D Letters

To Medicate, or Not



I am writing to protest vigorously the exceptional and damaging misquoting of my comments to your writer in “When the Voices Stopped” [April]. I never stated that persons with schizophrenia have routinely been treated by giving them medication “until his| arms flailed out so much he couldn’t feed himself, or you took him off it, taking away the most effective part of his treatment.” This misquote is unfair to current treatments for schizophrenia, and terribly unfair to the many psychiatrists and other professionals who, in the words of one who wrote to me as a result of your article, “labored in the vineyard for many years, and saw some good results with our patients.”

In addition, I never said the words attributed to me in the next paragraph: “Even when we Said patients were ’doing well on drugs like Thorazine, they weren’t really doing well at all… They couldn’t hold jobs, live on their own, or get married and have a family.”

Ordinarily, I truly appreciate newspaper and magazine articles that highlight our efforts to care for the mentally ill, and the optimisim that we feel when medications such as Clozapine come along. In this case, however. your writer has offset the positive aspects of her article with damage to patients, (families, and physicians. I sincerely hope that you will do something to correct these errors.

William h. Reid, M.D., M.P.H.

Medical DIRECTOR, Texas DePT, of Mental

Health and Mental Retardation

Writer Rebecca Sherman replies: William Reid and I spoke by phone three times in the month of December regarding Clozapine, including a 20-minute conversation on December 14, at 1:40p.m. during which Dr. Reid made the comments in question\ I stand by my account.



Truth and Consequences

Compliments to Jim Schutze. and more importantly, to D for having the courage to print the truth. [“What If We All Stopped Lying?” April].

For years 1 have written articles, on race relations in particular, [of which] editors have tola me, “While the article is good, we are not in the business of ’upsetting’ people.” That was just their way of skirting the truth. If people really want to live in harmony, they must first face the truths in life.

Thanks for restoring my faith in the media (well, some of it anyway).

JEFFERY CHERN

FRISCO



Yes, Mr. Schutze, but let’s also ask the homeless how they feel about the “open” doors available to them, Let’s let let poor kid in the projects tell the truth about how he feels slinging burgers at McDonald’s for minimum wage while the dope dealers cruise in their luxury automobiles. Let’s admit there is nothing fair about life; the doors may be open, but the path to them is sometimes rough and tortuous. Where you end up depends as much upon where you started as the road you took. If you take away this thing called society, where a set of rules and compromises allows us to live together in some semblance of peace despite the worst of human nature, you’ll see the have-nots take from the haves by any means necessary. So sure, let’s all say and do what we really want; you may find that the truth hurts, in more ways than one.

CHRIS SHELTION<BR>DALLAS

Turn Off. Tune Out

Regarding Chris Tucker’s “Hard Right on Your Radio Dial” in April’s issue: Chris Tucker worries about three hours each day when David Gold is on the air at KLIF, yet for 21 hours there are plenty of other viewpoints on the station. Only Gold’s views are threatening the public airwaves, so that is when Tucker pays attention and hears a show requiring cleansing of its dangerous content. Gold’s show successfully broadcasts what cannot get expressed in those other 21 hours filled with predominantly centrist and left-leaning views. The purveyors of those viewpoints will not admit this bias, instead choosing to characterize themselves as either moderate or simply correct, I am trying to illustrate a basic pattern in electronic mass media. The broadcast of standard (or acceptable) viewpoints on radio and television is contained in a moderate to left/liberal range. Conservative free speech is characterized in that same broadcast media as right wing, deviant, phobic, violent, paranoid, prejudiced, sexist, racist, mono-pigmented and fundamentalist Christian.

Don’t worry about three hours a day on a local radio station, Chris, just tune out. But no, it is the idea that David Gold’s views have a route of expression which is unbearable. How illiberal of you.

DAVID PERKINS

DALLAS

Chris Tucker replies: Just to keep the record straight, “Hard Right on Your Radio Dial” contains no suggestion that anyone’s views, however bombastically expressed, need “cleansing” of any sort. Criticism is not censorship.



Mort Retort



We at the Dallas Symphony Association, Inc. are most grateful for your mention in the April issue “Mort Report,” (Street Talk) of the Hispanic Festival Concert and the African-American Festival Concert that the Dallas Symphony will present free of charge this season as part of the NationsBank Community Concert Series, in association with the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs and the Department of Parks and Recreation.

However, I feel compelled to point out an inaccuracy in your reporting. You state that “the hall opened amid protests over the city paying for the [symphony’s] home.”

1. The original formula for funding of the city’s cultural facilities was defined by the city and called for the city to provide 60 percent of the funds and for the private sector to raise 40 percent of the required funds.

2. This formula did not relate to a specific building site or architectural plan.

3. The actual cost to complete the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center was $81.5 million, a cost which was shared by the City of Dallas (S36 million equaling 44 percent) and the Dallas Symphony Association, Inc. ($45.5 million equaling 56 percent).

HOWARD HALLAM

PRESIDENT

DALLAS SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION, INC.



What’s Your Point?



I hate to meet a compliment with a correction, but your comparison of Howard Stem and Ron Chapman inadvertently misplaced a decimal point in the tally of $20 checks sent by KVIL listeners; it was over 2 hundred thousand dollars!

After all…I don’t want you guys to get berated.

JODY DEAN

MORNING SHOW PRODUCER

KVIL