LETTERS

AS ANDY, UH, WILLIAMS WAS SAYING

YOU CAN BET your “A” List I’m mad. I find it hard to understand why our firm was not mentioned as either a caterer or decorator in your recent article [“All Night Long,” December). We are the only special events firm in Dallas that maintains not only a fully staffed, four star kitchen, but also a complete set design and construction operation with top theatrical personnel. Last December, D gave us a full-page photograph and named us one of Dallas’ top creative people, This December we did not even make the honorable mention list. Andy Warhol was right when he told me D had the shortest memory of any magazine. Many of the parties you mentioned in your article were designed or catered by us. When David Davidson wanted his now-famous leather party, Cynthia Michaels, Inc. caiered the food at Union Station, including the 6-foot-tall chocolate sculpture of a topless biker with whips and chains, and we not only designed the props but replicated his favorite Italian expresso bar. When the Starck Club had its grand opening, we prepared a potpourri of the finest food of 12 different countries. Mayor Taylor’s staff called upon us for the awards banquet honoring the Dallas consular community as a prelude to the International Ball. One other point: When D wanted a great caterer for their 10th anniversary parly, they selected Cynthia Michaels.

The shame of not having made your “A” list is a trauma I will carry with me all the way to the bank.

Michael Jacobson

Co-President

Cynthia Michaels, Inc.



THE REWARDS OF FAITH

ALTHOUGH THE ONLY “bad” press is no press. 1 must register objection to the inaccurate profile presented in your December issue concerning the Robert Tilton ministry ]”Is Dallas The Most Christian City In The Nation?”]. Falling short of the truth, the ar-ticie encourages so much misunderstanding of the man and the message. Pastor Tilton absolutely does not “squirm away from the hard words of the gospels.” Contrarily, the spiritual laws he teaches are the hard words. Spiritual understanding is not a drive-thru situation. Robert Tilton’s critics base their denunciations on superficial examination- generally one sermon, if any. The truth is that Bob teaches the responsibility side of believers’ rights just as persistently. His media critics never hear that part of the teaching. Three years of listening to the man tells me the failure is not my pastor’s! God doesn’t want money to have us, not for us not to have money. Jesus said it was hard for rich men to enter the kingdom of God. not impossible1. With God, all things become possible.

The Word of Faith message that we preach is biblical. It is not the “religious” unbelief of men that crept into the church almost immediately. The Apostle Paul fought it; so do we. God has never been able to do anything for people who couldn’t believe Him and who wouldn’t take Him at his word. At Word of Faith we are just wild enough to believe that God will do as it is written. And guess what! God is just wild enough to reward our faith as He promised.

Donna Zachary-D’Iorio

Dallas

HOW CAN YOUR reporters allow a serious and important story on religion and religious services in Dallas to contain serious, glaring errors? You must know that errors made with respect to minority groups can have great potential for damage and can perpetuate prejudices and misconceptions. Yet you printed a story about a Jewish synagogue. Congregation Shearith Israel in Dallas, and you allowed a gross error to appear that is devastatingly incorrect.

When the rabbi tells the congregation to rise for the “Prayer for our Country.” and for the State of Israel, he is talking about two separate prayers. “Our Country” is the United States of America, not Israel. American Jews do not walk around thinking that America is not their country and that the State of Israel is their homeland. Israel is the land of their religious heritage; America is their home and the land of their nationality, national pride and patriotic beliefs. Never, never, never should you confuse the two.

Gregory R. Jacobs

Dallas

Much of the service was conducted in Hebrew and was difficult for our writer to follow. D regrets the error.

THE NEMAN’S CAPER

THE GREED OF Angela Clark King and Heide Bourgett Levy [“Who’s Ripping Off The Store?” December] is surpassed only by that of their black-murket clientele. It is interesting that they are all indifferent to the very propriety that makes their “bargain buys” symbols of the affluent.

Apparently, those involved espouse the same values as did Tom Sawyer and his cohorts by being “inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.”

Keith W. Pettit

Arlington



CREDIT WHERE

IT’S DUE

I WAS DELIGHTED to see the spectacular photographs and article featuring Fair Pork in your October issue [“Back to Fair Park”]. There is nothing else like Fair Park anywhere in the world, and it may soon join the likes of Mount Vernon and the Alamo as a national historic landmark (the only one in Dallas). David Dillon’s text was, as always, insightful and to the point. However, the fact that it was an excerpt from Doug Tomlinson and David Dillon’s superb new book Dallas Architecture: 1936-1986 was not obvious until the very end. More distressing was the fact that Doug Tomlin-son’s name was relegated to a tiny photo credit. Doug is one of the top architectural photographers in the country and this book grew out of his Dallas Museum of Art exhibit Dallas from the Ground Up. The final product. Dallas Architecture: 1936-1986, a melding of Doug’s evocative photographs and David’s telling prose, should be of high interest to all your readers.

Virginia McAlester

Dallas