Macho macho man: Regarding Amy Alkon's rant equating big SUVs with small penises ("Guys With Small Penises," September 12): I drive a Toyota truck, but I live full-time in a 35-foot-long, 11-foot-tall motor home. It averages about six miles per gallon.
Based on Amy's assumptions, I must have a teeny little pecker. I hate to "blow" her theory, but between thrashing shrieks and muffled whimpers, I've been told my penis resembles a baby's arm holding an apple.
Instead of driving my behemoth (motor home, not penis) once or twice a year, I think I'll start driving it to work every day. I'll try to park next to the biggest SUV I can find. If Amy wants to place one of her insipid little cards on my rig, at least she'll have something to stand on so she can reach my windshield.
Ted Vaughn
Phoenix
It's a body part, get over it: I found it richly amusing (that is, I laughed my ass off) and the height of irony to read of Robert Nelson's outrage regarding Amy Alkon's anti-SUV campaign.
We would all be better off if journalists like Mr. Nelson would remember how it feels to be the victim of a journalist who is lacking in cluefulness or has a preconceived agenda the next time he writes one of the tremendously opinionated pieces of alleged journalism for which the New Times is so notorious. (He could start by offering Janet Napolitano the opportunity, and the same amount of space that he used on September 12, to respond to his off-the-wall screed against her, "Goober-natorial," of August 29.)
But I would imagine that the chances of this happening are about the same as George W. Bush reading a book without lots of big pictures in it.
Name withheld by request
You're not as big as you think: Dearest Bobbee: Amy puts cards on heavy pollutant bark-o-lounger mobiles. If she "tagged" your pork-mobile, you think you are justified in "puncturing her tires," a felony offense! Gee, what a reciprocal act . . . OF A LUNATIC!
Bob, as in bob-the-nob, get a grip, you patho-illogical pinhead. You endorse (thru screed) $400-plus tire damage, tow truck charge, trauma/drama and lost time from life over your 6.25 (s-t-r-e-t-c-h) pencil pee straw. The planet must die for your gluttonous fat arse! Pleez to fecundate yo' sef, sire (see Webster's).
You almost got you and two boys killed, by operator error! Then buy larger "killer" mobile corpulence.
P.S.: You use keypad-weary clichés, regular EDWARD R. MURROW.
P.P.S.: You be da "psycho" boy. Squirted thrice, still not a man. But your wife got a meal ticket. Pleez, señor, get a vasuc-tomy. "Anchovies," eh? If it smells like a fish . . .
Ben Quick
Via e-mail
No, you be da man: I just read your article in response to Amy Alkon's. Very nicely done. I found it interesting on her Web site the story of her 1960s Nash that was stolen. She was ranting and raving about how she was speeding around town to catch this person. As if a 1960 Nash and speeding around town don't pollute the air more than a new SUV. This person is so ignorant. Having formed this opinion by all of the stupid stories on her site. How can this person be called the "advice goddess"?
It just pisses me off that New Times would even print her story. I read New Times every week and love it. I don't own an SUV. One day I will and would like to run through Amy Alkon's front door. Or maybe right into her precious pink Rambler. Keep up the good work.
Kevin P. Shine
Phoenix
Somebody marry this guy: I had almost forgotten that there was another side to the SUV drama in America. I've been listening to that crap about penis anxiety and black-lung egrets for years now, and being the white-bread kid that I am, I was driven around in a Suburban for much of my childhood. So now, though I live a lifestyle that's anything but "family-oriented" (I'm in college, but the penis remains disinterested in anything that isn't a lifelong mate), I still hear the Alkon position all too frequently. I would normally never send a letter agreeing with what someone said in New Times, because I'm not a liberal savant who lives the indie art-movement lifestyle. I'm still a bit shocked that they let in your (soon to be "our" at some point during my life, I'm sure) point of view. Unless Ms. Alkon is one of those outspoken lesbo-femmes who's so popular with the world-saving intellectual left, maybe she'll someday know what it's like taking a family vacation in a midsize sedan. Yeah, we can't all drive in style and comfort, maintaining respect for mother earth, or sister earth, or whatever the hell she's fighting for. But living in the real world, outside of pseudo-intellectual liberal dogma and fake-ass beatnik wanna-be poetry gatherings to fund-raise for the poor damned egrets, is really a bitch sometimes, eh?
Matt Williams
Via e-mail
Intimidating behavior: Your article titled "Guys With Small Penises" was totally amusing. Amy Alkon is living proof that uneducated, ignorant morons receive far more attention than they deserve (hence this letter). Just by reading the article and seeing the way she talks and forms her sentences, I would be surprised to learn that she even graduated high school, as she basically doesn't know how to talk. Her extremist "environmental" views are tired and old and -- yawn -- that's been done before and, quite frankly, I believe most people are tired of that crap.
I am not an SUV driver either, and I really don't care as long as those big lugs stay the hell out of my way. I usually am able to zip around SUVs pretty quickly as my BMW is lighter and faster.
It is a pure coward who would be intimidated by one. The very idea is laughable at best. Amy sounds more like a bitter woman who is jealous because she cannot afford an SUV, and her lashing out at men, accusing them of having small penises, well, that is just the sort of juvenile thing you would expect from a 16-year-old. I'm sure most people would consider the source of that one.
I mean, how much of a loser do you have to be to SPEND MONEY to get all these cards printed up? When you think about it, she is really just making a fool of herself. If I was an SUV driver and I got one of those cards, I would simply laugh, tear it into little tiny pieces, and throw it on the ground to pollute more of her (and our) precious environment.
Thanks for the fun read, guys!
Carrie
Gilbert
Food Fight
Wrong turn: What was your purpose for writing about prostitution, drug trafficking and dilapidated hotels in this article about a restaurant ("Western Flair," La Calle, Silvana Salcido Esparza, September 5)? Those things are reputedly found on East Van Buren, not West Van Buren.
Frankly, I don't understand why you felt compelled to include such things in your article. Perhaps you were confused in associating these things with a Mexican restaurant, as you were in saying that a "parrillada" is "a wrought-iron skillet." A parrillada is the event of cooking and serving food cooked on a "parrilla," which also is not a wrought-iron skillet. A parrilla is a wire mesh used to hold the food being cooked over the flames, charcoal or wood. At least that's what it is in my native state of Sonora.
Jose A. de la Vara
Phoenix
Political Practices
Campaign confidential: As secretary/treasurer of the District 6 Democrats, the legislative district that Laurie Larson is running for state representative in, I feel that I must respond to the assertions Marla Wing made in her interview with New Times ("Winging It," Speakeasy, Robrt L. Pela, September 5). Though it's true that our district asked her to run as a write-in candidate for precinct committeeperson, it's not true that Laurie Larson, or the district, for that matter, asked her to run for state Senate. We already have a candidate, environmental activist Steve Lesjak. Also, if Marla doesn't want to "say anything bad about her," she wouldn't have inferred that Laurie was "HIV-phobic."
If this were the case, she wouldn't have received the endorsement of the Arizona Human Rights Fund or Planned Parenthood this year and two years ago, when she ran for state house in District 24. Laurie is a strong advocate for human and civil rights. Having known Laurie for years and having worked in her campaigns, the inference that she's "HIV-phobic" or "homophobic" or "anything-phobic" is just plain wrong. It is just as bad to assert that Laurie is "HIV-phobic" because she didn't write back to Marla right away than it would be to assert that Marla is gay because she is HIV-positive.
Although I can sympathize with what Marla is going through (I had a cousin who died from AIDS), she shouldn't use her HIV infection as an excuse to blacken someone's character. For the record, these words are entirely my own and don't necessarily reflect the views of the District 6 Democrats or Laurie Larson's campaign.
Andrew Mark Baker
Phoenix
Cast Out
Legal affair: Someone should find Paul Hewitson another attorney who would take his case pro bono ("Lost Hope," Amy Silverman, August 22). His current attorney should not only be fired, he should be brought up on charges and have his law degree taken away. I hope your article gets Hewitson the counsel he needs and deserves.
Cherie Lunsford
Via e-mail
Pastor Present
Father's day: I have read the various news articles and reports of Mark Kennedy's allegations of sexual abuse by Father Patrick Colleary ("The Pain of Publicity," Robert Nelson, August 22). As a retired attorney, I am much troubled by some of the facts surrounding these allegations. I realize, of course, that allegations of priest sexual abuse in today's climate must be taken as absolute fact.
But the Kennedy allegations have a timeline problem. I attended the meeting this spring at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Scottsdale where Mrs. Kennedy got up and gave a detailed report of what happened to her son 24 years ago and what she did about it.
She told us that her 16-year-old son caught Father Pat with his hands down the front of her 12-year-old son's pants. He came into the kitchen and reported this to her and her husband. She immediately confronted Father Pat and he denied it. She asked him to leave and she called the police and wanted him arrested. The police investigated the matter and asked Father Pat to take a lie detector test. Father Pat says he took the lie detector test and passed it. The police closed their file as unsubstantiated.
Mrs. Kennedy also immediately called the pastor and told him she did not want any of her children having any contact with Father Pat, and the pastor agreed.
At the OLPH meeting, Mrs. Kennedy had no knowledge of any other sexual conduct by Father Pat with her son, because if she had, she surely would have told us. She wanted us to know every bit of dirt on him that she had.
Now 24 years later, Mark Kennedy remembers two other incidents of sexual molestation against Father Pat. This after telling the police back then, when asked if Father Pat had done this before, that no other incidents occurred. He also told his own mother, when asked by her if Father Pat had ever touched him before, that he had not. Now he is asking us to believe that he lied to the police because he was too embarrassed to mention them, even though he had already told them about the one incident of abuse.
What is even more incredulous is that he is asking us to believe that he even lied to his own mother because of his embarrassment. This after she broadcast his sexual abuse incident for the last 24 years to everyone in the state of Arizona who would listen, including TV, newspapers and radio. Mark himself in interviews never mentioned it until now. Could the fact that he hired an attorney in the last couple of months to sue the diocese have anything to do with it? Especially when she told him that he didn't have a case unless he could come up with other incidents of abuse since the statute of limitations had run out on the one they reported to the police.
Contrary to press statements, Mark Kennedy is the only male to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Father Pat in his 26-plus years as a priest. In fact, many young men and their parents have come forward stating they had close personal conduct with Father Pat over the years and have never had any improper conduct from Father Pat. Many of these were classmates of Kennedy.
Father Pat's attorney advises me that, over the years, Father Pat has taken three separate lie detector tests from the state's top examiners and passed them all with the top scores possible. To the contrary, Mark Kennedy refuses to take a lie detector test. Of course, since he is a victim, we are required to believe everything he says as truth.
Dale T. McKenna
Scottsdale
