Death of a Dancer

Death of a Dancer

Moral duties: It seems to me the mother of 18-year-old stripper Esther Saenz should concern herself with improving her parenting skills instead of improving her purse ["Club Dead," by Craig Malisow, October 1]. It doesn't look like she put in too much of an effort to teach her two stripper daughters to hit the books and have a little self-respect.

I am willing to bet her late daughter Esther never learned the word "no" at home or at school. So now she is dead, and the mother is looking to cash in on her daughter's self-destructiveness instead of looking inward at her own failures as a mother and a parent to teach her daughters perhaps a few morals.

John L. Anders, Jr.
Houston

Online readers weigh in:

No morality policing: The issue here is not that she was an 18-year-old stripper who was served drinks illegally and died. She just as easily could have been someone who was 21 or 22 or 40 years old and left a bar and killed herself or someone else. What are we to do? Close down all establishments that serve liquor? You are blaming strip clubs for tragedies that happen every day with all bars and restaurants. This problem will not go away because all the strip clubs in Houston close down. Why does an alternative, "liberal," thinking newspaper have someone write a column with such a narrow view of reality? We don't need your morality policing. Put more cops on the streets to look for drunk drivers instead of looking for scapegoats like strip clubs.

Shawn
Houston

What's the point? Sad story, interesting too, and at the end, I'm not sure what your point is. The narrative kind of breaks down midway. Dead girl, bad. Strip clubs, bad. Potential employer responsibility, maybe. Employer that made bad and illegal deals elsewhere, bad.

Okay, if we accept that the owner of the Mansion is bad and weasily, what is the teachable lesson from this story? I really don't know. Maybe it's just an interesting story that's local and dramatic. If so, fine. Just say.

Fango
Houston

Funny Fail

Re: Best Place for Outdoor Sex: It might have seemed like a funny idea at the time to your tittering writers, but consider that the Arboretum & Nature Center is a family-friendly place that is largely geared toward educating kids with exhibits and programs, and then try not to get a creepy, queasy feeling in your guts as you contemplate your promotion of it as a hookup spot. Lame.

I suppose I should thank you, since now I know to be careful about what is around every corner while I am out there walking with my children. I hope that the Nature Center hires some extra security and a bunch of people get arrested in the act. Then maybe next year you guys could do a hilarious listing about the Best Place to File Your Registered Sex Offender Paperwork.

Chris Pharis
Houston

Ban the Bible, Then

It's got plenty of smut: It makes you wonder how the people that review schoolbooks arrive at their conclusion to ban a publication as being "offensive to religious sensitivities, or for sexual content." ["Book Learnin'," Hair Balls blog, by Rich Connelly, October 1.] Let's take a closer look at the world's most printed book: the Bible. In the very first book of the Bible, we are confronted with a disgusting case of incest, whereby two daughters get their father drunk, have sex with him and both have his child (Genesis 19.30-38). Why would anybody with a shred of decency want to read this kind of smut?

Then there is the sordid tale of King David's sexual escapade with Bathsheba. From the top of his palace, old David observes the sexy Bathsheba taking a bath. He sends a messenger to get her and learns she is the wife of one of his most trusted military commanders. This does not preclude him from having sex with her (I'd call it rape). The lady gets pregnant, and the King orders her husband — the commander — to the front where the fighting is the heaviest (2 Samuel 11.15). A clear case of: Knock up somebody else's wife and knock off the husband! The blueprint for this type of criminal behavior is right there in the Bible.

There are many more unsavory passages in the Bible. Based on the same parameters used by schoolbook reviewers, shouldn't the Bible be banned from all schools and public libraries?

Don Dykstra
Houston

Bumpin' Buc-ee's

Online readers weigh in on "The Buc-ee's Backlash Begins (Finally)," by John Nova Lomax, October 2:

Why the hatin'? I have to shamefully admit that their advertising does work on my wee little mind. Every time my boyfriend and I take a road trip, we read the signs and laugh. I shout Buc-ee's! It becomes an event. I've only been to the one in Giddings on the way to Austin, but it was a very nice gas station. Sheesh, stop hatin', you guys. Who hates clean bathrooms?

Ginger

Wedding food: Maybe if the other dumps on the highway actually had clean bathrooms, they would never have given Buc-ee's an in. People get bored when driving for hours; this is essentially something to stop and get out of the car for. The massive and successful marketing is just the icing on the cake. Giving away free stuff and having every snack and/or drink known to humankind also is a plus. I want Beaver Nuggets at my wedding.