Victoria Osteen, Carol Porter, Baby Boomers

Our Main Attraction

The Osteens: Anybody I know who's taking the time to go to Texas is going for one primary reason, and that is to visit Joel Osteen ["Legal History," Hair Balls, by Richard Connelly, December 6]. What other reasons are there for visiting Houston? From there they usually visit the second-best reason for visiting Texas, the Alamo, and a rodeo somewhere in that great state. In our area, Jonathan Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church is becoming more and more of a popular place. When Jerry Falwell passed away, the papers reported that even though people didn't agree with the guy on every single point, they did recognize the positive role he'd played in building the town.

 It amazes me to read of columnists such as Richard Connelly describe Victoria Osteen as dark and sinister. This was one slip-up in the Osteens' amazing career. Everybody has bad moments — get over it. The Osteens live no better than the Grahams down in North Carolina. And Joel always speaks positively of the town of Houston. But I say, if the Houston media pulls down the Osteens and Lakewood Church, there will be no other reason for us outsiders to visit the traffic-laden streets of Houston.

Donald McLeod
Blacksburg, Virginia

Supporting the Porters

Good people: Thank you so much for starting to tell the horrible things that have happened to the Porters ["Not So Scandalous," Hair Balls, by Richard Connelly, December 13]. I have known Carol for more than ten years and volunteered every week for four years until all this happened. They are good, honest people who deserve their good name back as well as money and their organization. If I didn't know them personally, I might have believed all these lies too, but I know them and feel badly that people who were waiting in line to see Carol when she was on top never even called to see if any of those stories were true. How sad, especially for the hungry kids.

Stacy Nathan
Houston

Boomer Bashing

Online readers respond to Houstoned blog columnist Jennifer Mathieu's "A Message from Miss Pop Rocks to All of You Baby Boomers: Suck It," December 12.

It's crap: I'm a Boomer, and I'm tired of hearing this crap too. Every generation has done something, good or bad, that others before did or didn't do. Should it make the news? Does it really forkin' matter? No. I was too late to be a hippie, and the friggin' fads were just that — fads. Every generation has them. And the hippies were just as lazy, if not more so, than many of those they disdain today. Gee, the generations before us said we were lazy. Those before them accused them of being lazy. Those of you who are boomers should just get old gracefully. And, oh yeah, forget retirement — there's already no Social Security, because they gave it to people who never paid in the first place. Get ready to suffer!

Don Dickerson

Talking smack: Thank you so very much for giving Boomers the smack on the face that they so greatly deserve. Go ahead and take credit for the good stuff...but we'll just forget about the bad stuff that Boomers gave us, namely, ourrampant, unceasing drug problem and self-­centered child-rearing methods. "If it feels good, do it" and "you are so ­special!"

Even with the good stuff, our ­society is still racist, and while women have made strides in the workplace, we still have to look perfect and beautiful at the same time. So what have we actually gained? Oh, yeah, that's right...nothing­.

No thanks to the boomers who can't get over themselves. And as for Social Security, the benefits are barely there for the Boomers' older brothers and sisters, i.e. the Depression babies who were children during WWII and know the meaning of meat and dairy rations and what it's like to do without, unlike the ­boomers.

Alzheimer's has hit the Depression babies like a freight train. All that pot the boomers smoked in '68 ain't gonna stop it from hitting them, but they don't care because they're too busy Botoxing and implanting themselves to be young ­forever.

njtx71

The meat puppets: "Baby Boomers" are a construct of capitalism — a giant marketing opportunity. It's a generation of narcissists — babies for-fucking-ever. However, Jennifer, you are employed by them — the kings of the narcissists. What does that make you? It makes you a tool, a living embodiment of artificial negativity. Truth is, we're all just meat puppets, heading to the grave.

Charles Raymond