Letters

Radioactive
Lizz's brand of liberalism is full of hate:Never let it be said St. Louis lacks a voice in hate radio: Ours is clearly Lizz Brown, local racial provocateur, sometime attorney and even a teacher of some kind of PC puff course at Webster University. To say Brown talks about racism [D.J. Wilson, "Yin and Yang," RFT, June 13] is a bit understated: She rants; raves; speaks softly, loudly; ridicules; criticizes; vents; froths; spews; and most of all, whips up her audience into an ignorant frenzy of hatred and racial anger. But, thankfully, her audience is about 10 in number -- including those few who do try to nail her reckless slanders and accusations. The folks who get close to nailing her wind up getting hung up on, and until that point, she drags out first-year moot-court tactics to bully and talk down her questioner. Only her less skillful critics get to stay on the line to be mocked and belittled.

St. Louis radio and Chuck Norman can do much better than Lizz Brown. We are a city in need of racial healing, not strife. Perhaps rather than giving Mizz Lizz so much credit, we should expose her for the fraud she is and let all her employers know what we think of her brand of hatred and ignorance.

Oh yes -- Lizz, we really did send men to the moon.
Patrick McCarthy
St. Louis

People Who Like People
Heaven forbid St. Louis should loosen up! Eddie Silva's recent article regarding the People Project was aptly titled ["Tedious People," RFT, June 6]. "Tedious" is how I would describe his negative rant. Heaven forbid the St. Louis community be allowed to loosen up and have a little fun. Each time I have encountered a "people," it has brought a smile to my face and I have found myself slowing down and enjoying it for what it is. Kudos to the folks with the courage and vision to make it happen.
Bret Bachmann
via the Internet It's cool: I like seeing the People Project around town. It's cool. My favorites are the one on Ballas on a bicycle and the clown on the bicycle at the Galleria. I like the expressiveness and the entertainment spread throughout the region. Makes me feel we are a vibrant community. I am saddened that you have endorsed and proliferated a negative view on the People Project.
Loree Rowe
Town & Country

Silva wasn't critical enough: I'm not a huge fan of Eddie Silva, but someone needs to defend his article on the profoundly embarrassing People Project. While every bad thing Silva had to say about the People Project is true, I don't believe he went far enough in his condemnation of these hackneyed, artless objects. The true blame for this fiasco belongs not with the clueless deep pockets who funded it or whoever had the miserable idea in the first place but with each "artist" who participated. If this town had any artistic spine, no one would have been able to scrape up enough People-makers to have it work. Anyone who has a faint hint as to what art is or where it comes from would have refused such a derivative, soulless proposition. If someone's excuse is that they did it for the money, they're a whore, and anyone who participated in any way has indelibly defined themselves as an awful hack. In my mind, they should all be made pariahs, not just for the lousy art or whatever toned-down thing they want to call it but for making St. Louis just that much more difficult and humiliating for the people who take art, and the endeavor of making it, seriously.
Matthew Strauss
St. Louis

We Are Not Animals
I used to have raging hormones, too:I was a teenager once, with raging hormones, but the social reality for me was to wait until I was married to have sex. Does that make me unusual or extraordinary? I think it makes me normal.

The problem I have with your argument against abstinence programs is that you are basically saying that our young people are more like animals than human beings, slaves to our sexual desires and hormonal drives [Ray Hartmann, "Misplaced Morality," RFT, June 6]. If this is the case, then how can we hold anyone personally responsible for rape or some other "hormonal" condition?

Obviously you have a point of view that understands the world in a rather naturalistic and purely material manner. I suggest to you that the world is much more than mere matter and energy.

Even if you don't believe in God or the human soul, you have to acknowledge that one of the things that distinguishes humans from the animals is our ability to make rational choices, to consider consequences.

The reality is that by allegedly promoting sex without consequences, we are harming our young people and locking them into a slavery that calls itself freedom but is really nothing less than licentiousness. I would suggest that before you summarily dismiss abstinence programs that you take some time to examine them. Speak to the young ladies and men who have made commitments to remain sexually inactive until marriage, and I guarantee that you'll find these young people well adjusted and truly free.
Ed Bryant
St. CharlesAll options should be presented:Thank you for your honesty and clarity. I am sure you hold as steadfastly to your convictions as I do to mine. I am, as you say a "self-proclaimed pro-lifer." However, I do not "masquerade" as anything; I come right out and state my beliefs. One such belief is that, while abstinence is the ideal answer, the reality isn't always so pretty.