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Knight in Shining LeMonde Livre

Who is this James Knight? ("Bonehead Grapes 101," Jan. 2.) The guy is a fantastic writer: creative, witty and knowledgeable (about more than wine, I have a feeling).

Please give us more of him.

Marlene Alves

Santa Rosa

The good news is that we do give you more of James Knight, each and every week with his Swirl and Spit column, a creative, witty and knowledgeable look at area winetasting rooms, found in this issue on p20.

No heroes

I am heartened by Hannah Strom-Martin's expression in her recent "Imagine 2008" essay (Jan. 2). Old enough to be her father, I have a handful of nephews and nieces her age with whom I enjoy infrequent yet meaningful dialogue on such things. As one who saw through the window that briefly opened in the '60s and early '70s (I was at Woodstock in '69), I continue to monitor those among us who retained the vision, those who no longer believe it and those who forgot or lost it due to preoccupations with career, family and mortgage payments. I also regularly ponder how people Strom-Martin's age regard those times as well as the issues that now confront us all. Too often I have felt that following generations were too swept up by these accelerated times and/or too consumed with "fitting in" to seriously question authority, much less the powers that strive to dominate us all.

I share Strom-Martin's concerns that few creative expressions are really saying anything truly constructive, much less truly challenging, to the New World Order.

Is everyone really too afraid, tired or resigned to speak out with conviction? The old-style protest no longer has the teeth it once had. Grassroots activism is the only hope as corporate-owned media decides what flies on the air, and young, once-rebellious voices quickly and predictably sell out once they taste material success.

I appreciate Strom-Martin's work and her refreshing voice. Keep it up!

Malcolm Clark

Occidental

White Peril?

I was surprised to see the racist heading "Yellow Peril?" over a letter to the editor (Dec. 26) complaining about lead-tainted toys from China. Your paper is usually much more conscious than that.

Besides, I have not seen the term "white peril" used in regards to U.S. corporations' pollution of other countries, nor in regards to unsafe products manufactured here. Nor has it been used in reference to uranium used while "liberating" the people of Iraq, nor in regards to uranium tailings left on Native American land in the Southwest nor in reference to the dumping of oil refinery effluent into a Nigerian river. Are we trying to kill them?

This is not just a matter of hurting people's feelings. Wars and genocide, including WW II and the genocide in Rwanda, were preceded by media propaganda manipulating people's real fear and anger, and directing it against a particular group of people.

The Bohemian seems to work hard to educate and inform as well as entertain, so what's up?

Barbara Bochinski

Santa Rosa

In this instance, what was up was that the letter-writer was insinuating that the Chinese were deliberately trying to kill American children by insidiously poisoning their toys. Thus the question mark in the headline, to underscore the ridiculousness of such an assertion.

what a concept

Regarding the "Killer Gifts" article (Nov. 28), I can't tell you how profoundly hurt by this whole subject [of foie gras] I am. One more thing for the gourmet culture to unfeelingly consume at the expense of the innocent.

That issue of the Bohemian presented an article on toxic toys on one page but promoted eating toxic livers from distressed ducks on another! What's wrong with this picture? Maybe our children should give up the toxic toys, gourmands should give up the toxic liver and we should all let the children and ducks grow up together. What a concept. Thanks for listening.

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