's "Look Out, Sin City!" in the May 22 issue:
What are people in Commerce City thinking? (If, in fact, people in Commerce City can think.) Putting strippers behind Plexiglas? What's the fun in that?

Why don't they just cover the gals with Teflon? That way both the strippers and Commerce City can keep clean.

Roy Jones
Denver

I know Mary Wamsley personally, having worked with her for several years at the Lakewood Police Department. If she is as intolerant of sex-oriented businesses as she was of non-Christian religions, I'm not surprised at the reaction she's getting in Commerce City. She has always been a zealot and has consistently misrepresented factual information about certain non-Christian religions (Wicca), which she always characterized as "devil worship."

Although it happened years ago, I still remember the religious bigotry I had to deal with when she was on duty.

Bill Mattocks
via the Internet

True Blue
Obviously, a great deal in this life goes right over the head of one Bill Gallo, including a "thinking" computer's defeat of a brilliant human in a game of war ("Beating His Chess," May 22).

Even current computers can't be safely compared to mechanical devices, and Gallo should know that engineers are turning to the organic, especially the human brain, for inspiration in computer design. The implications stagger most imaginations. (Not Gallo's--whoosh!) Specifi-cally, we must ask what happens to computers if the next da Vinci works with artificial intelligence? In the general sense, we must admit that we can't diminish what computers can do. And, we must concede, someday Deep Blue will be considered primitive.

Mere circuitry will never possess immortal soul, but thinking and creativity require mind, not soul. (See much of modern art or the snide ranting of Bill Gallo's column for proof of the same.)

Finally, as Gary Kasparov suggested, for the purposes of competitive play, it doesn't matter if Deep Blue was genuinely thinking or not. The real issue is: Does it seem to us, in every way, to be "intelligent"? I believe Kasparov. I trust his intuition. In a practical sense, the goddamn thing is rational.

Mark Kolopajlo
Denver

Koby or Not Koby
Kenny Be's Worst-Case Scenario in the May 22 issue, "Koby Komix," was the funniest thing I've seen since Boulder's police chief shot himself in the foot.

When Koby is fired, maybe Boulder can get Kenny Be to do the job!
Alex Murphy
Boulder

Wow, all the new dung from the Ramsey case. Anyone notice how similar this is to the O.J. case? The Ramseys are so interested in finding the killer, we may soon see them on a golf course in Florida. Meanwhile, don't be surprised if Timothy McVeigh's lawyers cry that their client wasn't allowed the privilege of using the media to profess how much he loved the people of Oklahoma and how his only goal in life is to find the perpetrator. Yes--you, too, can make a killing in the golf-course business.

Cal Anton
Denver

Grease Trap
Listening to Procter & Gamble and Frito-Lay trade barbs with the CSPI about olestra (Stuart Steers's "The Big Queasy," May 15) is a lot like listening to the Democrats and Republicans lambaste each other: Most of what each one says about the other is absolutely correct. Obviously, they can't both possibly be right. But just as in partisan politics, what almost no one seems to consider is the third possibility: that they could both be wrong.

Patrick L. Lilly
Colorado Springs

Vocal Locals
With reference to Eric Dexheimer's "An Unholy Union," in the May 15 issue, it sounds like more of the dues-paying rank and file members of UFCW Local 7 need to go to their union meetings to ask questions and see for themselves how their local union is conducting business. Involvement and oversight by the membership will help to put UFCW Local 7 on a more professional, responsible and ethical track. Local 7's leadership apparently needs to be reminded that greed, sexual harassment and violence have absolutely no place in a workers' union--and that these are some of the very things that unions historically have fought against.

UFCW Local 7 rank and file members, it's time to take back your union!
Molly McClellan
Lakewood

What's the Rush?
I loved Michael Roberts's "To Rush or Not to Rush?" in the May 15 Westword! As an objective journalist, he didn't judge Rush for the reader, instead allowing Geddy Lee's comments to speak for Rush.

And Geddy is absolutely right: The people who truly follow the band come from so many different walks of life. I attended the show with a retired couple in their sixties!

Thanks again for publishing the interview with Geddy. I can't begin to tell you how much that band, their lyrics and music have affected my life and the way I live. Their music is my heartbeat.

W. David Epperson
via the Internet

I was extremely overjoyed to see an interview with Geddy Lee in Westword. In Roberts's article, the issue of understanding the music and direction of Rush came up--the point being that a great number of people have said over the years, and still say, that they just don't get this band and their message.