Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to mail@austinchronicle.com. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor:
   The one good thing about the nude photo of Lance Armstrong ["Piece of Work," Nov. 7] is that he's not wearing and promoting Nike. As we should all know, this company has terrible sweatshops in developing countries. The workers labor long hours for extremely low wages in hazardous conditions, and are routinely abused and cheated out of their wages. High-profile celebrities should take the moral high ground and make a conscious decision to not represent corporations whose creed is greed. There is absolutely no virtue in prosperity when it is made through the suffering of others. I'm sure to these workers and their families, Armstrong is no hero.

The defense department's Defend America Web site recently issued a call to fill vacancies on local draft boards.
    Americans over the age of 18 and with no criminal record are invited to "serve your community and the nation" by volunteering for the boards, which decide which young men should be drafted.
    The online "zine" Salon (Nov. 3), commenting on the call, observed that given Cheney's predicted "long slog" in Iraq and the expected drop in enlistments and reenlistments, reinstituting the draft will probably become a necessity, but not until after the next presidential election.
    The British newspaper The Guardian (Nov. 5), in commenting on the call to fill U.S. draft boards, pointed out, "However, recruitment for the boards suggests that in some parts of the Pentagon all options are being explored in response to concerns that the U.S. military has been stretched too thin in its occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq."
    Bill Moyer's program NOW (PBS) this week noted the government's call for volunteers to serve on draft boards. However, the Defend America notice appears to have since been removed from the Web site.

I am absolutely appalled that the Chronicle chose to recommend the Nov. 9 performance by Beenie Man at the Flamingo Cantina ["Music Recommended," Nov. 7]. This particular artist, although a major star in Jamaica, is a viciously homophobic hatemonger.
   His song "Damn" begins, "I'm dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays." In his hit song "Bad Man Chi Chi Man," Beenie Man tells his fans to murder gay DJs if they see one onstage. He was awarded a Grammy for a previous album on which he offered to shoot and kill homosexuals.
   There is a fine line between free speech and speech that incites physical danger. In Beenie Man's home country of Jamaica, many people are killed or beaten every year just for being gay. There are no reliable statistics as to exactly how many, because most of the survivors are afraid to report the crimes and out themselves to a hostile government.
   Austin is not immune to gay-bashing either, as much as we would like to think so. Just ask Officer Dewayne Friar and his partner Romer Galang, who were attacked by a gang of thugs on Fourth Street, a story that was reported in the same issue ["Naked City: Bashing the Wrong Guy"] as your recommendation of this show. Shame on you for being so two-faced.

Larry Gaston ["Postmarks," online edition, Nov. 7], I'm not mad at all, and yes, I do deliberately insult Jim Hightower because he is nothing but an extremist and a liar. Period. He has no legitimate reason to be published in anything but a fringe hate newsletter. I take politics seriously – it's how we govern and maintain this country, and fringe losers who are motivated solely by their hatred of others should be insulted and trivialized. Jim Hightower and Louis Black are the protectors of the Status Quo because they attack anyone who proposes change to even the most messed up programs or policies. The person who proposes the change will then have to defend themselves rather than address the issues. Kinda like what Louis Black has been doing when I asked him to prove me wrong. He first suggested I lied, then can't back up his attack. Yeah. I got nothing good to say about people like Pat Buchanan, Bob Novak, Jim Hightower, or Molly Ivins. So what if I insult them when they deliberately lie in their columns? They insult you every time they look you in the eye and lie. For Hightower, that's just about every week.

Editor:
   I know the JFK-as-a-man-of-peace narrative holds some essential place in the liberal world-view, but can't hagiography at least occasionally give way to fact? I also know that Robert Faires ["Watchmen on the Walls of Freedom," Nov. 7] is "just" writing about music, but does that exempt his rhapsody from fact checking?
   Actually, a fact checker couldn't have commented on the worst parts of Faires' article, the exclusions. The big one, of course, is Vietnam, which Kennedy inherited, yes, but which he dramatically escalated. "But," wail the defenders of Camelot, "he had plans to pull us out." Again, fantasy trumps reality: The actual historical record on this question is ambiguous at best; at worst, it seems to indicate that he was prepared to ratchet up the violence. Faires also excludes Kennedy's other adventures in imperialism: the Bay of Pigs; his support for military coups, El Salvador in 1961 and Guatemala in 1963; a massive increase in military aid to the brutal dictator Somoza in Nicaragua. Those are just a few of the foreign-policy accomplishments of those glorious 1,000 days.
   The few concrete examples Faires uses to illustrate Kennedy's "shift toward ... tolerance and hope" are pretty weak. Yes, he proposed the civil rights act, but it was Johnson that risked political capital to get it passed. We also know that he viewed MLK and the activists who were fighting on the streets more with suspicion than admiration. And then there's the Peace Corps. Ah yes, the Peace Corps. Somehow it doesn't seem like sending a few thousand people around the globe to help the miserable patch their mud huts expiates for the 5 million who eventually died in Indochina because of the war he started there.
   So what's left? Well, Faires is right, Kennedy did make a commitment to get us to the moon. Perhaps he truly was a Voice of Peace after all.

Louis Black raised a few OK points in "Page Two" last week [Nov. 7]. I would agree that we shouldn't limit people's personal freedoms – in most cases. However, when by allowing some people to exercise their personal freedoms, you're harming others, it's important to reconsider.
   Let's say I walk into a nightclub with a can filled with 43 known carcinogens and a ton of other questionable chemicals and started spraying the shit in people's faces. Would this be OK? This spray-can metaphor really isn't all that far off. I'd be subjecting people to something that they didn't ask to be a part of. That, to me, is taking away their personal freedom to lead a healthy lifestyle if they wish.
   The Chronicle is a great paper, but I'd like to see it look at the flip side a bit more when covering an issue that even progressives disagree on. Louis Black and supporters, please take a few moments to consider the idea that by advocating for some people's personal freedoms, you're actually taking away others'.
   (And the death penalty still sucks.)

Editor,
   Louis Black is correct when he states, "There is nothing progressive about supporting any ban on legal personal behavior" ["Page Two," Nov. 7]. Where he errs is in his next two words, "including tobacco." Once one chooses to light up a tobacco product in a public place, be it a library, theatre, or nightclub, the behavior becomes far from personal. Proponents of a smoking ban don't care if other people choose to smoke, we really don't. We just want to be able to enjoy relatively clean air in all public places. I'll say it one more time. It's not about smoker's rights, it's about health. This concept should not be so hard for everyone to comprehend.

Louis Black and I agree on a few things. We both don't care what kind of ads run in the Chronicle, and we both dislike cigarette smoke in Austin nightclubs ["Page Two," Nov. 7].
    What we don't agree on is the smoking ban ordinance. Black sees it mainly as a personal freedom issue. I see it as a public health issue. The other interested party, the club owners, argued it as an economic issue and won. Let's be clear about that – if the club owners were certain that an all-out smoking ban wouldn't cut into club revenue, the ban would have passed in short order (does anyone really believe that Austin club-owners want their clubs to smell like cigarette smoke?). People would still be smoking outdoors, in their homes, and anywhere else where it doesn't affect other people, and life would simply be a lot healthier and pleasant for Austin clubgoers.
    While I also generally agree with Black that there is "nothing progressive about supporting any ban on legal personal behavior," I don't agree with the implication that all such bans are necessarily regressive or bad. For example, taking a shit is clearly a right, yet Austin passed a 1990 ordinance banning urination and defecation in public places. I think that ban is a good thing because it's designed to make the environment healthier for others. It wasn't intended to impinge upon the rights of people who like to take dumps in the street, although that's clearly a side effect, and could be easily argued as the intent of the ordinance.
    Similarly, the smoking-ban ordinance is about public health, not about the right to smoke.

   [Ed.'s Note: I didn't say banning behavior was necessarily bad. I did say it wasn't "progressive."]

Come on Louis, prove me wrong amigo, do it. If you can't, well, then resort to your usual dodge. You're the smartest man alive, Louis; go on, prove me wrong, I'm just a lying ranter according to you. Should be a piece of cake.

I enjoy a good debate of facts and opinions as much as the next guy, but when name-calling enters into the discussion, I tune out. So Carl [Swanson, "Postmarks," Nov. 7], I have no idea what your point is because I stopped reading at the first insult hurled at Mr. Hightower. Same with your online letter [austinchronicle.com/gbase/Community/Postmarks] insulting Mr. Black. I'll bet you continue to write and insult people, and sadly I won't be aware of any of it since I won't read anything but your name at the bottom.
   It's sad and ugly when anger overrides intelligence.

Dear Editor,
   Reading a recent letter (about cyclists among cars) ["Postmarks," Oct. 31], I am struck again by the fact that the people who complain most about car exhaust, car noise, and traffic jams are the people who produce them. Motorists tell me they don't walk or cycle because they don't want to breathe car exhaust. (They don't mind producing exhaust for me to breathe.) Or they drive a car because it's safer. (Safer for whom?) Car folks tell me they're moving to the country to get away from the traffic noise. (They're going to drive a car to the country. Once settled there, they will drive back to the city a lot. Other motorists will have the same idea. Soon there will be traffic noise at the nice little place in the country. And strip malls will line the road from the city to the country.)
   If we don't like the effects of excessive car dependence (and I don't think anyone likes smog, traffic jams, bad-smelling exhaust, traffic noise, road rage, deaths, injuries, terror, and ugly landscapes), we can't escape them by driving cars. If you dislike exhaust, traffic noise, and congestion, then please, in the name of reason, find a way to stop producing them yourself.

Poor Louis Black, aka [Ed.], can't refute anything I said in my last letter, pointing out his dearheart Jim Hightower's lies and deliberate distortions, so he accuses me of not using facts ["Postmarks," online version (austinchronicle.com), Nov. 4]. Well, here's a challenge to Mr. Editor. Find an untrue statement in my letter. Point it out, then present the fact. Should be simple, eh Louis? I'll wait for one of two things that any honest individual would offer, either proof that I was incorrect, or an apology. Oddly enough, I doubt Louis can do either.

Re: "The Chronicle Sells Out, Again" (Not) ["Postmarks," Nov. 7]
    As a "progressive" nonsmoker, it amazes me that people who are supposedly progressive are so willing to enact yet another law that infringes on our civil liberties. It amazes me that people feel the need to have the government taking over our daily and personal lives. It amazes me that people can't see the danger therein.