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TALKS TO GOD
I heard the radio show R. Scott Moxley wrote about, and, contrary to what he heard, I heard most callers disagreeing with Rich Agozino (“Holy Shit,” April 27). Agozino believes in capital punishment because he believes in the Bible. God gave us these laws. Murder, rape, incest, adultery and homosexuality are some of the actions God says deserve the death penalty. God also says that he takes no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked. This is what I heard Agozino saying.
You object to Agozino calling homosexuals “sodomites.” Why? Too descriptive? He is calling it what it is! What does the word “gay” have to do with homosexuality? They are not “gay”; they are sodomites. That's what they do. Both sodomy and adultery, in God's view, are worthy of the death penalty. Now, don't twist my words, like you did to Agozino and his guests, and say that it should be open season on sodomites and adulterers. Christians are to obey the law like everyone else. The death penalty is to be carried out to protect the innocent (by the state, okay?).
Last, you said “gay Americans” are Agozino's prime target. What a liberal, 180-degree twist of the truth. Agozino brings up a different topic every day. He asks questions and tries to get people to think for themselves instead of being spoon-fed your liberal, politically correct garbage.
Gary
Santa Ana
THE PAIN IN SPAIN
Yet another reason to despise King George and his political minions has been brought to light thanks to DA investigator Steve Douglass and his willingness to tell the truth (Dave Wielenga's “The 'Just Us' System,” May 18). As if Argyros' involvement with El Toro weren't enough to make people realize what an asshole he is. Well, there is one good thing about his possible departure for Spain as a U.S. ambassador: my alma mater (and his, unfortunately), Chapman University, will get a four-year reprieve from his unwelcome presence.
Mark Shelly
Trabuco Canyon
WHO'S YOUR BUDDY!?
Despite Buddy Seigal's dismissive preview of the Doheny Blues Festival, I went anyway (“Oy!” May 18). Never again. No, I wasn't disappointed by the lack of blues talent, although I planned to split before Blues Traveler's set—even before reading Seigal's verdict. Instead, I was completely blown away by the lack of music-engineering skill demonstrated all day long from the mainstage mixing board. It was all bass and bass drum because, you know, blues thrives on those super-bad, walkin' bass lines. Might as well leave the guitars, B3s and horns at home. It was as if Omega Events hired some piece of ambulatory phlegm from a failed hip-hop club who lost the bottom end of his hearing back when Notorious BIG was Biggie Smalls. The EQ work was much, much better at the satellite Renaissance Stage, where some prescient blues fans decided to take refuge and stake their claims before the mainstage area was anywhere near filled up.
Maybe someday Omega will hire someone who can hear behind the board, but when they want to let the dogs out, they'll know just who to call.
Tom Graves
Long Beach
RULES FROM RADICALS
Two rules for Nick Schou (“How Not to Smash Global Capitalism,” May 18):
Rule No. 1: Do not judge an entire movement by the actions of one satellite protest. Obviously, any time individuals or groups publicly oppose the powers that be and the system they manicure, organized restraint will be encountered. Opening global capitalism and all of its associated byproducts won't happen in one swift process, but the culmination of multiple and widespread protests will expose today's techno-crazed, profit-motivated society for what it is.
Rule No. 2: A protest or rally is ineffective and inert if the participants pack it in at the first order to disperse. To quell a rally by overreaction (usually out of fear) with rubber bullets, bean bags and a “phalanx of police officers lined up like a firing squad” is not outsmarting anyone. It's suppression. I was disappointed that a free-press publication such as the OC Weekly(which regularly exercises its right to free speech) wasn't more sympathetic toward others doing the same—no matter what the cause. Nonetheless, I dig your paper. Write on!
Randy Rausin
Newport Beach
WE QUOTE CHAUCER!
Re: R. Scott Moxley's use of the word “decimate”: Leave it to one of your writers to rely on the American Heritage Dictionary. A lousy source from the git, it tends to give connotated (i.e., corrupted by the ignorami) definitions. The term “decimate” comes from a punishment handed out by Republican Roman generals to control mutinous troops. It involved dividing a rebellious cohort into groups of 10 and forcing them to draw lots. The tenth man out would then be beaten to death by his nine companions—thus a reduction by 10 percent. Happily, we all know Moxley is so tough that sometimes he has to kick his own ass.
Gavin Francis
via e-mail
A proofreader responds: “Ignorami”? “Git”? “Connotated”? I guess one man's corruption is another man's evolution, or, as the English writer Geoffrey Chaucer once put it, “Soun ys nought but eyr unbroken/And every speche that ys spoken/Lowd or pryvee, foul or fair/In his substance ys but air.”
