This letter is in response to the November 16 column by Patricia Calhoun, "Benson's Bully Pulpit," about the media and Bruce Benson's loss. I think the media is just too damn nosey, not just about Bruce Benson but about the entire public. The media went on and on about Benson's divorce. My question to the media is: Have any of you ever been divorced? If so, do you go around telling everyone, thinking they should base their opinion about you on that? Look at "Slick Willie" in Washington: He didn't even get divorced, he just outright cheated, and the liberal media still loved him. I think that the media needs to leave people alone and quit acting like a bunch of Communists--we have enough of that in Washington. I know that this is the way the media makes a living, but I wish you guys would try this approach.
The media is still making a big deal about the mother who killed her two kids in South Carolina. What about the mothers who kill their kids every day? Hello, America, it is called abortion. Why isn't anything ever said when that kind of brutal killing occurs? It is this kind of crap and the liberal media that have pushed me to the extreme right side (ultraconservative).
The media constantly brings up racial and women's issues. The more special-interest groups that are created, the further segregated human beings become. If we want to become one, we should have one group called human beings. I mean, we are all born with a brain regardless of skin color, race or gender. Why can't the media see and report this kind of stuff?
I guess I got off track about Bruce Benson, but I blame the media about a lot of things, because the positive, conservative news is never reported. I firmly believe that the media is scared to report good, conser-vative news because they know that some stupid liberal will file a lawsuit or start yelling or whining "discrimination!"
Angela Williams
Lakewood
I wrote before because I so enjoyed Patricia Calhoun's "Preserved for Posteriority," in the October 26 issue, about Bruce Benson's jeans ad when he turned his back on the camera, and I thought "Benson's Bully Pulpit" was right on point, too. The "bottom" line is this: Bruce Benson ran a horrible campaign. It is indeed petty to blame the press for his own shortcomings.
Rose Myers
Denver
Oh, a reporter fall down and go boom? Boo hoo.
After the treatment he received from the media, it was about time for Bruce Benson to give them a taste of their own medicine. Of course, if Benson had responded the same way when the media pushed him around, they would have called him weak. But when his bodyguards do their job, the helpless little journalists call him a bully--with sob sister Calhoun leading the way (as I recall she also did on the Paula Woodward/Department of Public Works fight this summer).
Next time the guards should go for Calhoun first.
Joe Adams
Littleton
Thank you for Patricia Calhoun's columns on Bruce Benson. They were the only funny thing about this year's election!
A. J. Garcia
Aurora
The Heart of Healing
I was extremely moved by Steve Jackson's series on HIV/AIDS, "Buying Time," in the November 9 and November 16 issues. I was recently told that my best friend had contracted HIV. I didn't realize how much this disease really affects us all until I found out firsthand. I praise all the doctors, nurses, patients, family and friends for their strength and courage. It's a difficult struggle, as I have found out. I wish that more articles such as this would be published throughout the nation. In light of the recent elections, I want the GOP to realize that this disease is a problem. I also pray that they don't turn their backs on funding for research, as they said they would.
PS: I'm in the Navy, so please withhold my name, as the military is homophobic.
Name withheld on request
Steve Jackson's "Buying Time" was excellent, well written and deeply touching. It made me see Denver General Hospital in a new light as a system deeply in touch with many lives, working to bring quality of life to those robbed of so much.
Karen Lichtenstein, R.N.
Denver
Regarding your story on the AIDS doctor:
Some would have us believe that homosexuality is nothing more than the luck of the genetic lottery. Something like having blond hair or being left-handed. If this is true, then all sexual expressions (regardless of consent) are morally equal, and perversion does not exist.
Ridiculous.
We cannot condemn pedophilia and then accept homosexuality--that would be hypocrisy.
We decide.
We decide our favorite color, our favorite food, our favorite time of the day--usually without a moment of contemplation or deliberation, but we do decide.
And we do decide our sexual preferences.
Humans are not poor robotic beings enslaved by their "orientations." We decide. And thus we can change our minds.
Terry Hodson
Denver
The stories on the AIDS doctor were the best things I have ever read in Westword. Even in the midst of all this despair over AIDS, they gave me hope--hope for humankind. Thank you.
Sherry Maes
Denver
I just want to let you know I am so touched by your articles on Dr. Adam Myers. Both segments of this story have been very moving; I sat here and cried. You have done such a service to people with AIDS. I just want to say thank you for printing this. It is absolutely the best article I've ever read in my life. Thank you.
Name withheld on request
No Whine Before Its Time
First, a compliment and then a couple of criticisms. Your coverage on the airport issue has been first rate. I admire your not falling in line with the usual media suspects shilling for the mayor and all the rest of the criminals who hung this millstone around the necks of Colorado taxpayers. Thank you.
Regarding Georgia Caven (Steve Jackson's "Georgia on Their Minds," in the November 16 issue): It is a shame she has lost her job. However, she made her bed and now must lie in it. "Lie" is the operative word here--she chose not to "interpret" a city rule but to thumb her nose at it. All of us have rules at our workplaces we must follow or else seek other employment. She will be fine as soon as she quits whining and reconsiders her looseness with the truth.
Speaking of whining: Kenny Be's Hip Tip on the November 16 Back Page is composed of, at best, ignorance, and at worst, disingenuousness. Republicans are not moving backward but forward into the future. Fifty years of "New Deal" and "Great Society" have destroyed the public schools, bred a generation of murderous bottom feeders and given Denver an airport we all know and love. We don't call it "Democrats In Action" for nothing.
Pat Desrosiers
Denver
Vintage Gallo
I've been a big fan of Bill Gallo for several years. My respect for his abilities grew after your November 16 issue, in which he wrote one of the few stories I've read about Martina Navratilova ("Volley of the Dolls") that treated her with the respect and dignity she so rightfully deserves. Then I flipped the page and read the only local review of Interview With the Vampire ("Something to Sink Your Teeth Into") that captured both the essence of the movie and the novel upon which it was based.
Gallo is an excellent writer, and not just because I agree with what he says (because I don't always). He writes with ease and understanding on both the arts and sports, a very unlikely combination. Thanks for the fun reading--and hang on to him!
Heather Draper
Englewood
"Volley of the Dolls," Bill Gallo's otherwise wonderful tribute to Martina Navratilova was seriously marred by his mean-spirited reference to "Spain's Wantcha Sandwich for Carryout--or whatever her name is." Her name is Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.
Tacky, Bill. Maleducado.
Belinda Levin
Colorado Springs
I agreed with most everything Bill Gallo said in his review of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein ("Monster Mishmash," November 9), with one notable exception. Yes, the movie lurches about, the acting seems melodramatic, and De Niro, as the monster, speaks in a distracting Brooklyn brogue, but the fact that he is articulate isn't beside the point--it is the point.
This film parallels Shelley's literary masterpiece wherein the monster is intellectually, physically and emotionally superior to his flawed creator. Boris Karloff's mute, brain-damaged freak was fundamentally opposed to Shelley's creature, and the greatest horror of the 1931 "classic" is how it reduced a thematically rich story to shlock. Try watching it through without howling (with laughter, not fear).
Gallo is right to say the new film asserts the "fears of the 1990s" by echoing the old Promethean myth of creating things we can't control, things that will overwhelm us. See Ridley Scott's Blade Runner for proof that this fear pervades not only our present but our future.
Chris Ransick
Englewood