Letters

Mr. [Dick] Simkanin ("Taxing Situation," August 10) will soon be going through a living hell, and he'll deserve every painful moment. In fact, he belongs in a very special level of IRS hell for dragging his poor employees behind him. Even though his employees should know better (Ms. Cathy Daum is obviously one who does), they are in for a world of hurt.

As a tax specialist, I've seen many fools tell human resources to stop withholding taxes. The scam may work for a while, but eventually the IRS tells the employer to ignore the employee and withhold. By the time the employee finally settles with the IRS, we're talking big, big, penalties and interest, and the employee finally realizes he's been had by the tax protest movement. Mr. Simkanin solves this problem by simply not withholding in the first place. He doesn't give the IRS a chance to tell him to restart withholding. Sweet.

Something tells me that this issue of the Dallas Observer has been read by everyone in the Dallas office of the IRS. The folks at the IRS are not dumb. They realize they have to stop this now and do so in a manner to discourage others.

To Mr. Simkanin and his employees--kiss your butts goodbye. You'll be hearing real soon from your friends at the IRS. I suggest you start looking for a really good tax attorney.

R. Bronson
Plano

Regarding Adam Pitluk's editorial/news item on the Farmers Market management ("Tomatoes of Wrath," August 17): Scattered amid a piece that seemed to be trying a little too hard to fan controversy were some questionable statements. I was struck by the following: "The bathrooms are filthy, more than likely because many homeless people have easy access to the facilities." OK, maybe such access is exactly the reason for the state of the bathrooms; the reasons why aren't self-evident, and the equation of filthiness with access to homeless people is not a connection made by everyone. What we get is Mr. Pitluk's offhand conjecture about what is "more than likely." This reader is far from advocating politically correct, emasculated speech, but your writer could have made his statement a little more responsibly...or not at all.

In the next paragraph, he writes that the director responsible for the market has responded to a phone call by promising to send a task force to the scene. To me, this sounds like a reasonable response; however, Mr. Pitluk cannot resist speculating that the delegates "likely won't bring mops and brooms." Lest we think that the situation was being handled (thus obviating the need for the article itself), we get more perturbed whimsy about what seems "likely."

Obviously, neither of these statements is of major significance, even within the narrow context of the piece, but they struck this sometime fuddy-duddy as a good example of the "new" lazy writing, wanting only a few spelling and punctuation errors (and a "fuck" word or three) to qualify it for publication in The Met.

Looking for solace, I turned to Gregory Weinkauf's weekly movie review--and there wasn't one. Vexed at every turn...but the picture caption, "Brenda Blethyn and Craig Ferguson love them some weed" made everything else OK. Thanks for keeping me company during lunch.

Charles Wilson
Dallas

My family has experienced this outrageous and unfair situation ("Talk Isn't Cheap," July 27). It is very immoral to charge these fees. Most of all, my relative needed to hear our voices and be told how much we love him, and to hear words of encouragement.

We all know that jail is not a nice place. Most of the time while we were being charged these fees, the phone would cut off and messages from the lawyer could not be relayed. That is very hard to deal with, because I don't know anyone who can afford these charges. Dallas County is punishing the families who love their children. It is my opinion that the county should be punished for stealing. How wrong it is for them to get away with breaking the law when they punish others for breaking the law.

I will not support the county in any way for any reason. I am not the only person who feels this way.

Lisa Worthington
Carrollton

Let's hear it for Lisa "The Lion" Singh! Single-handedly, this intrepid reporter entered into the seedy underside of Dallas night life and in doing so came back with yesterday's news ("The Straight Dope," August 3). Yes, if you didn't already know by now, there are drugs at raves...and at clubs, and at bars, and at truck stops, and at pharmacies, and at Denny's lavatories really early in the morning. Let's face it, we live in a hyper-medicated society, one in which there are a staggering variety of multihued consciousness-expanding/contracting chemicals. So why the story?

After reading and re-reading Ms. Singh's article, I can't help but wonder why she felt it was necessary. Did she feel that somehow her piece would enhance the solidarity and survival of the scene? Perhaps she felt that by including some mention of DanceSafe in her investigation that certain societal ills might be ameliorated through "harm reduction" tactics. Or perhaps she wanted to give the world that is not a part of the party an exciting peek at what goes on when the sun is at its nadir.