tori ’N’ Kate

Regarding this gratuitous slam passing for an album review (“Left of the Dial,” Artvoice v5n4):

No longtime classically trained professional musician exists whose entire stock in trade is based on copying another musician. The idea of that is beyond idiotic. Let alone the notion that such an imagined person would pick a musician to copy whom almost no one knows about; and believe me, I was a musician and serious listener in the same area where Tori Amos lived when she was forming her musical identity in the 1970s, and if I ever heard the name Kate Bush in those days it was fleetingly at best. The very idea that she would choose to copy Ms. Bush’s music is preposterous.

Further, the best art comes from deep inside where the artist doesn’t have ready access to it; the artist must be open to receive it from this place. It’s called the unconscious. Apparently Mr. Sweeney possesses a brain capable of dealing only in the most superficial logic, and that’s why this basic notion of how art works was foreign to him when Ms. Amos chose to call it by a more prosaic name.

And finally, no one is convinced by his slamming of one highly respected musician to appreciate the music of another, no matter how much he tells us he idolizes her and refers to her in royal terms. It’s long past time to put aside such personal genuflections in favor of a deeper understanding of the work at hand.

Here’s my hope that you can find someone to write reviews who is capable of dealing less in both personal invective and praise, and more in an informed discourse of art.

Richard Handal

Silver Springs, Maryland

I am a moderator of a Kate Bush subforum which is an offshoot of an online Tori Amos fan community. I’ve enjoyed Kate’s music more than any other artist since she first appeared in the U.S. in 1978 as a musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.” There are artists like Happy Rhodes who obviously try to sound exactly like her. However, I find it difficult to believe that anyone who is truly familiar with Kate Bush’s music would make the accusation that Tori Amos is “ripping her off.” Tori Amos is several years younger than I am, and in the ’70s it was difficult to find Kate’s albums in the U.S. even if you had the time to hang around a record store’s import section long enough to get to know the owner and ask him to pick up her albums on his travels to the U.K. It’s highly unlikely that the young Tori Amos discovered Kate until she (Tori) was already well established in her own right.

Tori Amos plays piano far better than Kate Bush ever did or will do. She uses symbolism and metaphor in her work and in her discussions about her work. Has Mr. Sweeney never known a poet or a musician who described the creative process in such a way? I see a disturbing number of journalists taking the counter-productive tack of bashing Ms. Amos while reviewing a work which has nothing to do with her: Kate’s new album, Aerial. Surely this album was influenced by Joni Mitchell, Peter Gabriel and the Beatles, so why doesn’t Mr. Sweeney attack Ms. Bush for ripping them off? Most of the Kate fans I know not only admire Tori, they thank her fans for showing an interest in Kate and thereby keeping Kate’s name in the public discourse during her 12 long years of inactivity. And incidentally, Tori is far too young have ever been a hippie. The “twisted hippie hell” Mr. Sweeney refers to is reserved for people of my age who have to endure these nasty, lazy “reviews.”

Nancy Cristiano

Severna Park, Maryland

the facts about jrotc

This is in response to “An Army of Kids” (Artvoice v5n4). The content of the article, and numerous appearances by a few JROTC detractors before the Buffalo Board of Education, is part of an effort to rid high schools of the program.

The title of the article suggested that high school students who opt to take JROTC are somehow drafted or recruited into JROTC and/or the Army. That is far from the mission of JROTC.

For 10 years, I taught JROTC at McKinley High School. In keeping with U.S. Army Cadet Command policy, military recruiters were not allowed in my classroom, to recruit at JROTC activities or to obtain information about JROTC cadets. Of course, armed forces recruiters would like to recruit within JROTC programs because they need every edge to maintain a volunteer military. But they really do not need to because they have access to high school students through the guidance offices. In 2000, I asked the Deputy Commander of Cadet Command whether JROTC instructors were required or encouraged to allow recruiters to have access to cadets through JROTC programs. His answer was no.

If you asked any JROTC teacher to name their main objective, you would hear them say they wanted to help as many cadets as possible get into college or obtain a life-sustaining trade or skill. At McKinley, JROTC cadets received college orientation all four years they were in the program, including a college planning outline for parents, encouragement to take the PSAT in the 10th grade, SAT preparation, career planning and information about local college fairs. During summers the principal allowed me to open my classroom so that 11th graders could come in and do college searches and request college applications. Between 1999 and 2004, 76.8% of JROTC cadets graduating from McKinley were accepted or planned to enter college the next fall. Some JROTC graduates went directly into trades or other occupations. About 15% of my JROTC graduates enlisted in the active military, national guard or reserves. Each year a few of my former graduates who did not enter college upon graduation returned to tell my they were now taking college courses.

JROTC has nothing to do with war fighter training. No part of the curriculum includes military tactics or how to use military weapons.

JROTC can be broken down into three areas: classroom subjects, nutrition and fitness training and drill and ceremony. Classroom subjects included learning styles assessments, appreciation of cultural and personal diversity, etiquette, geography and map reading, government, conflict resolution and financial planning. The physical fitness part of the program, which was led by cadets, included education about proper nutrition and fitness and weight training. Each spring the cadets were required to take the President’s Fitness Test. Drill and ceremony played an important part in cadet development by providing leadership experience; all cadets took turns leading others in attaining precision marching skills. Cadets who tried their best to meet course requirements were invited to attend a one-week, summer adventure camp; there they participated in confidence building events such as rappelling, water survival, land navigation and leadership reaction challenges.

The benefits provided to Buffalo Public Schools far outweighed the costs. In addition to normal teaching loads, JROTC teachers devoted time to coaching competitive drill teams and color guards. JROTC teachers at McKinley led cadets in the performance of four to five spring community service projects in the Elmwood Avenue, Grant and Amherst and Riverside neighborhoods. JROTC teachers supervised school assemblies, formal dances and other social events. That’s a lot of mileage to get out of a teacher.

H. E. Wilcox, Jr.

Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret)

Buffalo

how stupid is the news?

I thought “How Stupid Is Your Daily Paper” (Artvoice v5n1) was right on.

There’s a published “definition” of the Buffalo News in Urban Dictionary [www.urbandictionary.com]. In paragraph 3, I believe you may now have to substitute “My View” with anything written by Mary Kunz Goldman. It reads:

To read this daily from Buffalo, New York, is to engage in a masochism not seen since the onset of self-flagellation.

Without question one of the worst newspapers to emerge in this country ever. Nobody ever thought it was possible to have so many pages with nothing pertinent or interesting to say. They are so typically one-sided in regard to political issues that they think nothing of endorsing a candidate without even a reasonable argument as to why.

The worst part of this rag is the “My View” column. They devoted a large space in the Opinions section to musings by the local yokels about their childhood memories of Grandma’s potato salad, summer days spent in the basement with the lights off, or weekends at Uncle Wally’s when he would slither into bed with cousin Mikey. However, those who have something relevant to say are relegated to a small paragraph in another area, so they can maintain space for this crap and all the former editors/employees who for some reason never go away.

They are further proof that a one-paper town is a lot like a child listening in on an adult conversation. They’re only going to let you hear what they want you to hear.

Bill Berryman

Kenmore

Your article shows a real understanding of how we can develop this region through the judicious investment in infrastructure to attract tourism and businesses from around the world, and how that infrastructure can create a viable and sustainable economy for our region. Unlike casinos and behemoth retail meccas (both whose sole purpose, by the way, is to lure people in and get them to spend in their establishments, until their clients have maybe enough left over for gas money to get back home), the millions spent would (as you say) create a variety of business opportunities, from small to large, that could create jobs that people could actually live on.

As a small business owner, I have watched with great frustration as the powers that be keep banking on a big bang that will create a new Western New York overnight. Casinos and BassPro (to a lesser extent) will not bring in people from outside of our region; they will simply feed on what little money the people of our region have left. (I’m sure the troubles at GM have only served to slow BassPro from moving on their unsigned “promise” to build here.) As you say, a Chinatown would be a great addition to our cultural landscape, as well as being immune to closing all at once.

If our city (and our region) is to survive, it will be because we have a vast array of small- and medium-sized business thriving, creating jobs and wealth for and in our community. It seems as if supporting local business does not merit the kind of priority as big-name, big-money “solutions” like the casinos, BassPro or other such endeavors. If local government split up the millions they spend on such giant fix-alls and invested them in small business, they may not get their names in the paper, but I’m positive we’d have a healthier, more stable economy.

John Rigney

Buffalo

Niman: infidel of the year

Certainly one thing we can count on for 2006 (Getting a Grip: “An Interesting, Scary Year,” Artvoice v4n51) is a continuing stream of hate and venom issuing forth from left-wing, anti-American, Bush-lied, so-called journalists such as Michael Niman of Artvoice and Bill Gallagher of the Niagara Falls Reporter. Any self-respecting liberal should make a point of checking these two out every week if they want to keep up with cutting-edge American defeatism. They will be guaranteed to enjoy every form of vitriol anchored in secular humanist and multicultural intolerance. So if you are a misinformed, mind-numbed leftie, who wants to see America and freedom defeated around the world, these are your kinda guys.

In most cultures, (apparently not ours), the rhetoric spewing from these two local hacks would qualify them for Leavenworth. The only award these two would qualify for is Al Jazeera’s “Infidel of the Year.”

Thomas J. Machmer

Lewiston