Letters to the editor:
[email protected]

Defending the Disabled

For all the years that I have enjoyed reading Metro Pulse, I really do believe that your article on Revenge of the Disabled [Jan. 16 cover] was in the wrong section. It should have been in the News of the Weird. Did you just have a bad day with your advertisers, or did someone run over your foot with their wheelchair?

Take another look, Bill [Carey]. Didn't see you coming to the aid of the disabled when Knoxville was building the convention center, leaving us who have to go to Vocational Rehab paying to park at the hotel's lot. Who cared if the entrance and the handicapped parking spots were blocked? May not be such a big deal to pay a few bucks for parking, but trying to get ahead in this world as a disabled person, every dollar counts. As I have recently explained to a local employer who thought the word "crippled" was just another adjective that could be used to describe a person in a wheelchair, I brought it down to the simple basic. Remove the word "disabled," "wheelchair," or "handicapped," and use the word "black." I would guarantee you sir that if any of the businesses that you wrote of had offended a person of race then your article would have had a totally different twist.

I have the right to work, I have the right to spend the money that I earn, I have the right to enter any building from the front door, I have the rights of any one that walks into a business. Take a day off Bill, rent a wheelchair, and try to get around this town. Enter a few businesses. And when you have reached a frustration level, remember: You can get up. And if you need to borrow a chair, email me. I have a spare.

And for the following business in Knoxville, Carmike Cinemas, thanks for always hiring us and for treating us with respect when we come to your theaters. Shame on you Regal, West Town Mall—get your auto doors fixed. And the same thing for East Towne. And for the SUV drivers: most of us are under five feet tall. Pay attention.

Thomas Johns
Knoxville

Think About the Cost, Please

In the January 16 issue of Metro Pulse, Joe Sullivan bemoans the fact that the state has repeatedly denied $24 million for the renovation of Glocker Hall on the UT campus. It is at least ironic that the same issue contains a letter by an assistant professor of the same institution advocating that, among other demolitions, Thompson-Boling Arena, the arena parking garage, the football stadium, KUB's sewage treatment plant, and the nearby concrete industrial site be razed and be relocated to some other undisclosed site. All of this to create a public park to "demonstrate that this community values quality of life over that which is cut-rate, fast and whatever it takes to cram the paying public into sporting events, wrestling matches and tractor pulls." A public works project of this magnitude would cost well over $1 billion and might be the greatest single expenditure of state monies ever. One wonders if this is the sort of thinking being taught to students in UT's architecture department.

Frederick J. Miller
Knoxville