LETTERS

MORE CRIME WAVES

WHEN YOU printed your article on burglary (“Crime in North Dallas,” April), my husband got real mad. We had just installed a new burglar alarm system, and you told the world how to render it useless by cutting our electricity off. After that article we had to shell out more money to have our alarm fixed so it would go off if someone tried to cut the power.

Two days ago, while we were both at work, somebody opened our back gate, came into the yard, and cut our power line. The alarm went loud and clear. They must have run away when that happened, because nobody got into our house.

Now that we’ve had some time to think about it, we both think we would have been burglarized if it hadn’t been for what we read in your article. Please keep up the good work.

Name withheld

Dallas



D MAGAZINE is to be congratulated for its article on how to rob a house and getting the public upset.

The article did not tell the burglars anything they did not already know, but rather let us know that we are vulnerable in our homes.

However, the real problem is the lenient courts in Dallas and the area of concern of police activities.

As an Oak Lawn resident I’ve found it takes 15 minutes to get a policeman to respond. They have to come from East Dallas. This is not their fault, due to a manpower shortage.

Daily, I see police hiding along Cedar Springs or Inwood in the bushes waiting for speeders. Other policemen are busy arresting gay jaywalkers on Cedar Springs. Meanwhile the vice squad is busy watching porno shops and dirty movies for sinister people in the dark.

David Hester

Dallas



GETTING THE GOODS ON MIKE SHROPSHIRE



YOUR ARTICLE on Julia Sweeney missed the point.

Ms. Sweeney’s success lies in the fact that she is a lady. She knows far more than she prints, is seldom malicious, and always honors her confidences.

There is. a reason she continues to be welcomed everywhere. We like her!

Mrs. B.L. Nelson

Dallas



JUST A QUICKIE to compliment Mike Shropshire. He is a very talented and entertaining writer -he shows unique insight while at the same time making it possible for us to laugh at ourselves and our silly habits.

Having moved from Dallas two years ago, Mike Shropshire (and D Magazine, in general) helps me to remember Dallas’ little quirks, and to miss them that much more.

Laurie Ford

Basking Ridge, New Jersey



THOUGH HE’S a tempting target, may I be the first in line to request that Mike Shropshire not be the subject of a Mike Shropshire story about Mike? His “Getting the Goods on Julia Sweeney” is more than enough of such journalism.

In his inarticulate way, Mr. Shropshire has told us far more about himself than he has told us about Miss Sweeney.

He says, for example, “She is a rather nondescript, middle-aged woman.” As it happens, I know Miss Sweeney and she’s about as nondescript as a plum tree in an orange orchard.

He finds her “not anyone’s tower of in-tellectualism” (whatever that means). He says “she is not the wife of a rich insurance tycoon, she’s not anybody’s wife; she doesn’t even have a college degree.” All this is gratuitous.

Does Mr. Shropshire really dream that Dallas society (any society) is composed of 18-year-old millionaire beauties (all with rich insurance tycoon husbands) who sit around over their after-dinner port discussing Strindberg?

Mr. Shropshire’s extreme youth may explain how he comes by such innocent ideas, but how does one explain his use of the phrase “station in life”? That one hasn’t seen the light of print since Queen Victoria became a widow.

So please don’t hire detectives to ferret out what’s in Mike Shropshire’s garbage. There was enough of that in his article.

Joe H. Baker, Jr.

Houston

I WAS anguished and angered to realize that we in Dallas have seemingly accepted and supported a publication whose editors would capitalize on such slander as was expressed in your recent article about Julia Sweeney. Often one can embellish half-truths and anecdotes about the idle rich with aplomb, but Mike Shropshire’s vicious attack on Ms. Sweeney-her job, her lifestyle, her heritage, was far too malicious to provide chuckles. It was a horror, and a needless grave error in journalistic taste.

As for the writer, I think he’d be better off behind a six pack than a pencil; and speaking of intellectualism, what’s this about Verdi’s Puccini) I can personally vouch for Ms. Sweeney’s brains, integrity, loyalty, and refinement. After all, I sat behind her in algebra class in good old B.H.S.

Mrs. Bob Titus

Dallas



MIKE SHROPSHIRE has never watched the daytime serial, Texas.

This is obvious in his article, “Freak Shows” (May). I have watched the show from its beginning, and there has never been anyone on it named Broderick or Carla. There also was never anyone killed with roach poison.

No wonder people can’t believe everything they read.

Joanne Ostrander

Richardson



A GOOD reason “daytime television is the most maligned facet of the entire spectrum” is that fatuous writers like Mike Shropshire are misinformed and biased. If he took more than a fleeting glance at The Young and The Restless he would clearly see that the pregnant wife is Julia and not Juliet (as stated).

The only factual statement written about the soap Texas was that it takes place in Houston. The rest was purely fictitious.

Mr. Shropshire is obviously one of the aforementioned perpetrators that indeed gives soaps a bad name.

Hedy Alvarez

Dallas



PLAYING POLITICS

YOUR MAY story on the Texas Legislature (“The Last of the Old-Time Legislatures”) offered a good view of legislative politics but neglected to give credit to all the people willing to serve there for their sacrifice of a great deal of personal time and energy in a job that is obscure and mostly thankless.

I appreciate your appraisal of my own service, but I hate to see the contribution of other Dallas and Fort Worth area legislators undervalued. In particular, your readers should know of the fair and responsible leadership provided the Dallas delegation by Rep. Chris Semos of Oak Cliff.

There are some people in Austin who fit the negative stereotype in your article, but Chris Semos is not among them. Many of the other men and women who serve Dallas County in Austin also deserve D’s praise.

Lee F. Jackson

State Representative

Dallas



ORDINARILY, I view the press like I do luck – I take the good with the bad.

I understand your peculiar constitutional privilege to express your opinion about a public official (“The Legislative Lineup,” May), but the same constitutional privilege does not permit you to misrepresent the facts. This article expressed your opinion with respect to myself and was based on the following mis-statements of facts:

1. The prisoners’ fund-raising effortfor the Atlanta investigation was initiatedby a Travis County jail inmate, Jerry Pen-nington. A counselor at the jail, Mr.Mikan, contacted my office; Mr. CurtisWeeks of the sheriff’s office arranged thepresentation and invited me to participate.

2. Many other public officials (including Speaker Clayton, Lt. Governor Hobby, Attorney General White, and Senator Chet Brooks) were supportive of our efforts. Members of both Houses unanimously endorsed the resolution, which offers the state’s assistance in solving the murders of the children in Atlanta. (The green ribbons are symbolic of life. Almost every local city council has subsequently passed a similar resolution, including Dallas.)

3. The women legislators have made my cause their own by personally donating money, encouraging their constituents’ donations, and getting lobbyists to contribute. (You may feel this is a “quixotic crusade”; I don’t. I have been uplifted and sustained. Every religious denomination in the state, many civic groups, school children, college classes, and concerned citizens have called to voice their concerns.)

4. As to my “ineffectiveness,” I suggest you check my voting record from the 66th legislative session. You are entitled to your opinion even though it is based on your misunderstanding of the legislative process and incorrect information. However, I do believe it essential to a free press that expression of opinion not be used as a vehicle for misrepresenting the facts.

Lanell Cofer

State Representative

Dallas



MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS



I RECENTLY read “Medical Notes” (May), by John Pekkanen, subtitled “Breakthroughs are expensive-yet priceless.” Please accept my compliments on conveying a message the public needs to hear and understand.

However, I feel you missed one of the most significant surgical breakthroughs. It may be the most significant because it makes possible the development and use of such things as microsurgery. The development of modern anesthesiology has reduced the surgical mortality and morbidity rate. Also, it allows critically ill patients to be operated on. In the past many of these patients would not have been operated on because of excessively high anesthetic risk.

Modern anesthesiology is the application of much research from the last few decades involving normal and abnormal physiology of the cardiovascular, respiratory, and other systems; pharmacology of autonomic drugs; physiology of nerve blockade from local anesthetics; and use of sophisticated monitoring devices.

Anesthesiology, in spite of its contributions to the delivery of surgical care, has been grossly neglected by the press.

Len B. Hughes, M.D.

Dallas



CLASSIFIED INFORMATION



GLANCING THROUGH the auto types (“What’s Your Auto Profile?,” May) and turning the page, I saw my classification, Mercedes-Benz. I noticed the error (450 SL, four-door sedan). There ain’t no such, unless the writer meant two different motor cars, 450 SL Roadster, and the four-door sedan, probably 450 SE, 450 SEL, 280 SE, etc. Since I have owned both styles (450 SL is what I now drive), I feel I am as qualified to correct the errors in the description of the driver as anyone.

1. If this (meaning me) driver wereclever and cunning, his banker wouldn’town the motor car.

2. He would never risk such a fine andexpensive machine on North Central Expressway.

3. If this driver were clairvoyant, anticipating trouble and avoiding it, he wouldn’t have extended or be worried about his IRS account.

4. Being passed is an affront, especiallyby buses, loud diesel-burning trucks, andmotorcycles; an unpleasant experiencewhen in the convertible mode.

5. I didn’t know there was a Dallashierarchy.

6. I lost control and flipped (half gainerwith a full twist) once.

7. And there is a tiny bumper sticker,which reads “United States Screen DoorOpen (invitational) Golf Championship,”of course.

J. Michael Meadows

Dallas



BILINGUAL EDUCATION



YOUR RECENT editorial regarding Judge Justice’s decision on bilingual education (“Insights,” June) contains two false assumptions.

First, extension of bilingual education through the twelfth grade is unlikely to result in individual students remaining in bilingual classrooms for a longer period of time. What it will mean is that students from Spanish-speaking countries who arrive in Texas after the third grade will receive bilingual instruction until they are ready for English instruction.

Second, your assumption that a longer period of instruction in a child’s native language will lower proficiency in English is completely unfounded. A growing body of research evidence shows that children who receive instruction in Spanish for the first five or six years of their school experience become more proficient in English than children who make the transition to English too soon, or who receive no instruction in Spanish at all. In other words, proficiency in English is largely tied to the full development of native language skills by children from other language backgrounds.

I urge you to familiarize yourselves with the relevant research on bilingual education before attempting to write anything else on the subject.

William Pulte

Associate Professor of Anthropology

Southern Methodist University