LETTERS

Starting Over



OF EVERYTHING POSITIVE I have come to know and love about Dallas since moving here five and a half years ago, nothing touched me so deeply as your story “The New Immigrants” (March]. Our city will become even greater as the children of these immigrants return to our society multiples of the meager hospitality we are showing their parents. These children will long remember our city’s initial hospitality, much as I still return to New York to teach students from the same Brooklyn neighborhood my father immigrated to from Poland.

Paul Zane Pilzer

Managing Partner, Zane May Interests

Adjunct Professor of Finance,

New York University



Ticketed Off



I AGREE WITH Driver X of “Road Warrior” (March) about the speed traps set up on our city streets. The old cliche, “There’s never a cop around when you need one,” could be answered with: “That’s because they are filling their quotas with speed traps.” If the Dallas police don’t have quotas, why can you always find a radar gun-wielding cop on LBJ under the Greenville Avenue or Abrams overpass during the last week of each month? The public is on to this game. The cops are going to have to find a new source of revenue.

June M. Richardson

Dallas



Roll the Credits



“PLAY IT AGAIN, Sam” [March] gives credit to the innovators, Al Hill, Sam Grogg, and Trammell S. Crow, who have all brought the industry a little further along the road to maturity. And certainly credit is due them for their risk-taking and vision. It is regrettable that contributions of several people without whom the industry wouldn’t be what it is today were so perfunctorily dismissed. Joe Camp, whose Mulberry Square Productions has made and distributed more studio quality films in Dallas than anybody else; FPS Productions and Joe Pope, who brought in the “Dallas” TV show and showed Hollywood it could be done here; Bob Jessup, who refused to leave Dallas and made Spielberg come to him to shoot The Sugarland Express; the new risk-takers, such as Mary Ann Smith’s Texas Star Productions, and so on. And as to the statement that Getting Even and The Trip to Bountiful could never have been made in Dallas three years ago. perhaps. But certainly Silkwood and Streamers were and Hawmps, For the Love of Benji, Oh Heavenly Dog, and Double McGuffin were Texas-based, made with Texas crews. This industry is not a flash in the pan. There is more depth to it than appears on the surface and every “current star” adds to its solidity and maturity.

Peter Wittman

President, Dallas Communications Council



Judge Not…



THUMBS DOWN TO D magazine for its article defaming Federal Judge Jerry Buchmeyer because of the intricacies of his personality [“Tales of the City,” March]. In case you don*t know it, a judge should be judged on his ability to enforce and uphold the laws.

Diana Niederer

Dallas



AT FIRST WE thought his name was Joe Bob Briggs. Then we heard he was called John Bloom. Now we know that he is really the Ayatollah Khomeini. No one else would attack Judge Jerry Buchmeyer. Send him packing, D!

Robert H. Thomas

Strasburger & Price

Attorneys and Counselors

Dallas



I WAS TICKLED pink to see your article and could not agree more that this judge should be immediately removed from office. I have been a victim of Judge Buchmeyer’s misguided judicial misconduct in a recent civil lawsuit that was settled out of court. His tactics are illegal and unconstitutional.

Marshall Sutton

Executive Vice President

National Bank of Grand Prairie



Addiction: a Problem far All



I JUST FINISHED reading your article “The Nurse, The Addict” [March] and I am very distressed. As a Registered Nurse I am very proud of my profession and of my work as a pediatric nurse. I wish the article, if at all necessary, had been about health professionals and their problems with addiction. As a nursing student at UT Austin I had done a research paper on addiction and health professionals, and it is unfortunately a major problem with potentially frightening consequences for the patients who are in contact with these addicted personnel, [But] addiction is a problem for all, not just for nurses. The title of the article itself scared me, and I know that it must scare the lay people. True, there are addicts who happen to be nurses, but there are also addicts who are actors, musicians, journalists, plumbers, etc. .. I would also like to add that these facts may be true, but, to everyone out there, please do not assume that every nurse is an addict. Nurses work hard and face many stressors, but we deal with stress as most others do. We jog, do aerobics, possibly overeat, maybe smoke, and possibly drink too much caffeine, but not all of us turn to alcohol or drugs. Please, be fair to nurses. We deserve some kind words.

Becky Serna Autrey, R.N.

Dallas



Poverty With a Human Face



EVERY CITY HAS its city magazine, every city its homeless people, and every city magazine does a story on the homeless. But “One Week In Winter” [February] by Richard West was one of the Finest, most eloquent pieces of journalism I’ve ever seen. The people he was writing about came to life. West humanized them for readers too accustomed to regarding them as something less than what they are: real human beings very much like anybody else, but overwhelmed by problems we either have ourselves or with which we have intimate contact through family and friends. West’s vocabulary was rich yet simple, and his ending elegiac. The writing and the editing were nothing less than artistic. The level of writing in D is far above most city magazines, and it is a pleasure to read every month. Thank you.

William T. LeGro

Senior Editor, Sacramento Magazine

Sacramento, California



The System: Managing Well



I GREATLY enjoyed “The Council-Manager System: Time For A Change?” [January]. I know that the council-manager system has served San Antonio well and my sense is that folks in Dallas recognize its role in building your city to the point that it is the envy of all of us in municipal government.

It is not an accident that some of the best-run large cities in America-Dallas, San Diego, Phoenix, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Fort Worth. San Jose, and San Antonio-are council-manager cities. The system works!

Henry Cisneros

Mayor of San Antonio



D Brings It All Back Home



WHILE BIG D is looking to buy its way to Hollywood. I, a Hollywood photographer, am wondering if I can way back into Dallas! Thank God my folks still live there so I can visit that beautiful city.

Tin on my way back to Hollywood now, and I’ve disrupted my fellow passengers howling over the current issue, spirited from the living room on my way to D/FW. What fresh style your writers have; such humor in the “Insights” teachers’ quiz. Even the listings are honest, not fearing to call a yuppie bar exactly that. Los Angeles Magazine refers discreetly to all our clubs as having a “strong international flavor.” Phooey. And no one in L.A. would ever admit to liking, even loving, a mall. Ah NorthPark, possessor of my teenage dreams.

Christie Jenkins

Los Angeles, California



Let’s Go Tragering



OH MY! ARE the “critics of Tragering” wrong [“Invasion of the Bodyworkers,” December|. Rather than being “light on the training side,” the requirements for Trager Practitioner certification are a minimum of six months of various levels of training, field work, teaching and tutoring evaluation, and course work in anatomy and physiology. The certified practitioner must continue to attend training as well as be evaluated on a yearly basis to maintain quality work.

Barbara Nehman

Trager Practitioner

Dallas



Proud of Pride



I AM ALWAYS interested in reading about great country artists, so I was especially happy to see the article about Charley Pride [“Pride and Prejudice,” March]. He has contributed greatly to the popularity of country music, and served on the Board of Directors for CMA for several years.

Jo Walker-Meador, Executive Director

Country Music Association, Inc.

Nashville