Hip to be Misidentified
Regarding Bianca Phillips’ “Hip To Be Square” cover story (June 27th issue) — which was an informatively nice read: My friend Tom Hayes was misidentified as Carey White in a photo caption twice — on the cover and in the photo inside. Unless he has an Oxford-shirt and khaki-pant clad twin of a different surname, then that man is definitely Tom Hayes. I know because he supervised the mural on Bari Ristorante which my team and I painted. That credit was also mistakenly given to my friend David Lynch, who “designed the image,” in consult with Lou Loeb’s visual needs for that site. We worked too hard for that cookie to just get snatched!
Anthony D. Lee
Memphis
Editor’s note: Mr. Lee is correct. Tom Hayes was misidentified in the photos with the story.
Irony
The first ironic thing I saw this week was trash being thrown out the window of a garbage truck by the driver. The second ironic thing I saw this week was Tim Sampson’s rant about grammar. After ranting about the spelling on a Superior Bonding car and incorrect grammar on website posts, Sampson wrote “by which they are supposed to be biding anyway.” Pot, meet kettle.
I used to be a purist, like Sampson, but lately I find myself leaving the letters off the end of words that should be plural while typing emails and web posts. I’m not sure what glitch has occurred in my brain to cause this, but I’ve taken to proof-reading my messages. My own inadequacies have caused me to relax my moral indignation at the foibles of others.
Steve Hiss
Memphis
Paula Deen
People should be able to make a mistake without being thrown out. The people who are making a fuss about Paula Deen saying the N-word are the ones who have issues (Editor’s Note, June 27th issue). Most of these people are carrying around garbage about something they heard about happening years ago. Paula and I lived through a lot of that garbage. This is today. The N-word is usually just a slip of the tongue. If everyone is still so upset with the word, why is it still glamorized in songs and movies? I think the word itself should die.
Trecia Watson
Cleveland, Mississippi
Obamacare Hypocrisy
Twenty-seven states have rejected the expansion of Medicaid that is a major part of the new health-care law. These states could have received millions of dollars from the federal government to extend health-care coverage to many more poor people in their states. It has been conservative governors, with two surprising exceptions, Arizona’s Jan Brewer and Florida’s Rick Scott, and mainly conservatives in the 27 state legislatures who have rejected the expansion of Medicaid.
This rejection is further proof of the hypocrisy of conservatives, the majority of whom claim to be Christians but who seem to have no concern for the least among us. They oppose an action that could prevent suffering and deaths among the poor in their states.
They support a Paul Ryan budget that would decimate the social safety net that protects the poor. They would defund all of Obamacare if they could, while offering no alternative in its place, satisfied with over 50 million having no health-care coverage at all.
Conservatives proudly proclaim themselves to be pro-life but do not appear to have any compassion for anyone after he or she is born. Yet, they have the audacity to call liberals hypocrites?
Philip Williams
Memphis
DOMA
The Supreme Court’s decision to validate same-sex marriage will thrill millions who love each other and want the same rights as every other American. It will depress millions of religious conservatives who have fought long and hard to prevent this momentous occasion. Federal benefits are no longer out of reach for married couples, no matter what their gender.
For those having trouble handling this turn of events, reread the Sermon on the Mount and learn to love one another, as the Bible teaches.
J.P. Ford
Memphis