TO THE EDITOR: Your treatment of Courtney Love in the November 20 edition of The Stranger ["Courtney Love: A Remembrance," edited by David Schmader and Jennifer Maerz] was appalling.
In a series of recent columns, David Schmader has highlighted atrocious accounts of child abuse. However, [it is a] well-known fact that Love was, herself, a victim of child abuse. Yet we know, for example, that victims of childhood trauma experience radical disassociation in relation to not only what is happening to them at the time of the abuse but, more importantly, the way they relate to themselves and others for the rest of their lives. This experience of being radically separated from what one is feeling, sensing, and experiencing (from what is actually happening to one's self, in one's environment, at any given moment), necessary in order for the child to survive the experience, follows the child into adulthood (accounting for the so-called "unexplainable" self-destructive behavior of these victims). This knowledge is not something that was generally available to mental heath professionals 20 years ago (when Love could have been helped).
[By] failing to take any of this into account in your "remembrance" of Love, you have simply repeated the same radical exclusion. This is not a "remembrance" of a human life, but rather a celebration of (and participation in) the radical destruction of that life. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Robert C. Thomas
Department of Humanities
San Francisco State University
FUCKING FAKED!
TO THE EDITOR: I've been in Thailand for the last three weeks. I came back and saw your Courtney Love cover. I thought, "Oh good! She died." Boy, was I disappointed. Shame on you.
Karl Christopher
FUCKING STUPID!
TO THE EDITOR: In this time of tribulation--when a war that nobody supports is raging out of control; when peaceful protesters are being imprisoned and subjected to police brutality (during the [Free Trade Area of the Americas] protests in Miami and at Fort Benning, Georgia, site of the [former School of the Americas]--you choose to dedicate entire issues of your potentially influential paper to irrelevant half-celebrities who aren't even fucking dead? Are you all fucking stupid?
Toby Gallagher
FUCKING MISLEADING!
ELI SANDERS: One again your reporting ["Cut Off," Nov 20] misleads your readers. It is true that Gay City will not receive any public HIV prevention funding for the next two years. However, Gay City wasn't the only organization that didn't receive funding. [Only] eight out of 15 programs were funded. You failed to mention that.
[According to Gay City's website, its] mission is "to promote gay and bisexual men's health and prevent HIV transmission by building community, fostering communication and nurturing self-esteem." That is a pretty broad mission for an organization with total revenue in 2002 of $388,000.
While I agree that Gay City has opportunities for improvement, I fail to understand why you and The Stranger continually attack this organization. Your recent articles seem to imply that Gay City is solely responsible for the rise in HIV infections. Gay City is not the only organization receiving government funding.
[According to Lifelong AIDS Alliance's mission statement,] "Lifelong AIDS Alliance is committed to preventing the spread of HIV, and to providing practical support services...." In 2002 Lifelong AIDS Alliance reported total revenue of $8.3 million, $5.6 million of which was [government funding]. Evidently you feel that Lifelong AIDS Alliance has no responsibility for the rise in HIV infections, even though this organization received 30 times the amount of government funding that Gay City did last year.
Chad Morrett
ELI SANDERS RESPONDS: This is the first time in Gay City's history that the organization has not received any public HIV prevention money during the biennial allocation process. Given that Gay City is the largest local organization dedicated to gay men's health, and given Gay City's repeated claims that it is a cutting-edge innovator when it comes to gay health promotion, the absence of funding is news.
Yes, 15 funding applications were submitted. But because many organizations submitted multiple applications, it is not as if seven out of 15 organizations seeking money received none. In fact, only nine organizations sought money, and only two organizations other than Gay City received none. Neither of the two are "leading" gay men's health organizations.
Also, I have reported on the shortcomings of Lifelong AIDS Alliance ["The Immoral Minority," June 5; "We're Not Getting Serious," July 10].
I do agree with you that Gay City has given itself a mission that is much broader than its operating budget can possibly hope to accomplish. That's why I have continued to focus on the part of Gay City's mission that is most relevant to an organization requesting public HIV prevention dollars: "prevent HIV transmission." This year, those handing out money to fund efforts to prevent HIV transmission decided Gay City's ideas for accomplishing this mission weren't strong enough to be funded.
