Not wasting sympathyI grew up in South-Central...

Not wasting sympathy

I grew up in South-Central Los Angeles. I am black and a liberal Democrat and I don’t care how much Tookie [Williams] has redeemed himself (“Made-for-TV Atonement,” by Bob Baker, Jan. 11). I’m sick of it! There are far too many good stories and good people who come from South-Central Los Angeles who never were in gangs, never [were involved with] drugs, who had the same obstacles in front of them, if not worse, and who went on to become successful and productive members of society.

If Tookie is truly sorry for what he has done, then he should show it by being man enough to accept the punishment for what he has done. Black folks are going to be no better off by watching this movie or reading any of his ridiculous books. What do want me to do, toss aside Maya Angelou for even a second to devote any of my time to that moron?

To answer your question, “Should society applaud Tookie for what supporters call his second life?” I say, “Yes, but only if the people he murdered get a chance for a second life.”

Anthony Laman

Los Angeles

Value to students

I am an elementary school counselor in South-Central L.A., about one mile from where Tookie grew up. I have been reading Tookie’s books to my third- and fifth-grade students since they came out. They have been quite helpful. The students are really interested, and the books initiate a lot of discussion about choosing friends and other choices that we make. Even some of the teachers participate by sharing their own experiences.

I don’t know enough of the details about his case to know whether he is guilty, but his books are excellent.

Linda Rieger

Los Angeles

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The fact that Stanley Williams refused to be interviewed because of past slights by the L.A. Times indicates to me that he still harbors hostilities to society. This quadruple murderer was a violent lawbreaker on the outside, allegedly continued his gang life while incarcerated, and has established himself as a great manipulator. I wish the murder victims could send a letter to the editor regarding this report and Williams. He is where he belongs -- on death row awaiting his date with death. I’ll pray to God to forgive him. Williams should too.

Leonard Munoz

Whittier

HIV documentary

The comment re “bug chasing” by POZ editor Walter Armstrong is nauseating in its lack of insight (“When ‘The Gift’ Is HIV,” by Robert W. Welkos, Jan. 11).: “I just think the ‘gift giving’ and ‘bug chasing,’ as sensational as they are and as interesting as they are, aren’t really a public health or a social problem. It’s just a tiny group of people.” It might as well be 1982.

Has everyone forgotten the one-man epidemic referred to as “Patient Zero” to whom hundreds of early HIV cases could be traced?

I believe we are looking at the petri dish for a super strain of HIV, more virulent and deadly than the one that is barely managed now. Who will be to blame when that happens?

I am a gay male who has observed every year of this public health crisis that was allowed to run rampant because no one wanted to hurt any feelings. That someone could make such an ignorant statement as the editor of a national magazine is dumbfounding. It has gone beyond one’s “individual right” to do what you want when it becomes a public health menace and the public has to pay for one’s treatment and support, disability and Social Security payments.

I look forward to seeing the film and hope it becomes a great success for Hogarth. At least she has had the guts to tell the truth.

Dave Gregory

Van Nuys

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Hogarth says she deliberately left crystal meth and alcohol use out of her film “because I don’t really believe that is the issue.” Drug and alcohol use are clearly major factors in irresponsible sexual behavior, yet she chose not to include them in her polemic, thereby giving the radical right ammunition to attack the very community she claims to be helping. It is irresponsible to think that this “work” will not be used to bash gay males and exploit a negative minority within a larger community that is so much more than sexual. As a gay man I am offended by her insulting comments, and as a person living with HIV I am enraged by her cavalier attitude. Hogarth seems to want her cake and eat it too at the expense of the gay community.

Skip Houston

Laguna Beach

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I’ve been involved with AIDS since 1983 when I first became a volunteer in June of that year and then hired as the first director of volunteers that December for AIDS Project Los Angeles -- a post I held until 1989.

Although I’ll turn 60 this April, I think I can relate to what is happening with those much younger than me.

Back in the mid-’80s, as a member to this day of the UCLA Men’s Study concerning HIV, I can still distinctly recall the trepidation I experienced when the HIV test became available and I finally inquired about my status. Much to my relief, I was negative. But that information, as welcomed as it was, precipitated a disconnect for me with the clients I was serving. How could I relate to these HIV- positive individuals when I was negative? It took me a while to reconcile this situation.

What the article did not address was the possibility that the stress of “waiting for the HIV shoe to drop” is more than one can bear. In other words, get it over with, let me be “poz” and move on.

Unfortunately, these younger individuals do not have the frame of reference I was exposed to, as in people constantly dying, oftentimes in a most horrible way.

I realize that young people think they are invincible, as I did. But in this day and age, they aren’t. Regrettably, I do not have the answer to make them realize that they are playing, for all intents and purposes, a version of Russian roulette.

Dan Morin

West Hollywood

Truth, fiction, film

Re Marshall Herskovitz’s letter on Manohla Dargis’ piece on historical accuracy in films (Letters, Jan. 11): All fiction is not “lies.” One of the purposes of imaginative literature is to illuminate life, to tell truths. The films in question clearly aspire to such things. And politics and history are part and parcel of the stories they seek to tell. It’s the job of the critic to note when they come up short, as well as when they succeed. “Muddling through” these films is exactly the problem.

Matthew Woods

Mission Viejo

Try another era

I was reading Chris Pasles’ lukewarm review “Chanticleer Sings Purcell” (Jan. 4) and was startled by his comment that “It’s hard to imagine the lusty, bear-baiting Elizabethans listening to such bloodless music-making.” The Elizabethans would indeed not have listened to Purcell’s music if only because it was written much later. Elizabeth I died in 1603 and Purcell wrote in the 1680s and ‘90s during the Restoration period with a very different aesthetic influenced by refined French styles.

Henry Hespenheide

Los Angeles