Un-Wizetrade: Thanks for exposing the utter charlatans that hawk this junk to unsuspecting and ignorant investors ("Wize Guys," by Craig Malisow, February 2). It's about time someone did it. I've personally tried to save at least a dozen people from making this costly and foolish mistake. Hopefully, you've made my job a lot easier.
Name withheld
Plano
Alarming Government
Verifiable benefits: Thanks for expressing other opinions ("Truly Alarming," by Matt Pulle, January 26). Here is another. Verified response benefits all taxpayers and all alarm users. Even alarm companies are big winners with VR. Remember, the city has no responsibility to provide police response to private contracts between private parties, thus the very low priority (30 minutes to several hours). Police are NOT responding to a crime in progress...like ALL other 911 calls, just an unknown alarm signal. The alarm industry is using first responders simply to add value to a private service--charging $20 to $50 simply to relay a signal that should be priced about $4.
Lee Jones
La Quinta, California
A Foul Smell
Lots of loopholes: Matt Pulle's "Stacked Deck" (January 26) is a virtual indictment against Southwest Housing and its chief big dog Brian Potashnik. Proselytizing the Dallas mayor and other city and state officials--all in the name of avarice--illustrates the inherent problems that come with power and the jurisdiction to exercise it. It's nothing short of pandering with impunity because of the lackadaisical enforcement and circumvention that state law allows via "loopholes." Matt Pulle's portrayal of this cast of characters and subplots was aptly written. His journalistic prowess is appreciated by all the readers of the Dallas Observer.
Until the Legislature revamps the laws governing these practices, the whole mess is going to continue to smell like a week-old bouillabaisse!
Patricia Conley
Fort Worth
The Codex Kids
Gamers made good: Thanks for a great job on the article ("Lights, Camera, Play!" by Glenna Whitley, January 19). You did a terrific job portraying the hard work and diligence these young men and women put into their machinima creation. Meghan [Foster] was pleased, as was I.
Kathy Perry
Dallas
Bravo, Butt-Rock!
Doing us proud in Kuwait: Enough Already! The Dallas Observer has set a repulsive, compulsive trend in being constantly mired in negative rants that serve NO purpose and offer absolutely NO resolution to the growing problems that face our local music community.
It is about time someone got in your face and vehemently pointed out to you numb-nuts that your ubiquitous vituperation toward the local music scene is ludicrous and is actually part of the problem.
It is astonishing just how progressively hateful and downright witless your writers have become...Sam Mach-kvetch's trite, condescendingly dismissive "butt-rock" commentary leveled at the bands performing at this year's Dallas Music Festival (Is This On?, January 26) was the last straw!
You call yourself the Dallas Obsever, but you are pathetically myopic to everything except your own biased and convoluted opinions. Your ignorant horseshit about "freaking Drowning Pool" was especially revolting given my experiences in working with these extraordinary musicians. These exceptional HUMAN BEINGS!
Instead of counterproductive jeremiads about what you perceive to be wrong with the DFW music scene, why don't you do a modicum of research and write a GENUINE story that actually serves some sort of greater good? Why don't you write a piece that actually PROMOTES the local music scene and not your seemingly ill-informed and arrogant personal opinions of it?
You are not going to whittle Drowning Pool down to insipid "butt-rock"...not while I am around to tell you to go fuck yourself. I went to the Middle East with Drowning Pool and watched them perform not just as musicians but also as exquisite human beings. I saw them treat our men and women in arms with love and passion and respect. Drowning Pool did not just play FOR the troops, they performed WITH them. In the three days we spent over there, I watched the radiant smiles of 10,000 troops light up the skies over the deserts of Kuwait as Drowning Pool put on one ASTOUNDING performance after another. Every day was 14 to 16 hours of meetings with military brass, rehearsals, tours of the camps, lunch and dinners with the troops, the two-hour performances followed by post-show meet-and-greets with the troops. After each performance, Drowning Pool spent HOURS standing in the sand to meet EVERY SINGLE soldier. At Camp Arifjan there were more than 5,000 men and women waiting, and Drowning Pool met each of them. They stood there for EIGHT hours not just to scribble quick autographs but for one-on-one conversations, for photos, for hugs, and they did it all with huge smiles and open hearts.
It was absolutely crushing to come home to Dallas after witnessing such an intrinsically beautiful display of unconditional love and watch the band be grossly IGNORED by the local media.
Drowning Pool are heroes as artists and men. They did our entire community proud, and THAT is the story you should have told!
Jessie Jessup
KDGE-102.1 FM
Dallas
