'Back door' Perversions are Saddening
Like many Knoxvillians, I was thrilled with the publication of the Metro Pulse a few years ago. I have enjoyed the creative and diverse articles, exposes, and especially the trendy and upscale advertising. It was a paper for "people like me," I thought.
I acknowledge and appreciate that as culturally diverse and as politically "incorrect" individuals that I would see articles that conveyed points of view, habits, lifestyles, and beliefs that differed from mine. After all, that's what being an open-minded and enlightened person is all about.
My favorite part of Metro Pulse is the classified section. I have always found them to be warmly crafted. What I mean by this is I always feel great drinking a good hot cup of joe while reading the ads. I feel enhanced somehow, as if I had just read some good prose.
Tonight when I kicked back to finally read [the Nov. 9] issue, I felt suddenly sickened to my stomach when I read the advertising for Private Lines, and Find a Date ("Hot dates await"), and "Local couples seek local couples" (to do WHAT with?!).
All you have to do is look at these ads to see that they are not the usual paid advertisements for the Knoxville Dating Community. They are covertly worded, yet overtly pornographic and sickening in nature. Hundreds of us "hip" parents out here will tell you of front lines for pedophiles and other folks who can simply pick up the phone and anonymously have phone sex with who knows whom. I am not a prude, by any means, but we're so used to seeing this garbage all over the Internet, and on every late night commercial that we think "Well, it's OK, I guess. It's just the times we live in."
Some folks may actually be naive. They have been lucky enough not to be injured or assaulted as a result of these "date lines." Perhaps they haven't had hundreds of thousands of phone calls billed to them by illegal companies who promise local calls to teenage children and then bounce the phone signal to a number in the Caribbean—and yes, overseas rates do apply. There was no one to legally or at least in good faith check the age of the caller. In fact, most of these places target teenagers and young adults, and through manipulation and deception run up thousands of dollars in charges. How many other families in Knoxville have had a child stalked and terrorized after a deceptive and manipulative adult acting as a teenager coerced her into giving an address.
I know advertising dollars are a must. I fully understand that the classified department sometimes has to bite the bullet when the ads don't come in. I am saddened by these ads and also by all of the ads for [massages] given in the trailers in gravel parking lots on the outside of the city. Please! These places and their ads are an insult to the licensed and professional refloxologists, masseurs, masseuses and trainers who have carried Metro Pulse for years.
After all, as parents and righters of wrongs, we would not let a man with "Pedophile and Pervert" tattooed on his head enter our front door. Why let him in through the back door?
Kim Inklebarger
Knoxville
Hey, I'm Older Than That, Really
This is a letter of clarification. I haven't read Younger Than That Now [Secret History, Nov. 16 Metro Pulse ], but I have ordered it. [Jack Neely] being Knoxville's premier historian (and I'm not being facetious), I assume you like facts. OK, here are the facts.
I lived in the White House (which was actually called Laurel Manor) from Jan. '68-Sept. '69. 21 months. It wasn't next door to Epworth Church, but directly across the street. It was probably called the best commune in the area, because on any given day in my apartment you might see:
Peter Kami; the day Martin Luther King was killed, Peter and I were watching Moby Dick on TV. I told him it could happen to him by some Knoxville student.
Gus Hadorn; later SGA president, now a school teacher in North Carolina.
Jimmi Baxter; SGA president and now a federal prosecutor.
Jerry Cronin; along with Carroll Bible formed BODS (Big Orange for a Democratic Society).
Bob Kronic; a grad student. Later head of social work department at UT.
After I was expelled from the manor by Leni Monday, the owner/ realtor, for too many hippies in the place, I moved across the street and lived there, finishing my senior year.
In other words, the White House was not a commune. I've never heard of Puddin'. Carroll Bible, whom I met my freshman year when we both live in Maplehurst, never lived there!
As best as I can recall, there were:
1—Three young nurses living on the top floor. One of them had a love child by another tenant.
2—Four ROTC cadets on the third floor
3—A fellow we called "The Loser" because his girlfriend slept with practically everyone in the house.
4—A crazy redneck from Bristol on the first floor who would take his .22 rifle on the porch and shoot the Masonic Lodge building.
5—Ex-bearded Darrell, on my floor, named because some Carolina cops cut his beard off while he was hitchin' to the beach during spring break.
6—A former frat house mother we called "Ma" Besson and the manager Ma Kassidy.
7—And me.
Yes Jack, this was pre-you, and pre-Don Williams, and pre-Steve Dupree, and post-Cormac. As someone once wrote (I forget who), "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
Lawrence Fain [Larry] Duby
Morristown
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