LETTERS

Having been quick to criticize, I also want to be equally quick to compliment D Magazine for the “Soul of a New City” [November]. It is without question the most comprehensive and thought-provoking article that has been written on the core of our city. As we struggle with such issues as transit, housing, retail, safety, the homeless, and even baseball, we desperately need a road map to project our vision for the future.

I couldn’t agree more that our current economic uncertainty offers an unparalleled opportunity for good planning. Hopefully, your vision for downtown will be the catalyst for the Central Dallas Association, along with others, to assume a leadership role in determining what Dallas will be in the year 2020. As someone once said, the best way to predict the future is to create it.

John Scovell

Dallas

Thanks for your focus on downtown in your November issue. You managed to pack a lot of information into a few insightful articles.

Recent events demonstrate that progress can be made toward reviving our retail base, creating new housing opportunities, and getting on with the job of building a regional transit system. The opportunities are before us, and the Central Dallas Association is committed to making it happen.

Larry Fonts

Central Dallas Association

Dallas

JFK And Dallas: Twenty-five Years later

I was moved by Lawrence Wright’s article, “Was Dallas A City of Hate?” [November].

As a relative newcomer to Dallas (1980), I found the article instructive and arresting in giving background I could find no other place. Yet the personal and biographical insights added a dimension that made that time more understandable for me (I was in college).

Thank you, Mr. Wright, for such a lucid, well-articulated article. It is wonderful to read such a quality literary effort in a locally published magazine.

Martone Miller

Dallas

Your articles on the Kennedy assassination deserve commendation and thanks. November 22, 1963, was a sad day for everyone, but Dallas is simply not a “city of hate.”

Presidents Lincoln and Garfield were assassinated in Washington, D.C., and President McKinley in Buffalo, yet these cities are not labeled “cities of hate” Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles and it is rarely mentioned.

Thanks for the two fine articles defending our city and for also giving deserved admiration to President John F. Kennedy.

Tera M. CarsonDallas



Shortly after finishing “Was Dallas a City of Hate?” I was driving in North Dallas near Valley View Mall, thinking about the attacks of “well-groomed women” from “the finest homes in the city” made on Lyndon Johnson and other politicians of the early Sixties. As I slowed for traffic waiting for a signal light to turn, I noticed bumper stickers proclaiming “Nuke the Duke,” “Du Ca Ca go home” and “Save a Country, Smash Dukakis.”

Although stating a political choice is a right that should be exercised (e.g. “Bush for President” or “Bentsen in ’88”), I fear that many of our most well-groomed citizens, who have the most to be thankful for and should be the least fearful of the future, have yet to learn the tragic lesson of hate-mongering. Your timely story should give all residents of our city a chance to pause and consider just exactly what lessons should have been learned from those very sad days.Jay Newman Dallas



AIDS M Who Dropped The Ball?

So who’s angry at the city’s last-minute refusal to rescue the AIDS Housing & Financial Assistance Fund [“Inside Dallas,” November]? Taxpayers should he-because the city lobbed the ball to the county and the resounding thud you heard was when it fell flat. Don’t blame Craig Holcomb and Lori Palmer for the last-minute, ill-fated opinion from City Attorney Analeslie Muncy that torpedoed the $126,000 earmarked for the AIDS Resource Center’s emergency assistance fund. Perhaps it’s just me, but is Analeslie the establishment’s weapon or what? Has anyone outside the status quo ever gotten a favorable ruling out of her that is against the city and for the people?

The charge of “homophobia” against the city and its bureaucracy stands until city funds are directed to local gay-oriented, gay-managed, gay-supported organizations working in our fight against AIDS.

William W. Waybourn

Dallas Gay Alliance

Dallas

Guns if Roses ’n’ Louts ’n’ Censorship



In regards to the “Thumbs Up” to Texas Stadium’s Joe Cavagnaro Jr. and his fellow Irving-ites [“Inside Dallas,” November], is D Magazine now condoning selective censorship? Why is it Madonna can perform in her quite brief underwear showing her backside, Michael Jackson can grab his crotch throughout his show, but Guns n’ Roses gets its set cut short because the lead singer, or “lout,” as you so graciously called him, wears an outfit that shows his backside? Are female backsides less offensive than male backsides? Are overtly sexual gestures less offensive when performed by a soprano?

I’m sure Cavagnaro felt he was only protecting “innocent’1 minds from the offensive behavior of a lout with a bare backside, But Joe, please, what is offensive to one person is not always offensive to all. Guns n’ Roses is a raunchy band. Personally, I find the Dallas Cowboys more offensive than Guns n’ Roses on their best day, but I doubt we’ll ever see them pulled from the field because of it.

Jackie Sneed

Dallas



When Lawn Darts Are Outlawed…



I was pleased to note the “Thumbs Down” [November] regarding three of our congressmen’s votes on the seven-day waiting period for handgun purchase. It staggers the imagination to consider the power of the National Rifle Association over peace and law enforcement in this country. Lawn darts that took the lives of several people were outlawed in short order, but the thousands killed by handguns each year are overlooked. It’s pushing the “right to bear arms” a bit, don’t you think? The legal scholars who study the “framers intent” of our Constitution could have fun with that one.

Cincinnati has passed an ordinance regulating the sale of handguns. Why don’t we do the same? I think our congressmen should listen to our own police and City Council rather than the NRA, although their purses are substantially better filled with the NRA, Why not challenge the City Council to write an ordinance like Cincinnati’s, instruct our legislators in Austin to submit a law similar to Maryland’s, and remind our congressmen and senators who they are representing?

Buddy Macafee

Dallas