I was grooving on your January 28 issue, including the Student Survival Guide, until I got to "50 Concerts To See Before Finals Week." Your Boston Fun Shit crew seems to think students only dig rock, as performed by white people (which made up 47 of your 50 entries). I'm no student anymore, but come on. Black people perform a little music, too. Latinos, too. Yes, right here in Boston. And there are a few other forms of music out there, like maybe, jazz. Your crew needs to get out and around a little bit.
DON CARLSON
BOSTON
TURNING ON TURNER
Harvey Silverglate makes a cogent argument indicating prosecutors and the judge abused their power in sentencing Chuck Turner (see "DOJ Turns on Turner, First Amendment," This Just In, January 28).
Turner is a member of the Green Party, a fact seldom mentioned in public discourse. There is an intense animus toward political efforts outside of the two-party system. The judge used newspaper articles as evidence. Is a statement reported in the newspaper accepted as fact? US law enforcement agencies have a sordid recent history prosecuting innocent people and allowing homicides by their employees. Journalists have a history of printing false statements, too.
Compared with the sentencing of the wife of Congressman John Tierney and former House Speakers Tom Finneran and Charles Flaherty, the sentencing of Turner shows there is a substantial unevenness in the delivery of justice in Massachusetts. And the arrests of 100 alleged crime-family members in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island show that the current Department of Justice selectively enforces laws, and racially profiles.
ROY BERCAW
CAMBRIDGE
CORRECTIONS
The caption for the photo of Gang of Four on page 32 of our February 4 issue misidentifies singer Jon King. King is on the left, guitarist Andy Gill is on the right.
Our story, "Poems, Prose, and the New Yorker," (Arts & Entertainment, February 4) credited a quote to poet James Merrill saying that Elizabeth Bishop was "a poet's poet's poet." Both the quote and the attribution are incorrect. In fact, John Ashbery called Bishop "the writer's writer's writer."
