Standing up for CityBeat
Regarding last week's editorial (The Power of One Open Mind, issue of Sept. 24-30), CityBeat is my family's way of scheduling our activities, from music and arts to festivals and other smaller community programs that the local daily newspapers don't have the space or resources to give a complete listing.
As a concerned parent and father of two soon-to-be-teenage daughters, I value the education of knowing what my daughters will be experiencing and exposed to as they get older. Although I might not agree with or even like some of the articles presented in CityBeat, I do value having a source for alternative views and resources with which I can make informed and educated decisions affecting our family and our values, one of which is free speech.
I typically don't get too involved with political or other community issues, instead living my daily life of raising two daughters, doing homework, trying to be a good husband and father and, of course, working. But this is one issue that I feel is worth at least writing a letter about. Unfortunately, people like CCV (aka Citizens for Narrowminded Thinking) take their causes to the exteme by wanting only their values heard and represented.
Editor Responds: Thanks to readers for your overwhelming support of CityBeat in the wake of my editorial. Good news: Bigg's has reinstated our distribution in the front of all of its area stores.
Don't Alienate Customers
The anonymous Esquire employee's response to a previous letter criticizing the theater's problems is as damning and insulting as Gary Goldman's act of censorship (Not Funny to Esquire Workers, issue of Sept. 24-30).
This particular employee obviously has no respect for the craft responsible for his/her livelihood. Writing off Goldman's censorship of Wayne Wang's The Center of the World because the "offending" footage was "a stupid scene from a bad movie" is an ignorant statement and quite shocking to hear from an employee of one of Cincinnati's only art house theaters. As a place supposedly devoted to off-the-mainstream film, devotion to the cinematic truth should reign supreme at the Esquire, whether it be "stupid" or not. Granted, the employee calls Goldman's editing wrong, but the sentiment is delivered in such a back-handed, self-serving manner that all believability is lost.
The employee states, "Everyone wants to complain to someone. Well, don't do it in the Esquire. Take it to someone else." Instead of lashing out at customers who obviously care enough about film to frequent the theater in spite of its questionable practices, the employee should address his/her concerns to the real source of the problem -- Esquire management and Gary Goldman. Alienating customers will cause them to take their money, not their complaints, elsewhere.
As a Chicago resident, I have access to films from around the world on a daily basis. It was one of the reasons I moved here from Cincinnati. The Esquire shows many of these same films, helping Cincinnati understand the world both artistically and socially.
Goldman and the Esquire's presentation of a watered-down version of the world does a great disservice to the people of Cincinnati. Steve Ramos and the CityBeat staff are to be commended for bringing their actions to light.
-- Phil Morehart, Chicago
Printer-friendly version
