As a former Dallas Morning News employee who had the privilege to get to know Patricia Anthony, I found your article on her to be quite interesting ["Science friction," June 11]. I remember mornings when Pat (as I knew her) would excitedly come over to my desk to tell me about a story she was developing--or maybe about an award she was receiving. Although I have not spoken to Pat in quite a while, I know her to be an extremely passionate and dedicated writer who cares more about good storytelling than the commercial aspects of the business. And I'm glad to see that she continues to write from her wonderful heart rather than giving in to the demands of the market. My only hope is that Jim Cameron will produce Brother Termite and that it doesn't become another victim of Hollywood development hell. If it is indeed produced, it will certainly buy Pat more time and freedom to write the stories that she truly wants to tell.
Larry Postel
Dallas
Bum steer
Hey, it is great that you guys are giving space to rodeo and a cowboy like Bob Blackwood ["The last roundup," June 11]. But there is a problem with the story. I don't have a clue who the Lane Smith that was a supposed world champion and killed in 1989 might be. Now there was a Lane Frost who was a world-champion bullrider, and he was killed in 1989. He was also the subject of the movie, Eight Seconds. It is a shame to have such a major error in an otherwise good article.
Billy Huckaby
Marketing Director for Cowtown Coliseum
Author, The Complete Encyclopedia of Professional Rodeo
Via e-mail
Captain Zimmerman
Over the weekend, I read Ann Zimmerman's article on D/FW Airport and thought it extremely well done with documented facts ["Is this any way to run an airport?" May 28]. She has become the metroplex's aviation expert after having done the earlier piece on Love Field. I hope she keeps up the good work. It will be interesting to see how much taxpayers would benefit if D/FW received fair rents from the airlines, rather than force concessionaires to pay the airlines' rent plus millions.
Bruce Leadbetter
Dallas
Fur-vent
Reporter Dan Michalski refers to the "comeback of fur in the fashion world," offering as an indication of fur's "comeback" the efforts of The Fur Information Council of America (FICA) to place pro-fur materials in schools. [This] is hardly the sign of a thriving fur industry ["Pelted," June 4]. It might even be viewed as a form of child abuse. Mr. Michalski also refers to an article on the "resurgence" of fur in The New York Times, whose fur-ad-filled pages make "resurgence" articles predictable, if not accurate or acceptable.
The fact is, the fur industry, as Fur World reported in May, is "in a rut" on a number of fronts. "To the surprise of many," Fur World writes, "sales of fur apparel only managed to inch up in the U.S. last year," despite an all-out blitz and a booming economy. "Industry observers assumed the wearing of fur would quickly regain wide acceptability, if not total political correctness...but it hasn't happened at anywhere near the anticipated level...A national survey of retailers done for the Fur Information Council of America showed sales moved up at a glacial pace by only 1.6% in 1997, to $1.27 billion."
It seems that fur's so-called comeback is a put-on. Claims from the fur industry about the state of the industry need to be investigated and reported with as much objectivity as the more sensational aspects of the story of fur and its foes. Readers need to know who's buying or not buying the hype, as well as the fur.
Sandra Lewis
New York Director, Friends of Animals
That [Neiman's] security guard Lewis who beat the crap out of a woman half his size is not a real man. A real man does not hit a woman, no matter what she does to him. He needed to be prosecuted, but of course, this is Dallas, and he wasn't. The grand jury was more interested in protecting the interests of a major business institution than someone exercising her First Amendment rights. Kudos to you for exposing this travesty and Lewis. If I had been an observer on the street and had seen Lewis beating a woman, I'd sure have stepped in and seen what he could do against a man--or if he just wanted to pick on women.
Anonymous
Via e-mail
Minor-league memories
I read with much interest the article about the Dallas Eagles baseball team ["A bush league of their own," May 21] and the time before major-league baseball came here. As a child growing up in the '50s in Oak Cliff, I went to many games at Burnett Field, and I can tell you, they were every bit as exciting as anything in the majors. One thing your article didn't mention was that the Eagles played in what I think was recorded as the longest game in minor-league history (27 innings--they lost, I think). One of my most treasured items from that time is an autographed program from a game in 1955 signed by most of the players mentioned in your article. I sent a copy of the article to my dad, who took me to lots of those games. Thanks for the memories.
