We want points: John Gonzalez is the one who is "Dazed and Confused" (October 19). At the very least, he has made the mistake of defining the whole by observing only a small portion--rather like the blind men and the elephant. In my fourth year of regular game attendance and my second as a season-ticket holder, I have had ample opportunity to observe both the Dallas Stars and its fans in action. I and my friends (all 17,001--give or take) know the idiosyncracies of both the team as a whole, individual players, and coach Ken Hitchcock. We know, for example, that as the rookies battle for their places on the roster, the team will struggle with chemistry; that Mike Modano will get off to a slow start, questioning whether he really wants to be playing hockey; that Brett Hull will have something to say, and will say it--bluntly.
If we are unsatisfied with a two-goal lead, it is because we have seen teams--we have seen our team--lose focus and have such a lead evaporate quickly. I have never known anyone to be glum after a win, though we may acknowledge that it may have been an ugly win--a gift from the hockey gods; but I have also known the crowd to cheer the team after a loss, when the game was hard-fought and well-played. Like Ken Hitchcock, we know when the Stars are playing with a sincerity of effort. If we are hungry for points right now, it may be because we know that they will be harder to get as the season progresses, and we remember that the Stars lost home ice advantage during the playoffs last year by less than a handful of points.
I don't know how many games Mr. Gonzalez has been to, where he sat, or who he talked to. What he has reported is certainly not the situation in Section 208. As for the valium, I like to save that for the double and triple overtime games during the playoffs and finals.
Leni R. Sommer
Dallas
Frankenfoods
So much manure: Your editorial in the guise of an article about genetic engineering ("Seeds of Discontent," October 19) makes all sorts of comments that are rather biased. For instance, John Fagan isn't some crank--he is a former senior researcher from the National Institutes of Health whose speciality was and is genetics.
Likewise, you poke fun at John Hagelin's use of terms and then don't bother to ask him to clarify them.
How do you know that non-GE foods and various organic farming technologies can't feed the world? Did you ask for clarification from proponents? Did you ask for hard figures? Did you ask for any substantiation of claims or did you decide to throw out the word "manure" as a mocking scare tactic without any more thought than was obviously given to the rest of the story?
Finally, the assertion that there is no evidence that people have been harmed by GE foods is, at best, deceptive without qualifying it. Check out the tale of L-Tryptophan: Were the deaths and serious/permanent illnesses that resulted from its consumption due to processing defects or due to toxic byproducts of the GE yeast used to produce the supplement?
Of course there is no evidence that GE foods have harmed anyone. If there's ever an indication that they have, the GE industry settles the lawsuits out of court and destroys the evidence before it can become public.
By the way, the European Economic Community is against GE foods, not just France. Making bigoted remarks about the French not only reveals your own bigotry but serves to conceal how widespread the opposition to GE food is in Europe.
Tacky article, all around.
Lawson English
Via e-mail
Mr. Know-It-All
Two smashing reports: Just finished reading your feature on Sandy Kress ("The Resurrection of Sandy Kress," October 19) and, quite frankly, was thoroughly impressed. The article was filled with the kind of information that makes it a little bit easier to understand the workings of this city. Combined with Mark Donald's effort the previous week on the Jewish newspaper imbroglio ("Paper Chase," October 12), I can't remember the last time that two articles in the Dallas Observer by the same columnist proved so informative. Thanks for two smashing reports!
German C. Gardner
Dallas
Correction
A sentence was scrambled in the story "This Old House" in last week's Dallas Observer. The sentence should have read, "Rousseau said that McAlester had solicited a campaign contribution for city council candidate Pete Vaca while Rousseau's application was pending before the panel." We regret the mistake.
