Graphics Portal
After reading “Welcome to Loserville” (LEO Weekly, Dec. 12), I’m inclined to believe that the writer has less of an understanding of competitive news markets than Tim and Eric do of editing television. Calling WAVE 3 a portal to someone else’s tragedy displays striking ignorance of the state of the rest of modern news media. It doesn’t take much knowledge to see the irony in accusing WAVE of underutilizing unembellished video content. Because, clearly, that’s what will win the ratings war for television stations in a highly competitive market. The only reason other local stations aren’t running effects-laden promos is because they don’t have editors competent enough to pull them off. Is it an overly stylized representation of the city? Perhaps, but before you go crying mismanagement, maybe you should consider the greater societal causes for such decisions. If it takes grime filters and dubstep to draw in an audience, I blame the viewers — not the station.
Tyler Franklin, Fern Creek

Long, Long Ago
The Dec. 12 LEO column by Steve Shaw is one that deserves the widest possible dissemination. It was a true representation of a period of time in the 1950-80 timespan, and those who were fortunate enough to have had a similar experience as described in his well-written description will have warm memories of a day long since passed from our current way of life. Yes, Virginia, there was really a well-lived life before technology pushed personal relationships aside.
Irvin Goldstein, Hikes Point

Western is Winning
I moved from a small community in Colorado to Louisville last year. While attending a previous JCPS middle school, I felt unsafe, like none of my teachers cared about me, and most of all unwanted. Moving from that to Western Middle School this year has been the best choice of my life. I am currently an eighth-grader at Western and feel very good about where I am. All of the publicity about Western right now isn’t really putting our school in a good place. I discovered Western at the 2011 Showcase of Schools when drama teacher Ms. Lavoie and the former assistant principal Ms. Gray greeted me and actually cared about what I was interested in. I felt like this was the school for me. As Western being the third school I have attended in the past three years, I felt that my eighth-grade year I really needed to find a good school. The environment at Western is family-like, and being from a middle school in Colorado that had less than 250 students, I no longer feel that I am in a big city. Thanks to my teachers, I will have a successful eighth-grade year and move on to high school next year.
Bettina Sack-Gallup, St. Matthews

Goodbye Guns
Until recently, I had been one of the rare Democrat/pro-gun supporters. It took the sickening massacre of 20 children and six adults for me to completely change my stance to a whole-hearted supporter of any legislation that makes it more difficult to obtain a firearm. These acts of mass violence, like the several we have witnessed in 2012, will continue to be a frequent tragedy in our country more and more until “significant actions are taken” (vague words of Barack Obama). In any other country where random massacres occur (11 out of the last 12 in recent history were in the U.S.), drastic changes were made to their gun legislation due to public outcry for reform.

In the U.S., not only does that public condemnation not exist, the gun lobby seems to only get stronger after instances like Newtown’s. The Courier-Journal reported last week nearly all local gun distributors experienced a rise in business immediately following every national headline-grabbing shooting this year. While any other nation would use this unfortunate opportunity to make guns harder to buy, Americans fill grocery carts with 12-gauge shotguns and ak-47s, becoming more and more trigger-happy and riled up with paranoid, delusional fantasies of apocalyptic societal gun battles … and gun control. When we as a society hear of the slaughter of 20 innocent, beautiful and loving children, the first thing in our collective minds is “buy more guns” — and that is sad beyond comprehension.
Zachary Sauer, Clifton