Pod People
Dim bulbs: Jim, OK, the pod people theory might have worked ("Body Snatchers," by Jim Schutze, August 23), but we live in Dallas and therefore we don't have basements. They're just dimwits, not pods.
David
Cheap Bastard
Dallas, Vegas, same diff: Alice, I love your cheap info (Cheap Bastard, by Alice Laussade). Dallas and Las Vegas have so much in common—cheap food and cleavage. I still bet we can kick Dallas' ass in the cheap buffet category. I'll be trying out your list when I get to Texas. Thank you very much.
Nancy Quilts
Las Vegas
The Nice T.O.
Not even Jeff Garcia-level: "There he is, amiably chatting up the media and—gasp!—getting along with his latest, perhaps greatest quarterback." So now you're ready to declare Romo greater than Steve Young? Let's see him get to Garcia status first.
Jeremy
Spite the Tuna: Steve who? T.O. will be as good as he can be, just to show up Big Bill. I hope you're right about the 100 catches. If T.O. does have that good of a year, then Romo's status will fly right past Garcia and any number of other spare quarterbacks.
Fraggy
Fields of Green
Exercise in futility: This is an unwarranted assault on a relatively harmless recreational drug used daily by millions of Americans to amuse themselves ("Weed Killers," by Jesse Hyde, August 23). But it is also futile. There are miles and miles of Texas where one can grow marijuana far from any intruding helicopters or nosy neighbors. I suggest the DEA would be better used by giving them brooms, taking them to Galveston Island and having them sweep back the Gulf of Mexico until it is dry. I'm mad we're paying these guys more than one dime a week to strut around in their prissy little jumpsuits and EXPENSIVE helicopters and pretend they are doing some good. They are not. Marijuana is relatively cheap and abundant in Dallas, and I haven't seen that change in my 27 years of living here. If this copper wants to keep money out of the hands of drug cartels, then he should join me in my effort to legalize it, tax it and regulate it. We drove the gangs out of business in the 1930s when we ended Prohibition, and it would be so today.
Jack Pierce
Don't legalize it: Legalize pot? Sure, why not? Let's legalize rape, incest and pedophilia while we're at it. Heck, let's legalize everything and tell the cops to go home to their families. Let's "end the war" on crime by bringing the troops home. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a country where pot smoking is legal. I want my doctors, plumbers, claims processors and fellow freeway drivers thinking clearly. Don't you?
Ron
Mr. *
Pure talent: Barry Bonds has never tested positive for steroids ("'Roid Rage," by Richie Whitt, August 16). No one asserts he used steroids after they became illegal. If there's no rule to break, it can't be cheating. Strength has little or nothing to do with the speed of a fastball; that's coordination. It has little or nothing to do with the distance a batted ball travels; that's bat speed. Steroids don't give you superior hand-eye coordination; that's natural. They only help injuries heal faster.
Johnny Ellis
Impure talent: Are you on crack? Steroids, conceivably, are for bulking up. More bulk, ostensibly, increases your ability to hit FARTHER, ergo, making assloads of homers possible. Regardless of when he took them, it's a substance that monkeys with the purity of the game, just like pine tar, cork and anything else. It's cheating, whether it hasn't been outlawed or not. Think of it this way—Roger Maris got an asterisk for merely playing more games than Babe Ruth, something that was hardly his fault and, to use your argument, not against the rules. The fact that Bonds is mentioned in the same breath as Ruth and Aaron is unconscionable. At the very least, there needs to be a big, fat asterisk after his record.
Michelle
Trinity Foundation
Smeared: This story is nothing but smear journalism ("Ole Oops," by Glenna Whitley, August 9). The Trinity Foundation had nothing to do with the error committed by ABC News 20/20, according to Ministry Watch. "The claims made about the various preachers mentioned were researched by ABC 20/20." Trinity provided a full and complete videotape of Frederick Price to ABC. 20/20 producers alone prepared the story without giving proper context to the video.
It is disappointing to see the Dallas Observer rely on the televangelists' lawyers for story material without properly investigating whether this material is factually correct.
That the Observer would defend prosperity preachers is also worrisome. Jesus did not preach prosperity but told people to sell their possessions. None of the 12 apostles built financial empires on donations from the poor and the desperate—like these televangelist personality cults do.
J. Henderson
