Letters to the Editor

Stop. I've got enough.

This past Sunday I received an e-mail from some leftist organization, informing me of a coup earlier that morning in Honduras. That evening, seeking more information on the situation, I turned on CNN several times. However, they didn't seem to want to interrupt the Michael Jackson show to give their viewers any information on anything else.

On Monday I turned on NBC Nightly News, which opened with a 5-minute piece on Michael Jackson, then had a 5-second mention of the situation in Honduras, followed by twice as much airtime on the situation in Iran as they had on Honduras. They then promised another segment on Michael Jackson before the half-hour was over.

Later that night, on MSNBC's Countdown With Keith Olbermann, the opening montage promised more on the media circus surrounding Michael Jackson, but nothing concerning the military coup in Honduras.

Then, today, I open the Metro Times, and the first thing I see, after the letters, are three poems written for Michael Jackson ("Thrilled to death," July 1). 

While I can appreciate the mourning of people one doesn't know — I wrote lengthy pieces, which I sent to friends, about the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Dee Dee Ramone — there is a point in which it becomes overkill. I'm all for the sharing of art, but the Metro Times is most valuable to me for the alternative information I can glean from it, not from your addition to what already is such saturation of an event that it becomes de facto censorship of far more pertinent information. —Don Handy, Mount Clemens

Framing Islam

I enjoyed Corey Hall's review of The Stoning of Soraya M. (June 24). However, I was disappointed by the strong suggestion that the film argued that the reason this tragedy took place was because of sharia law. Although it is unequivocal that sharia law sometimes endorses very punitive or brutal punishments, I thought the whole premise of the movie was general patriarchy, mass hysteria, mob mentality, etc., in a manner akin to Miller's discussion in The Crucible. Such mass hysteria is not confined to any culture or religion, and I think it does a disservice to Islam and Middle Eastern nations to simply frame it as applying faith before reason. I would have appreciated a broader perspective that reflected on a larger human tendency that transcends culture and religion. I also think that writing such a critique conflicts with the purposes of the movie crew, directors, etc., many of whom are Muslim and Iranian but who do not fully blame the tragedy on sharia law. —Alaa Hijazi, Detroit

Sweet comeback

Thanks MT, for your Post Mortem response (July 1) to the recent letter from the president of the Corn Refiners Association. I agree with you that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is an "industrially produced toxin that has no place in the food chain." Along with other chemical by-products resulting from processing, I would add that the FDA has known for years that HFCS is commonly contaminated with mercury (toxic in all forms) yet has done nothing to remedy the situation. HFCS? Consume at your own risk. —Catherine Fry, Southfield

Last word on Albom

Is it too late to get in on the Mitch Albom free-for-all? Now I'm indifferent (the real insult, people say), but I, too, used to be a hater. But it's such an unproductive way to spend one's mental energy. Besides, it's not his fault. He's sort of deep in a superficial way, and that's how the masses like their profundity. Go figure. True, his heart isn't in sports anymore, but fault the Free Press here for thinking a big name means credibility.

Finally, the corrosive tone in that batch of anti-Mitch missives was oddly refreshing. The Freep — if it publishes any — sticks with softballs. But many MT letters, mine included, have been rather brutal on your own resident luminary, Jack Lessenberry, in the past. Props are in order for printing them. Any paper that shields its commentators from embarrassment is, in my view, a journalistic fraud. —Todd Steven Kindred, Livonia