However, two notes within your story struck a small chord with me. You draw a parallel between buying a 40-ounce and buying a trademark. What is the relevance of that metaphor? Why did you choose to communicate the simplicity of trademarking and licensure with buying a 40-ounce? Is there something about ripping off mostly black musicians that reminds you of 40-ounces? I'd like to think that isn't the case.
Then, at the very end of the story, you recount how a Latino man offers to "smoke" someone for defrauding Charlie Wilson. He even managed to use the word "homes." What was your point in noting the speaker's ethnicity? What did that have to do with his love of soul music? And honestly, did he use words like "homes"? How stereotypical.
While I appreciated the story, I sincerely hope that subtle slurring found in this article doesn't appear in future stories.
Maria Miranda
Cleveland
The Gay Whore Problem
We're all a little queer: Those poor kids ["Boyz in the Hood," October 25]. The hell they exist in just for being where they are is bad enough, but to have to deal with this kind of prejudice makes it worse.
Bryant felt he should have done more for his son? Hell yeah he should have. He should have protected and supported his son instead of rejecting him, trying to change him, and turning his back on him. He should have put his efforts into keeping his son safe and providing an environment where he could be accepted in his family. Instead, he will blame an organization for turning his son into a gay whore when he is the one who pushed him away because he didn't meet an ex-convict's ideal of what a "man" should be. Nice. Real nice.
Homosexuality isn't race-based. It is not just a white person's issue. All types of people can be homosexual. No one is 100 percent straight. For a group that cries prejudice and racism (sometimes with merit, sometimes without), you'd think they would be more accepting, instead of murdering and trying to destroy those that are different.
Pamela Mascol
Parma Heights
Why Be Rich and Powerful?
It's easier to make friends: Great piece ["Kept Woman," October 25]. I could not agree more, and I am a registered Republican. But how can we ever stop the whoring? I mean, we have never been able to stop the old-fashioned kind, so how can we stop the pols?
It seems to boil down to: Getting Elected = Raising Mass Sums of Money. Those giving mass sums want something in return. And simply put, if being rich and powerful doesn't make you rich and powerful (being able to control things), then there is no sense in being rich and powerful.
No matter what laws are passed, the money will find a way into the picture. Like water acted upon by gravity, it will find the cracks. At least things are usually more transparent on the national scene, unlike the crap that goes on with money our school system spends . . . or steals.
Rick Duffin
Cleveland
Welcome to North Mexico: Great article and sound opinion. I am puzzled by this effort to destroy the America I grew up in. Being 64, I remember the Cold War, civil rights, Vietnam, and the prosperity of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. There was good and bad, but we were improving.
Now the rich and infamous are working to gut this country. They are destroying the middle class and enlarging the underclass. They export what is good and sell out the rest. Why can't people see that when these bastards finish, this country will no longer be a power for what is right and just? We will be just another Mexico, and we will start crossing the border into Canada to find hope and prosperity. Thank you for your opinion.
Albert Santone
Eastlake
A Well-Respected...Lawyer?
Not all attorneys should be killed: I was horrified to read First Punch last week [October 25] and see that my lawyer, Vince Stafford, was receiving death threats. Scene's original article, "Monsters of Misery Court" [April 26], was somewhat incendiary. Made me wonder if others, aside from the clearly unglued Mr. Telerico, might feel inclined to retaliate based on these articles.
As someone who knows, respects, and recommends Vince as an advocate to everyone in need of a good lawyer, I can only say that this latest turn of events proves he hasn't lost his touch. Not at all.
Anne Price
Avon Lake
Ride of Their Lives
It's always the naked bus driver's fault: Nowadays it probably takes more than the snippet about a youngish bus driver's dalliance with her passengers [First Punch, October 18] to make the Bishop of Chichester stir in his breeches. The lady was less than prudent, in the Victorian sense, in presenting countless strangers with nude images of herself. Alas, furnishing beer, drugs, and copulation was greater naughtiness.
Our society still assumes that certain individuals live quasi-cloistered lives amid the pornography and other vices so common in our culture. Hence, the teenage boys are deemed innocent while the adult lady is condemned for her odious offenses.
The item gave evidence there's hope for morality. A wanton's confessed unlawful sexual conduct doesn't always go unpunished. Let he who is without sin continue to shake a self-righteous finger.
William Dauenhauer
Willowick
