Letters March 16 2005

Call me anytime

I know it’s a popular stance to be really pissed off at ChoicePoint (to be honest, I’m more than a little irritated with them myself), but I can’t fathom why you would publish this guys phone number and address like you have. I mean, what’s the point (News & Views, “Who wants ChoicePoint CEO’s home number? March 3)?

I suspect all you’ve done is perpetuate the idea that the political left is a bunch of loose cannons who don’t respect people’s privacy. I know that a lot of your subscriber base is gonna love this information ... and maybe that was the point. I just question, in today’s day and age, how responsible it was to publish it. What public service did it serve? What is the public interest in knowing this information? Was there any other reason than to encourage hate mail and phone calls (or worse) for publishing this?

Even the tone of the article sounded unusually juvenile. Instead of the populist voice of CL hammering ChoicePoint for its missteps, it seems you chose to use the whiny “look what I can do to you” voice like a group of high school malcontents.

CL is better than this. I know it is. I suspect you do as well.

- Martin Fisher, Woodstock

I applaud your article where you reveal ChoicePoint’s CEO Derek V. Smith’s home phone number and address. It’s time that executives at corporate information cartels like ChoicePoint are held accountable to the same laws of public domain as the rest of us rank-and-file.

- Eric Kiefer, Decatur

Scalp my ass

Your exposé on ticket scalpers bothered me deeply, and not because of the scam these guys are operating (“Sympathy for the scalper,” March 10). They’re just meeting a demand with supply at a price the open market will bear. It’s not the supply side who’s at fault here - it’s the consumer. If you don’t like paying too much for tickets, don’t pay it.

Any night of the week you can go to the Star Bar or the Earl or dozens of other venues in town and see a fantastic show for $5-$10. The performers on these smaller stages care just as much about their show as the big names the corporate media outlets want to brainwash you into paying for. Your local or touring small-time act needs your measly $5 a lot more than the “artists” on their corporate-sponsored tour. And you won’t have to pay $12 to park, drink tepid Bud Light at $7.50 a cup, wait in line half an hour at the bathroom, only to find the show ends a mere hour after it began, forcing you to join the herd as you cram through the doors and out to the parking lot where you’ll sit for another half-hour just to get the hell out of downtown.

I suppose there’s the thrill you can only get at a big event of knowing you’re a face in the crowd, just another sucker who paid too much to watch some people who think of you more as a “target market” than a fan. And hey, at least you can say you were there, right? Just like the 50,000 other suckers.

Ticketbastard, Empire Tickets, and the guy with the cardboard sign on the corner of Marietta and Spring streets can kiss my ass. It’ll be planted on a bar stool down the block.

- Frederick Noble, Atlanta

On The Prowl

Just a quick letter to say how much I enjoyed your article about being single in Atlanta (“Single in Atlanta,” March 3). It was one of the most entertaining articles I have read in CL. I applaud you for being so brave in your dating ventures. You write from the heart with a great sense of humor.

- Ryan Lewis, Atlanta

I just wanted to give you a cyber high-five for writing the truth. Atlanta is a hard place to find love or lust. Thank you for writing the truth and reassuring me that I am not the only woman looking for something - what that is, I’m not sure, but when I find it, it will be worth the wait.

- Michelle Drak, Marietta

Strange bedfellows

A conservative Christian evangelist and a writer for Creative Loafing agreeing on a matter of principle and fact. This has got to be a first in the history of the world (Humbug Square, “Sonny lied: The sequel,” March 3)!

I really appreciate you calling the governor what he is, and I suspect that we flag nuts and you being on the same page is almost as unlikely as the above. Still the oldest of axioms is still very true: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The governor is clearly the enemy to both of us, and while you’ll never support our endeavor to return the 1956 flag to the state flag poles, it is extremely likely that our mutual interest will continue through the next election. Both of us will be supporting a Democrat, no matter who that Democrat is. “Anyone but Sonny” will be a common cry throughout rural Georgia.

Just remember this for the next two years: We are allies, at the very least. We have common enemies larger than our differences, and that says a lot, doesn’t it?

- The Rev. Bill Swann, Marietta

More deserving

I just read your review on Diary of Mad Black Woman (Flicks, “Covering all the bases,” Feb. 24). I’ve seen the movie twice. I just wanted to know what made you give it two stars? Personally, I think it deserves at least three stars. The movie had everything from comedy to drama. I think every African-American can relate to this movie. Even Caucasian people can relate. When I went to the movies, there were more white people in the theater.

- Andre Slaughter, Duluth