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 [email protected]. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    I am writing to respond to the Chronicle's August 15 article regarding the Sunset Commission's recommended closures of six state supported living centers (SSLC's) [“Sun to Set on Severely Disabled Patients,” News]. Sadly, The Austin Chronicle's article shows only one viewpoint and promotes a mindset dating back to the Fifties that people with disabilities belong in institutions, such as the Austin State Supported Living Center. The article criticizes the commission for recommending closure of six SSLCs. The article does not report that advocates have been fighting for years in support of closing the SSLCs and providing long-term services to people with disabilities in their homes with their families. These same advocates support the Sunset Commission's recommendations.
    I am the parent of an 18-year-old young man who has significant physical and intellectual disabilities. He lives with his father and I in our home in South Austin. He doesn't “suffer” from his disabilities (a generalization made by the author about people with disabilities in the article). My son and I are active disability advocates, well connected to other families raising a person with a disability, and familiar with the many opinions people have of the SSLCs. I was disappointed that the Chronicle presented only one perspective – a very negative perspective – of SSLC closures and the Sunset recommendations. At least Dennis Borel, a longtime, dedicated disability advocate in Austin, was allotted a paragraph in the article, providing a glimpse to your readers of why community services are so important to Texans with disabilities. I only hoped that you had also interviewed some families and other organizations that think closing the SSLCs is a good idea.

Dear Editor,
    General Manager Stewart Vanderwilt at public radio KUT is making a serious programming mistake and doing it as silently as possible ["KUTX Shuffles Programming," Earache, Aug. 19]. Sunday night’s lineup of Folkways, Across the Water, Global Grooves, and World Music Sundays is being thrown out to make way for eight hours of Latin music, featuring a new program called Alt. Latino. These changes were not advertised on the KUT website. The surreptitious strategy is demonstrated by not labeling that the schedule is new, and posting it two weeks before the September 1 fiscal year. KUT’s management shows a complete disinterest in providing the opportunity to take into consideration the views and opinions of loyal listeners and members of the KUT family.
    Eliminating the wide cultural range of folk, Celtic, and world music in one fell swoop, seemingly to meet a demographic marketing model, narrows the listening options for everyone. I love Horizontes, and look to it as a mainstay for my transition into each weekend.
    In short, I don't like Mr. Vanderwilt’s rejection of responsibility to consider all listeners, especially longtime fans of the Sunday night cultural kaleidoscope of music. Clearly a change is needed in the management lineup of Austin's supposed public radio station instead of these fine shows and the dedicated, talented, and entertaining deejays of Folkways, Across the Water, Global Grooves, and World Music Sundays.
    Austin, will you allow this ill-thought decision to stand, since you have the leverage to influence KUTX programing, given the reliance on public financial support? Loyal listeners of roots music (which includes Latin music) can create a backlash against those who completely ignore consideration of the diverse interests of the public, which is the foundation of public programming. Make your voices heard!

Dear Editor,
    I just finished reading Raoul Hernandez's review of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' Hypnotic Eye release, or at least trying to get through the review [“Phases & Stages,” Music, Aug. 22]. With sentences like, "After said Valhalla, Nirvana, Laurel Canyon, all ensuing work tangles into decades of spot-the-antecedent Venn diagrams," and "Thirteenth Heartbreakers disc Hypnotic Eye can't compare to the Angelenos' first efforts as has been suggested, Beatlesque songs with Stonesian testes, nor do proclamations of the great garage band revival hold any water in the face of these native Floridians' mid-Seventies emergence from the swamps of Gainesville," I was wondering if I was reading an album review or being subjected to some kind of acid test. How about writing a review that gives an opinion of an album without trying to shoehorn every bit of knowledge that you have about the band, rock music, the world, and literature into a slogged together group of pretentious sentences? Seriously, did you guys read this review before printing it? Proust would shy away from the sentences used.