Good vibes
I just wanted to comment on Bill Holdship's recent article in the Metro Times about Cetan Clawson ("Are you experienced?" April 30). You were very spot on. I used to play in a band in the Detroit area years ago with Al Bolda, who Cetan mentioned. Al and Cetan played together for a few years and Al introduced me to him on my last visit to Detroit.
I had heard how good he was but was blown away after jamming with him. Kind of made me want to put my guitar back in the case and leave it there.
However, he is as down to earth as anyone I have ever met. I hope that he does "make it." He damn sure has the talent to do it. But, as we all know, it is always more than just talent that becomes the key factor.
Thanks for writing such a positive article.
(By the way: I am hoping that he can play down here in Texas. I am sure that he would blow them away as well.) — Mark S. Gardner, Fort Worth, Texas
Dumb and dumber
Re: Corey Hall's review of the film Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (Metro Times, April 30) and his observation, "The best political argument here is that we've reached the point where a Korean and a Native American can star in movies just as stupid as any white guy ... but in a perfect world they wouldn't have to."
I'm not sure if this quote from the Harold and Kumar review was meant to be humor or not. Granted, the movie was dumb. But if you really want to present yourself as an "artsy" educated person or news source with discerning taste, you might try and learn the difference between Indian and Native American.
Indians are from a country in Asia called India; Native Americans are indigenous peoples from North or South American. My friends and I got quite a laugh out of your mistake. Maybe it comes from your Michigan public school education. I don't know.
What I do know is you might need to step your game up. I live in Boston and from time to time I visit your Web site; I mean I think it's good, but this is not making people from Michigan look any more educated than people outside Michigan already think you are.
Good luck. — Michael Jain, Boston, Mass.
Mental deficient
Every so often Jack Lessenberry shows us why his writing services are only sought by a soft-core porn/entertainment liberal rag like the Metro Times. His article on the great Jerry Wright ("Wright and the truth," April 30) illustrates why Lessenberry is the poster child for Michael Savage's "Liberalism is a mental disorder."
I think anyone who has observed progressives like Jack and his ilk understands that ideology always trumps truth (See The NY Slimes). He also shows that liberal compassion is conditional. He likely has sympathy for every crack head and cokehead around but his dig at Limbaugh shows his compassion does not apply to someone who is opposed on the ideological spectrum. Everyone is a hypocrite to some degree, but why is it with liberals it is usually of biblical proportions?
The Cheney-Wright comparison of military service illustrates why Jack is, at times, a simpleton. Lee Harvey Oswald (assassin), Timothy McVeigh (mass murderer), John Kerry and John Murtha (traitors), all served in the military and they don't get a pass. It's hardly a logical point, and a self-anointed intellectual like Jack should be able to figure that out.
As for whether liberalism actually crosses over to mental retardation, he makes a plausible case with his insinuation that it is not that bad to perpetuate the lie about AIDS and blacks just because other bad things have been done to blacks by whites. And, for the historically illiterate, most of those bad things were courtesy of the Democratic Party (slavery, lynching, welfare). Somehow Jack never, ever, points that out.
About the stealth comparison of MLK and Jerry Wright, is anybody else alarmed Lessenberry teaches at a university? Hide your children!!!! — Jeff Roegner, Huntington Woods
Stone throwers
In light of the fact that the good Pastor Roger Reibling and the elders at Riverwood Community Church are intent of ridding their church of sinners and undesirables ("Hypochrists," News Hits, April 30), I decided to help them. Attached is a letter I have forwarded to Pastor Reibling's attention.
Dear Pastor and church leaders:
As I read an article in today's Metro Times featuring a former member of your church, Karen Liedigk, I was shocked by your gross oversight with regard to this matter. According to my research, a much broader net should be cast in your efforts to toss other "sinners" of Karen's ilk out of your sacred place of worship.
Assuming the reason Ms. Liedigk was thrown from the train is probably based upon the drudging up of some obscure biblical standard meant to support your position, I went to work in hopes of understanding your decision. Here's what I found in Deuteronomy 22:5 ...
A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.
Of course, much of the Deuteronomy code is not followed these days, because many of the laws are ridiculous by any sane person's standards. In case you'd like some further examples of folks who don't belong in your church, take a look at some of the miscellaneous rules that follow after Deuteronomy 22:5 ...
• Don't take a mother bird from her nest.
• Put a rail around your roof so no one falls off.
• Don't plant crops with vines.
• Don't hitch oxen and donkeys together.
• Don't wear cloth combined of wool and linen.
• Sew tassels on four corners of clothes.
• If a man marries a girl, but later doesn't want her and claims she wasn't a virgin, her parents are to bring the blood stained wedding sheet to the leaders, who are to beat him and make him give 500 silver pieces to the father, and he can't divorce her. If the husband's claims are true, she's to be stoned to death at the entrance to her father's house.
• Men who have sex with another man's fiancée are to be killed along with the fiancée. However, if it happens in the country, you should just kill the man, since no one could have heard the woman cry out.
• Raping single girls requires payment of 50 silver pieces to her father and marriage with no divorce.
Whew! I'm exhausted from even thinking about the list of names you just had to generate. I hope you will uphold the righteous standard you've set with Ms. Liedigk and get busy mailing out those dismissal letters.
You can thwart any dissention in the masses with the following verse: James 2:10, states: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one, he is guilty of all. Sounds like a clearcut case to me. I hope I've helped.
Thanks for listening. — M. Killian, Redford, MI
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