Letters

Shock Doc
Thanks for the excellent article on Dr. Brian "Kiss My Ass" Finkel ("The Terminator," Amy Silverman, June 17). It brought back memories from when I was active praying on the sidewalks as part of Children of the Rosary in the early Nineties with one of today's greatest social activists Kathy Sabelko and her gang of "hate-filled religionists" (which at various times consisted of myself, moms, teenagers, grandmothers, grandfathers, at least one successful Phoenix OB/GYN, and occasionally an off-duty cop).

Finkel would be a laughable, cartoonesque figure if his psychological pathology was not so deep and his opportunities to act it out not so available and legal. His comment about "the ejaculator that inseminated the cow that birthed me" should be an eye-opener for everyone when considering his career choice. I wish every New Times reader would take the time to read about Hitler's childhood and how he fought back at an unjust world when fate granted him a big opportunity in the 1930s. As I read this article, "killer" is the only word that kept coming to my mind to describe Brian Finkel.

Jonathan Massey, pastor
St. Andrew's United Methodist Church
Mesa

Young Stir
I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed the story about Cody Lynn Macy ("Cody Lynn Macy's Parade," Brian Smith, June 10). There was so much insight and detail that I think I know the girl and her family. Thank you.

Mary Bagos
Tucson

Delete Elitism
Having read your paper for many years, I think I have at last discovered the secret of your music- and movie-review process. It seems obvious that the only films that will get your approval are low-budget efforts made by a clique of filmmakers nobody has ever heard of and no one with taste will see. Your recent review of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me bears this out ("A View to a Shill," Patrick Williams, June 10).

A local theater production had better have low to nonexistent production values and feature themes of flaming homosexuality and vice, or it has no chance of being reviewed, at least in a positive light.

And music? Well, when was the last time you seriously reviewed any music that workaday people have actually heard of? Most of the time you populate the (ahem) reviews with a bunch of glue-sniffing never-was bands that are so lousy in their style and composition no one would buy their CDs on a bet. Your Trashman diatribes easily could be replaced by just printing "Our Readers Are Tasteless and Stupid" in big letters across the page.

Please do us mere mortals a favor and come off your high horse. It may surprise you to learn that the majority of your readers would like to see intelligent reviews of mainstream material. The only reason you subject us to this dreck in the first place is to give your paper a sense of faux avant-garde moral superiority that gets real old real fast. Why not save time and newsprint, and just sit in a local bar, kiss each other's butts and repeat over and over to each other how wonderfully culturally enlightened you are? In the meantime, we in the real world will continue to ignore the crap passing as art in your paper, and do something you obviously do not understand: go to plays, movies and concerts that can stand on their own merits, regardless of how many of the unwashed heathen like them.

James McKenna
Mesa

I am writing in response to your article criticizing the new Austin Powers movie. I have yet to see it, but I do find it amusing that your critic hated the movie, though it grossed more than $57 million in the theaters its first weekend. Maybe Mike Myers gained from product endorsement, but who is the millionaire and who is the critic for New Times? Makes you think that perhaps Myers is on the right track. Looks like he will continue to make money and movies. I think there have been numerous times that your critics have smashed movies that have been loved by the viewers. Perhaps your critics need a lesson in what the people want or like--and not what he or she wants or likes.

Name withheld by request

"How many times will you chuckle at the sight of a midget flipping a diminutive middle finger? If your answer is more than five, this movie is for you."

The movie is for me. And at least it's better than that overhyped snoozefest of a film Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace.

Jason Adams
via Internet

In Defense of GHB
I found your recently published article on GHB ("GHB.com," James Hibberd, June 10) to be fairly accurate in its references to the recent history of GHB as a fad pseudo-drug. However, I note that you have completely failed to note its very long-term study as a medicinal compound and the fact that it is a natural metabolite that can be found in every cell of every animal. This is pretty relevant information when you are discussing criminalization and prosecution.

Any substance can be abused. Take, for example, glue; it is still legal, and there are numerous cases of actual physical harm noted daily in every state from solvent abuse. Not so for GHB. GHB is safer for human consumption than acetaminophen or aspirin, which have numerous deaths attributed to them yearly.