Many cities and communities have someone like Travis Morales. I don't know him from Adam, and it's highly unlikely I would ever have been tempted to yank the Revolutionary Communist Party or La Resistencia lever in the voting booth.
But what your column and my finickiness often overlook is that these characters are not only there in high-profile matters like the Oregon killing, they also bring their witness and devote many hours of their lives to many other community injustices and moral wounds which barely get ink or notice from the media.
But I had to laugh when I read that "Mayor Lee Brown's Hispanic Advisory Committee has tried to get the Oregon family to associate itself with political moderates." If this killing had happened to a member of your family, would your gut instinct be to associate yourself with political moderates -- like the current police chief, the mayor and former police chief -- in general, with a dozen well-groomed, tasteful, thoughtful lawyers who, however well-intentioned, helped create and continue to maintain the engines, atmosphere and circumstances that brought about the killing?
A common and often fair critique of someone like Travis Morales is that such people are self-aggrandizing, egomaniacal media magnets. But in this they differ not a whit from any moderate or mainstream politician -- only in their tactics (or lack of them), and their tailoring and grooming. We're talking aesthetics rather than substance here.
It could not be just fair but accurate to consider people like Morales not only for their presence at the Scandal du Jour, but for their life achievements, their determination, their stamina, their witness. They keep bringing it to the public dialogue.They make it harder for the community to be in denial about our questionable, unexamined doings. And I think that's an important and substantive life achievement.
Bob Merkin
Northampton, Massachusetts
Earthy Opinion
The Eric fellah who has been doing your restaurant review of late does not appear to have been born and raised on this particular part of the planet. Really hard to connect to his food preferences. T'was a vast improvement to see Margaret L. Briggs's review of the "new" Tila's ["Of Time and Tila's," October 29]. She thinks and pontificates as we'uns in this part of the world do. More of the same, please. For once, regionalism is better.
Bob Miller
via Internet
Goals and Net Gains
Randall Patterson might have missed the real story ["The Polo Wars," November 19]. Question: How were the Goodmans able to transfer so much wealth without any apparent gift or estate taxes?
Gerald P. German
via Internet
Rose's Thorn
To Katrina Rose for her comments [Letters, October 8] on Log Cabin:
The only evident difference your gender-reassignment surgery made was to change you from being an angry man to an even angrier woman. Your anti-Republican tirade in the Houston Press has about as much credibility as O.J. Simpson saying he's innocent.
If you've got a legitimate beef with dimwit Republicans, fine, that's your pot to piss in. But your ultra-liberal leanings are a turnoff to Democratic gay folks like me who see value in Log Cabin piercing directly into the heart of darkness.
So, chill, boy toy, and get a clue. You sound like you've been politically molested.
Name withheld by request
via Internet
