LEO welcomes letters that are brief (250 words max) and thoughtful. Ad hominem attacks will be ignored, and we need your name and a daytime phone number. Send snail mail to EROSIA, 640 S. Fourth St., Louisville, Ky. 40202. Fax to 895-9779 or e-mail to [email protected]. We may edit for length, grammar and clarity.
No Landslide
Billy Reed and LEO are doing great work on the arena issue in particular and state politics generally. Keep it up. One quibble about Reed’s recent article about the Arena Authority and its leader Jim Host, however. Wendell Ford’s victory over Tom Emberton in the 1971 governor’s race was not quite a “landslide” as Reed wrote. Democrat Ford got 470,720 votes, or 53 percent, and Republican Emberton garnered 412,653, or 47 percent. Electing Ford, a provincial party hack, over the bright and promising Emberton was one of the worst mistakes Kentucky’s voters have ever made.
John David Dyche
Double Vision
I was surprised to read the “review” by Bradford Cummings of Wayward Actors Company’s production of “Beyond Therapy” (Feb. 22 LEO). I finished the review wondering if he and I had watched the same play.
I stumbled onto the performance by seeing a poster for it. As a devoted fan of Durang’s works, I was delighted to see that one of my favorites was being done here in Louisville. I was there opening night, and in my estimation, the pauses Cummings noted were not due to missed lines, but the actors having to wait for the audience to cease laughing in order to continue and be heard.
While I agreed with his praise for Mr. Galey (Bruce) and Mr. Pace (Bob), I wonder why he found the rest of the cast so lacking. My husband and I loved the sleaze of Mr. Hess (Stuart) and the flighty fun of Ms. Self (Charlotte). I also found Ms. Grider’s (Prudence) uncomfortable anxiety to be very likable. Perhaps it was Cummings who missed “important elements of the play.”
Most of all, I found his comments concerning Mr. Dolgin (director) to be devoid of constructive criticism. I read reviews, even of plays I’ve already seen, and usually pay heed to a reviewer’s comments, be they good or bad. To state that he felt there were unnecessary pauses is one thing; to state that “if Wayward had a nickel for every verbal pause in search of a line, they could’ve hired a better director” is a bit much.
I am a theater buff, and in my 55 years of life I have seen a fair amount of theater, both in Louisville and in my native New York City. True, community theater here lacks an edge and an identity at times. These cannot be considered off-Broadway productions, but they highlight plays that are often offbeat and usually very enjoyable; I found this one to be no exception.
In fact, as a sign of opposition to Cumming’s review I intend on seeing this play for a second time. And I’m going to laugh my head off every moment.
Mary Addy
What It Is
Ken Walker lamented in his guest commentary of Feb. 8 that he can’t explain what spirituality is; only what it is not. Maybe I can’t either. But, I’d like to give it a try.
I believe spirituality is about our efforts to understand the ultimate good in the universe. This means I see God partly as the goodness that is shared by everyone. Maybe we could say that we are little parts of a great big soul. We connect to this ultimate good by reflection, prayer, study, religious rituals, sermonizing and by practicing what we preach. Use the ones that work best for you. However, we have to admit one thing about spiritually right off the bat. It’s partly based on faith because scientific research cannot prove everything for us. My guess is that it never will. It’s not supposed to.
So, the big challenge of faith is to find principles and practices that are reasonable in light of what we know about reality and useful in terms of spreading goodness. Make sense? I hope so. This might be the best explanation I can come up with.
Tom Louderback
Untamed Eyebrows
“The formula is simple: If there’s a debate, just have David Jones Sr. pay for a study that supports his view about what we should do.” So David Hawpe says. I think Jones would do well to pay for further study on Hawpe’s eyes, but it’s not what you might think. It’s not for the optometry to correct nearsightedness. Jones should pay to investigate Hawpe’s bushy eyebrows. Hidden behind the glasses to be sure, there they are nonetheless. Even Hawpe’s liberal tattoos don’t disguise his bushy eyebrows.
A true liberal, even a moderate, might seek to become the fulcrum point where community leaders get together and talk about the way things could be and even work toward some well-needed consensus. It seems clear to those of us outside the power circle that issues other than personality are at play, some behind-the-scenes deal-making is at stake and that quid-pro quo arrangements, deals that haven’t hit The C-J as news and never will, have been threatened. Why isn’t it prudent to ask questions and consider truthfulness in selecting arena and interstate sites when it’s required to consider WMDs and wiretaps?
But for the Jones-Schnatter study, citizens, not editors, are paying for all of this oligarchic unilateralism. This same truncated thinking builds bridges on the public greens, wages wars in Iraq, builds arenas against common sense, and crows about it all, as though bravado makes facts irrelevant. Unfortunately, the spectacle Hawpe makes of himself is no pair of Groucho glasses. Small-minded Hawpe reveals his loquacious but despotic bent: he’s Bushy. Yes, Bushy —George W. Bushy, that is — with eyebrows that raise in disdain when someone dares to ponder what the power group has proscribed! Bush and Hawpe, like other fundamentalists whose noses protrude well beyond where they can see, look equally silly. Just when you think the Ayes have it, thanks to Jones and Schnatter, the eyes give it away.
Doug Lowry
Half-Cocked Story
Al Mohler was right: Male friendships are being destroyed by that gay cowboy movie, “Brokeback Mountain.” Dick and Harry’s story proves it (last names will not be used in telling this story in order to protect private parts and civil liberties). Here’s what happened. Dick and Harry were engaging in that age-old male friends’ bonding activity, “Cowboys and Quails.” Dick wanted to prove to Harry that he is a straight shooter. However, in his friendly fervor, Dick went off half-cocked. Now, as we all know, male friends do not do mushy conversation; male friendship means never having to say, “I’m sorry, I thought you were a quail.” So, Harry misinterpreted being sprayed with bird-shot as a hetero-hostile act, rather than the friendly fire Dick intended. So, the message went straight to Harry’s heart. And thus Dick and Harry’s male friendship is shot — just like Al said. The moral of this woeful Quail Tale: Male friends don’t let male friends play with half-cocked Dicks!
Tom Adams
