Correction

Critique for the Critic

I was absolutely horrified when I read your unjust review of Amereno's Little Italy by Diza Sauers ("Mama Mia," January 25).

This review is just one big bullshit. I know this because I am the hostess that she mentioned in the article. The review states that I did not honor her reservation, and that I shrugged her off when she wanted another table. I have never treated a customer in such a manner.

Furthermore, I was utterly disgusted that in the review, Sauers suggests that we are lying about where we get the cheesecakes. She suggests that Mrs. Amereno does not really make them, and that we get them from Safeway. Anyone who has ever tasted our cheesecakes knows the difference.

This review does not in any way reflect the restaurant's food, service or personnel. Publishing this unreasonable attack shows that you are not serving the community. Will you just publish any garbage someone gives you without knowing if there is any truth behind it?

--Angelica Hancock

To the Editor,

I totally disagree with Diza Sauers' review of Amereno's.

First, when diners find a good restaurant they should share it with friends, not try to keep it a secret.

Second, when one makes a reservation it usually is not for a specific table, so the writer's claim that her reservation was not honored was false.

Third, I have eaten in restaurants on an average of three to four times per week for the last 25 years, and I believe I can tell a good restaurant from a bad one. I have eaten at Amereno's at least 20 times in the last two years and have never had bad service or food as described in the review.

--Matt Edberg

Anorexic Skinny

I must once again object to your attacks on Brooks Keenan in The Skinny (February 1). You state that the Thornydale Road disaster, which you claim is the fault of Pima County's Transportation department, has been dropped from the news because Keenan has diverted attention from his own incompetence by making claims of corruption. In fact, you have chosen to ignore the real issues either due to laziness or incompetence.

The fact is that Keenan responded over a week ago in a multi-page memo to the "Bored" of Supervisors and Huckelberry that refutes, point by point, every phony issue that the Huckster's PR team has put forward. The entire report was printed on azcorruption.com for everyone to read. Obviously the Weekly doesn't want the facts to get in the way of its misguided editorial position, but it is just a little bit hypocritical for you to ignore the issue and then claim that the issue is irrelevant because you haven't written about it.

As for your comment that the FBI is investigating and there should be a quick dismissal of all the charges because there is nothing there is also wrong. The investigation has been going on over a year, long before Keenan made his charges. Also, it was not Huckelberry who first called for an investigation. And how is he supposed to investigate himself? You find no irony in that?

Stop listening to one or two individuals who have their own personal motivations and start investigating what is really going on. All the material is there, if you got off your asses and looked. Do your homework for a change.

--Michael Synage

Fee Fi Fo Fum

I'm hip to Rand Carlson's cartoon, "Get Into Sabino Free" (January 25).

I live a few miles from Sabino Canyon Rec Area--not in spacious faux-adobe, but just renting an apartment. I bike in most mornings. Now I see this hastily constructed little guard house where, if I drove my car in, I would have to pay five bucks to park, or have the poor soul having been posted in this little shack wave me past, having seen my pre-paid sticker in the windshield.

Man, this whole set-up made me sad when I coasted in. Do we really need this kind of treatment? I'm sure walkers, joggers, runners, hikers, bikers and equestrians would not hesitate to get an annual pass if it meant not having that very unwelcoming gatehouse there to squeeze us for a few more bucks.

Development has bulldozed a huge tract of land south of Sabino and Snyder roads for some crappy, tasteless, overpriced homes. Walgreens has dumped yet another dismal pharmacy on the corner. A car wash has been built across the street, and down a ways there's a pet groomer, dry cleaner, pizza place, toddler care center, and a bunch more of those pedestrian businesses we can all do without--mainly because the same shit is just two miles away up on Sunrise and Kolb.

They say some of the money raised will go to improve Sabino Canyon's parking lot. I say do we really need another pristine parking lot in the desert?

--Bruce Chandler

Green Around the Gills

While I believe the Greens have the potential to bring some positive changes to the political and social arena, especially as it concerns the ordinary consumer and worker, I have to take exception to Randy Serraglio's position on Nader's impact in the recent presidential election (Mailbag, January 25).

As one of the tens of millions of people who live "on the margins" due to chronic medical problems, I have little, if anything, to look forward to regarding public benefits and help maintaining affordable healthcare coverage with the Pretender in the White House. One need only look at how such people were treated when he was governor of Texas. At least with Gore as president, there would have been some hope that the situation might improve or that it would not become significantly more desperate.

Yes, what might be considered a small difference like this means a lot to the growing number of Americans living on the margins of society. Moreover, Serraglio's reference to the Florida injustice and the threat it presents to democracy as evidence that it wouldn't have mattered how many votes Gore received in Florida is certainly accurate. But as those of us who tracked the election returns might remember, there were several states in which Nader votes might have cost Gore a victory.

At this point, I think the Greens could best advance their political program and be most beneficial by sticking to state and local races and keeping out of national races--particularly those they can't win. As Republicans and conservative Democrats alike push forward with their states' rights agenda, it would be helpful to have a progressive voice like the Greens established in state and local government.

Simply put, Serraglio is overestimating the significance of the Nader presence in this year's presidential election, and underestimating the damage the Nader presence most probably contributed to by making it easier for the Pretender to steal the election.

--Michael Bowles

Black or White

I've wanted to write this letter for a long time. I could not stand Stacey Richter's reviews and was relieved when James DiGiovanna took over. But never in my wildest dreams could I have anticipated a series of more fatuous and annoying essays on cinema.

Apparently, DiGiovanna divides the films he reviews into two categories:

A. The film sucks. We're talking boilerplate Hollywood fare. It's sappy and formulaic. But DiGiovanna doesn't stop there: He must tie the film in some bizarre way to Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, the Republican Party, etc. He mucks through the swamp of these films searching pathetically for the foibles of American conservatism. Every review is the same Inquisition, the same witch hunt searching for homophobia, racism or sexism. It just has to be gestating in the swollen belly of our capitalist world. It's like reading propaganda from the Soviet Writer's Guild.

Or:

B. The film is great. It's the grainy, foreign, Bravo-bound art house crap you'd expect. The sort of film that is political, iconoclastic and ultimately of the "I'd rather carve on my arm with a bowie knife because it's so doggone boring" variety.

What a sorry, ridiculous world of cinema DiGiovanna creates for us in his reviews. I read them, of course. Every week I can't help it. I put myself through the same scab-picking process of reading his doggerel screed. I suppose that's a good thing. I should be ecstatic DiGiovanna is there. I never realized until I read his column that Hollywood was holding the torch for the vast right-wing conspiracy. It is quite possible Barbra Streisand, Michael Douglas and Alec Baldwin even now are just burning the midnight oil to solidify conservative thought in American culture.

--Jonathan Paton

Naked Truth

Don't you think your coverage of "Man with Dog" ("Turning a Prophet," February 1) is a little raw for the general public? Don't you realize that children pick up your paper as well as adults? I know there is freedom of speech and the press, etc., etc., but that does not give you the right to put something out like that for all to see.

You deserve a big Shame on You and should apologize to the public at large for your lack of caring for the minors in our fine city. Very bad taste from a paper that I personally thought had more character.

--William R. Kapfer Sr.

Daily Disappointment

I am a StarNet refugee.

I am one of those who was there since the beginning and now I am being tossed to the side. Unfortunately, since the arrival of Jane Amari, nothing that the Arizona Daily Star has done is a surprise. Early last year, I had the opportunity to attend a talk by Amari explaining the then-upcoming changes at the Star. During her talk she mentioned that the StarNet service would be looked at and probably have some changes made. From that point on I feared for the service that I felt was something that made the paper stand out among the rest of the rags out in the country.

First was the loss of the Community Front Page. Yes, it was cantankerous. Yes, it was filled with flames. But it was our voice out there. I disagree with Arthur Jacobson ("StarNutz," February 1) when he says it was a victim of its own freedom. This was purely a move to cut costs. Now we are pushed off to another service in another cost-cutting move. Why am I not surprised?

While I have to admit I have liked some changes in the Star, they are offset by the other changes set by the Amari adminstration that have made our newspaper just another homogenous rag that doesn't represent the uniqueness that is Tucson.

Keep up the good work, Weekly, that I look forward to every Thursday!

--Joe Pyritz