I was thrilled to read Michael Bronski’s story on the sorry state of gay activism and how it got that way (“Libbing It Up”). As editor of a GLBT annual, I have been harping on these issues for the past several years, and most of the time I am met with a roomful of blank stares. It’s deeply comforting to discover that I am not the only gay person who thinks we need to broaden our horizons, reorder our priorities, and stop apologizing for who we are.
Peter McQuaid
Editor, Pride magazine
Los Angeles
My humps, his pipes
Something to perhaps mention in the Phoenix whenever you get a chance: no, not Al Gore. We had enough of him in that horrid movie — I mean PowerPoint presentation. But John Kerry, our lovely and handsome senator, sits on the key committee that will vote this month on whether to preserve Internet freedom, and he needs to push for “Net Neutrality” (see “Keep the Internet Free”).
Basically, the Internet won’t be the open, free-speech network that we all know, trust, and waste time using at work.
Kerry must exercise leadership to save the Internet, since it’s under attack from big corporations (who else?). These companies want to eliminate “Net Neutrality,” the rule in place since the Internet began that prevents Internet providers from discriminating among Web sites and deciding which Web sites open easily on your computer.
AT&T’s Chief Executive Officer Ed Whitacre has said, “The Internet can’t be free” and referred to the Internet as “my pipes,” which others must pay to go through. The CEO of another company said he wanted to be able to charge Yahoo for the right to open more quickly on our computers than Google.
What the fuck? Why are we gonna let the suits control the one piece of freedom we have as we sit at our cubicles and work for them?
Ellie Kressy
Jamaica Plain
Chris Almighty!
I’m a bit confused about the blatant Chris Gabrieli promotion this past week (“Gabrieli’s Promise,”). I have a sneaking suspicion that someone was paid off. Still trying to determine your take … hmmm. Maybe some of Reilly’s folks put you up to it.
I could be off base here, but it reeks like my grandfather’s shit when he used to ‘mess himself’ (as grandma would say) shortly after dusting off a bottle of Wild Turkey.
Hmmm …
Freemont Barrington
Cambridge
Qualification Inflation
There’s a lot of idiocy in Boston’s criminal-justice system nowadays, but you went too far on this one (“Why Did the Suffolk DA Let Rodrick Taylor Go Free?”).
Aside from the killing itself, your article on Rodrick Taylor didn’t provide a single shred of evidence that he was a danger to society and not just a minor crook. According to your article his record was completely nonviolent, with the exception of minor gang connections that weren’t enough to land him in federal court. Hundreds of thousands of people have records just like Taylor’s (before the murder, of course), and most of the time imprisoning them is far less effective than various forms of rehab. Your own writers often bitch about the minimum sentences and three-strikes laws that keep such petty criminals in jail while draining resources from dealing with the real threats to society. The brutal murder that Taylor stands accused of seems to have come out of the blue; I can’t think of any way short of clairvoyance that a DA could have looked at his record and seen this kind of violence in his future. Complain all you want about actual incompetence or corruption in the BPD and DA’s office, but I call bullshit on blaming them for their lack of psychic powers.
Eli Meyer
Newton
