Letters

I appreciate women's athletics and believe that playing sports is an equally healthful pastime for both males and females. I have been a spectator at women's sports, and, as I recall, the women do not have sexless, unaesthetic bodies, which is one reason I enjoy watching them. Male and female bodies are different; it has nothing to do with homophobia, or misogyny, or patriarchal values. When a writer like Barry Graham ("Les Go, Mercury," July 31) observes a lack of femininity in female athletes and gets criticized for it, who are the ones devaluing femininity?

Robert Carmen Barber Jr.
Phoenix

Wow! I'm completely shocked by the backlash from Barry Graham's July 31 article about the Phoenix Mercury phenomenon and its enthusiastic fans!

I guess Phoenix readers are suffering from the summer heat because they have no sense of humor! Speaking as a lesbian and a Mercury fan, I thought the article was hilarious! I've copied it to numerous people and quoted it in e-mails. Sure, not all the observations match my own, but everyone is entitled to his opinion . . . and I surely would expect a guy's perspective to be different! What is the big deal?

P. Stone
via Internet

Smallsville
I want to comment on the article by Leigh Watt in the August 14 issue ("A Band in Bondage"). I am personally outraged that Corey Adams and Charles Delk were treated so poorly by the City of Mesa. Does that police department have nothing better to do than to arrest some club owner and a local band with no explanation as to why? I personally feel that bands with an original act or with more imagination than the average commercial Nirvana wanna-bes are kicked to the curb in Phoenix. Places like San Francisco, L.A. and New York are the only cities that appreciate this kind of music. I am extremely conservative, yet I have artistic freedom and realize, hey, it's the Nineties! The City of Mesa needs to drop its Holy Roller attitude and come to grips with reality. People are different than they were in the Fifties, and things aren't about to change!

Heather Kelder
via Internet

Origin Recital
Great job airing the inexplicable politics of prehistory ("The Man Who Loved Lucy," Michael Kiefer, August 7). A very entertaining and informative article. As a graduate of University of California-Berkeley's anthro department, I couldn't understand how it would lose the Institute of Human Origins to Arizona State University. Now it is clear. Where else in Phoenix can you get this kind of detailed journalism? Good job!

Eric Rasmussen
via Internet