Letters to the Editor

We’re keepin’ it real

Re: “Murder Rap” (Metro Times, Oct. 6), I just wanted to tell you that I really was feeling the article on Wipeout. The young people in the city need to see what’s really going on behind all this violence. Otherwise they just get caught up in the hype. So thank you for showing everybody the real. —Kevin B. Pitts, Detroit, [email protected]

Mr. Turner, I truly have to say that I am shocked by your article, “Murder Rap.” It seems to me that you have become acclimated to your position there as writer for the Metro Times, more so now like a reporter in this article, just delivering the story. (Sorry, brother, but I have to say it.) Your past articles have been so vibrant, full of life and inspiration but with this article on Wipeout you have now contributed to the “media assassination” of hip hop, to degrade the culture and the people who represent it. The reason I say this is that you articulated in black and white the division between East and West — this only incites further violence. Not truly knowing all the facts — only hearsay or theories. You have misrepresented your talent. The murder of Wipeout has definitely affected and devastated the hip-hop community. It is a sad loss of what could be. Someone truly from the D attaining success in the rap game without gettin’ smoked, that set us back 10 years! Your article further blights the image of our culture. I’m truly disappointed in you for this. You could have written an article and omitted the theories. —Rio Lasenby, Detroit

Re: The review of Nancy Sinatra (Music reviews, Metro Times, Sept. 29) that read, “Knowing that the tune is about papa Frank gives it additional emotional heft: When Sinatra lingers ever so subtly, …” First, thank you for the straightforward review. Yours is a refreshing change from the snipers and ageists who usually write about me. I must, however, question the line above because it never occurred to me, or any of us, that Joey Burns wrote the song “Burning Down the Spark” about my father. As for me, when I performed it, I was singing about a lost child. I have two daughters and they were the focus of the song for me, not Frank. Funny how some people just can’t seem to resist bringing Frank into everything I do. —Nancy Sinatra, Los Angeles, Calif.

I am a longtime reader. While I appreciate the need to update your paper’s look now and then, I am incredibly disappointed in the very poor decision that you made to shrink the size of the print. I have never seen such small type in any newspaper or magazine. I’m 42 years old (which isn’t that old) and I have pretty decent eyesight. Yet I seriously struggle with reading your paper. Something that I used to find enjoyable is now, frankly, more trouble than it is worth.

Purely stylistic things — design, placement, etc. — are all tangential things that everyone will always have differing opinions on. I wouldn’t bother second-guessing those types of decisions. But messing with something so basic and fundamental as font size shows very poor judgment. Each week, I assume that I’ll get my new issue and see that someone came to their senses and changed back to the old font size. Each week I am disappointed. Will you change it back? —David Carroll, Beverly Hills

Errata: An item about the Franklin Cider Mill in the recent “Best of Detroit” issue (Metro Times, Sept. 29) was inaccurate in reporting that the mill has a petting zoo and a path leading to a fenced-in hazardous waste site. A national historic site, Franklin Cider Mill, was selected as “Best way to spend a leisurely Saturday outdoors in early fall.”

A review of the recent movie Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (Metro Times, Oct. 6, “The good lieutenant”) should have rendered Kerry’s famous quote before Congress as: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake.”