Category: Letter

As the opening act for the run of Puppetry of the Penis I appreciate the acknowledgement and kind words of Sari Gordon, or perhaps Jeff Mihelich, regarding my act [The Rakish Angle, March]. To get a blind, gay man to enjoy my show… well, my work here is done. I thought I might attach a name to the middle-aged woman in the boa and cocktail fog. It’s Darlene Westgor. I’ll be here all week.
Darlene Westgor
Burnsville

Oliver Tuanis writes, “When Oklahoma reinstated the death penalty after a twenty-five-year moratorium, murders increased.” [“Dead Serious,” March] Doesn’t that statement at least deserve a footnote that the Oklahoma City bombing occurred after the reinstatement? How can we take anyone seriously who omits such a relevant fact? The writer also cites the fact that “108 people have been sentenced to death for crimes they were later proven not to have committed” for the assertion that the system does not work. In my opinion, that statistic proves that the system does work. Show me the evidence of the people actually put to death for crimes they didn’t commit. Furthermore, it is worth noting that those 108 would have languished in prison for life if not for the fact that the specter of death garnered them extra attention. The alleged racist application is perhaps best disproved by the fact that the author cites no statistics showing minorities receive a disproportionate share of death warrants. Instead, the author claims that the death penalty is disproportionately meted out to those who perpetrate their crimes on whites. How this statistic is calculated is unclear. There are approximately 350 percent more white people than black people in this country, so if the likelihood of being a victim is spread evenly over the races, one would expect that statistical disparity to exist. Even if the methodology was more sophisticated than it appears, it is folly to try and claim all crimes are identical. A substantial number of black murder victims are the result of gang conflict. While the circumstances might warrant a capital charge, the passions are not likely to rival those when a completely innocent woman is kidnapped and murdered. I respect the opinions (though rarely the facts) of those who oppose the death penalty. Personally, I favor it and I’ll tell you why. I don’t care if it doesn’t deter crime, if it’s more expensive, or anything else. People who commit such crimes are a stain on our society. Viewing the situation from the perspective of a non-perpetrator and a non-victim, I want the death penalty because it gives me a sense that there is justice. My rationale is admittedly visceral, but at least I haven’t tried to prop it up with fuzzy math.
Robert Gust
Minneapolis

Oliver Tuanis responds: The study of the Oklahoma murder rate covered the period 1989-1991. The Oklahoma City bombing occurred in 1995. If there were any deterrent effect to the death penalty, it should be easily observable in Texas, where there are the most executions by far. The murder rate there has stayed relatively constant for the last several years. As for the stats on racism, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund study completed in 2003 found that, in cases where an execution has occurred since the restoration of the death penalty, more than eighty percent of the murder victims are white, even though nationally only fifty percent of all murder victims are white. (The likelihood of being a victim is decidedly not in proportion to one’s race, as Mr. Gust guesses for the purpose of his argument.) So, if the victims are equally likely to be white or not, yet the killers of whites are four times as likely to be executed—well, you figure it out. Maybe, as Mr. Gust implies, the white victims are more “innocent” than the non-white, although to me, it would be hard to find a more innocent victim than Tyesha Edwards, an eleven-year-old African-American girl who was sitting in her living room doing her homework when she was shot dead. I guess she was guilty of living in a worse neighborhood than most white people. Finally, Mr. Gust makes the most bizarre assertion I’ve heard in a long time: that the 108 exonerated people released from death row “proves the system does work,” because of the “extra attention” they got. “Show me the evidence of the people actually put to death for crimes they didn’t commit,” he says. To do that, I’d have to do some more digging—literally, I’m afraid.

Editor’s note: The Death Penalty Information Center has identified five men executed since 1992 whose convictions have since been called seriously into question. The DPIC points out that it’s impossible to know how many more wrongly accused prisoners may have been put to death, since “Courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead.”

About Stephanie March’s column on oysters [Down the Hatch, February], in particular the line, “But if you liken it to snot, you should be slapped. Grow up.” Well, Ms. March, I’m a very intelligent, mature man, and now hear this: The texture of oysters is like snot! Truth is truth. I find them to be the most repugnant food on this planet. I don’t believe for a moment that they’re an aphrodisiac. Casanova must simply have had a high level of testosterone. Besides,who needs an aphrodisiac? And to Oliver Nicholson, in defense of champagne [Wine, February]: You’re very knowledgeable, and I generally enjoy your column. However, I must say that I love champagne—as well as red wine—anytime. And it doesn’t give me a worse hangover than anything else. As Dom Perignon said when he first discovered champagne, “Come quickly, I am tasting stars!”
Jerry Westermann,
Fridley

Thanks very much for the wonderful story about Sami Rasouli’s return to Iraq [February]. So much of the media coverage concerns itself with politics, or even with the gruesomeness of war. I find myself increasingly interested in Arab and Muslim culture. It’s as if the news media’s efforts to sanitize the story, or make it a typical geopolitical story, have made me more curious than ever about what real people are doing and saying on the streets of Iraq, what life must really be like there, irrespective of any agenda related to either re-electing or defeating George W. Bush. The fact of the matter is that the world does not revolve around the U.S., and as hard as that lesson seems to be for us to learn, there’s going to be a lot more American blood spilled before it’s all over, I’m afraid. It’s not about us. Your story put a wonderful, human face on this terrible war-torn world.
Ben Levin,
New York

Maybe the reason Dru got so much attention is because her white family and friends were right there to search, hold fund-raisers, and publicize her story. What did you do the last time one of your black sisters were in trouble? Did you pass out posters? Did you go to the media then, when you weren’t the center of attention as in your column? Or do you only write when the article is accompanied with your picture? Did you climb the countryside looking for her? Did you organize fund-raisers to help prolong the search privately when the military ended their commitment? If you answered no to these questions, maybe you should rethink what the problem really is.
Gerri Woodbeck,
Inver Grove Heights

I was heartened to read Mr. Collins’ column on the Dru Sjodin phenomenon [Free the Jackson Five!, January]. I share his concern for the inequitable distribution of compassion by citizens, leaders, and media alike. That is why I spend a whole day in a vigil fast every time someone, no matter what color, is killed in my community. So many lives have been taken in the poor and brown communities of America and so much indifference has followed. It is time for us all to recognize the predictable and conditioned disparity in responses of passion and apathy we express when lives are lost. And it is time for us to pledge to resist those prejudicial urges and respond to the quiet, more humane, pleadings of our ailing consciences and our rational minds. The call is for an evenhanded disbursement of value. It requires a deliberate and willful changing of our behavior. Whether or not we feel like it, we must consider and mourn all equally.
Don Samuels,
Minneapolis City Council Member,
Third Ward

I am writing in regard to Peter Christensen’s letter to the editor regarding whether married men should go to strip clubs [Letters, January]. I agree that the human body is a thing of beauty. But what about male nudity? It seems that it is always about women. Are men not comfortable with baring their bodies? Men have gorgeous bodies, and I personally would like to see more of them. Christensen writes “you don’t see men decrying the ‘exploitation’ of male dancers who strut their goods…” Where are these male strip clubs? I can’t find them anywhere. There are tons of commercials, TV shows, magazines, and movies exposing women’s bodies, but what about the men? I remember a couple of TV commercials advertising men’s underwear, and the male models were dancing seductively. But the commercials were pulled immediately because it was too shocking to show men in revealing clothing. Give me a break. What about the controversy surrounding Abercrombie & Fitch? They have the only catalog I know of that features naked men as well as naked women. But it was pulled because of the backlash. If it was just another catalog with naked women, no one would have blinked. Yes, nudity is a thing of beauty. So let’s drop the puritan attitude about men’s bodies and start showing them as well.
Name withheld by request

Brian Beatty’s review of Mitch Hedberg and his new CD Mitch All Together [Over the Coals, February] is well-informed and credible. I am a big Hedberg fan and also felt that his first CD Strategic Grill Locations captured a too off-the-cuff performance that epitomized the “throw it all against the wall and see what sticks” cliché. I think the material on Mitch All Together is strong (though some of the best bits from the Acme shows I attended did not make it onto the disc), but I agree that the rushed pacing of the material is a disconnect with Hedberg’s historical stage manner and at times diminishes what is overall a solid effort. I still lobby my friends to see his excellent live shows every time he performs locally.
Kevin O’Keefe,
Minneapolis

Hear hear on the fleecing we cross-country skiers are now suffering at Three Rivers [“Getting Fleeced,” February]. It is a pain in the rear, but if it makes skiing better, I guess I can take it. Now we hear that the state DNR is cracking down on skiers as well, but you just have to ask why, when by their own admission the vast majority of skiers have state ski passes, and those who don’t are merely getting warnings? Anyway, I’d like to clarify that this issue is not with the city parks per se but what we used to consider the county parks out in the suburbs. Thanks to Mayor R.T. Rybak, among others, city parks are actually the same price they always were—free—and the quality and quantity of ski-trail grooming has gone way up. The City of Lakes Loppet was a great success, not just as a race but as an organizing and training device for city skiers, who were treated to a world-class course on which to train throughout the season—right here in our front yards. I, for one, am going to stop driving out to Bloomington and Elm Creek, not just in protest of the sky-high fee hikes, but in celebration of city skiing.
Tom Anderson,
Minneapolis

Clinton Collins’ essay [Free the Jackson Five, January] on the Dru Sjodin case and the inequities of valuing lives due to skin color really hit home with me. Long ago, when I was a student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, I was raped by two men who threatened to kill me and dump my body in the nearby Mississippi River. It was nighttime. I wasn’t sure I’d make it out alive. The year was 1968. I never reported the incident. Now, I watch more than closely any article on a woman who “disappears.” Some are found dead, some are never found. In the past several years, I’ve noticed the difference as to how much press the disappearance of a white women gets as opposed to women of color. Having come very close to being one of the disappeared, I feel very strongly for each of these women I hear about and the horrific circumstances I know they’ve endured. Thank you for being a voice for the women who are only mentioned on page two or three of the newspaper—whose disappearance or death only gets small mention, or perhaps no mention at all. As a community, we need to examine ourselves. Why do we allow this inequity to exist? We need to wake up.
Jeanne Cowan