Free Fall
Center of gravitas: Regarding Justin Kendall’s “He Don’t Need No Education” (December 1): I never get tired of reading about that amazing collection of imbeciles on the other side of the state line. There is just something fascinating about a group of people who don’t seem to mind a bit that the entire world points at them and laughs.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world will also be giggling over the students who graduate from Kansas schools, knowing that they received a very skewed and incomplete education.
Intelligent design? C’mon! What’s next on their “hit list”? How about gravity? Surely the fact that gravity “just happens” to work in the right direction so that our feet are always on the ground and we don’t all go floating off into space can’t be an “accident.” It can only be the work of a creator! From now on, let’s teach “intelligent falling” instead of that secular gravity nonsense.
R. Joe Calton
Liberty
Gas Bill
Brain fart: Regarding Alan Scherstuhl’s “Wither the Fart Joke?”(December 8): If an entire review can be summed up with the reviewer’s perceived failure of a fart joke, then maybe we need a new reviewer.
Really, how about we stop trying to fill the pages with flourish, dribble and B.S., and start writing something about the shows. Talk about the staging, the lighting, the dialogue, the actors’ ability to look fluid onstage and, yes, the bombing of a joke if it leaves a great weakness exposed at that point.
Jeremy W. Smith
Kansas City, Missouri
Skin Tone
Black like me: I read Gina Kaufmann’s SeeSaw (November 24) and wanted to tell Alain Francois something in response to this statement: “Lately, he’s been reading up on the African-American experience because he knows that he’s perceived as a black man, not a Haitian, and he wants to understand what that means.” And then he commented that, “Progressive hip-hop and progressive punk have so much in common, but for some reason they don’t interact.”
My grandfather was Haitian, according to the family verbal history. And he was a much “lighter” black than Alain. One explanation for what it means to be a black man in America, Alain, is for you to understand the definition of psychosis: a mental disorder which is characterized by extreme impairment of a person’s ability to think clearly, respond emotionally, communicate effectively, understand reality and behave appropriately.
America suffers from MASS psychosis. And black Americans (man, woman and child) live inside this society full of schizos, manic-depressives, paranoids and the clinically depressed (to name a few). Some of us have become psychotic ourselves in response to the environment we are surrounded by.
No matter what is said or done, in this society where “white” people outnumber “black” people 7-to-1, a great number of those “white” people will psychotically hold on to prejudiced, bigoted and racist beliefs about “black” people based on nothing other than the other person’s skin color. SKIN COLOR. That’s all, Alain. It’s just about the skin you wear. Get it?
Name withheld by request
Toby Speakers
That’s baloney: I just got done reading Jen Chen’s column about Toby Keith’s I Love this Bar & Grill (Night Ranger, December 1). I want her to know that being the kind of critic she is — hiding behind her typewriter gunning innocent people down — maybe she ought to do some research about them or get to know them before making any accusations. I have never read a more ignorant interview than this one.
I didn’t give you my name and number in fear of her writing her next interview on me. Critics are good for that — can’t take the blow personally. They have to let the whole world know. Wait — maybe it is the fact that she feeds off negative attention!
In closing, I have one thing to say to her! Learn the lyrics to Toby’s “The Critic,” and next time you open your mouth about him, make sure you know what you are talking about, ’cause NONE of YOUR information about him was true!
Name withheld by request
Corrections: In Bryan Noonan’s “Double Trouble” (December 8), Ken Miller was misidentified. He is the executive director of the Midwestern Innocence Project. Phil Gibson is the former legal director for the MIP. Ray T. Barker’s review of the art show Generations: Ceramic Sculpture and Photography (Art/Stage Capsules, December 8) misspelled the name of artist Teri Frame and identified her as a man. The Pitch regrets these errors.
