Cutting up Cutler on the front Paige
Re: “DAM: It’s dizzying,” Dec. 3 news story.
Those who experience vertigo in the Hamilton addition to the Denver Art Museum might consider that one of the pleasures of living in Colorado is the privilege of hiking on trails that make surprising turns through spectacular canyons. Sheets of rock tilt around and over us, encouraging an awe-inspiring, pleasing sense of vertigo. The interior of this new museum echoes this experience, as the exterior echoes the geology of Red Rocks and the Flatirons.
Other new museums of contemporary art that I’ve visited – in New York City, London, Bilbao, Madrid and Chicago – hang their collections in large square or rectangular rooms, and feel like art warehouses or shopping malls. It’s rarely about enjoying the art, but about admiring the architects. Although that’s somewhat true for the new Denver addition, it’s also true that, whether by accident or design, the angularities and cornerings of the interior provide opportunities for more intimate experiences of individual works. By surprise, for instance, you come on a painting by Agnes Martin or Philip Guston, and you feel intimate with it in its more private space. You don’t feel compelled to move on to the next. Few museums provide that kind of respect for individual works.
Steve Katz, Denver
Cutting up Cutler on the front Paige
Re: “Cutler dazed, confused,” Dec. 4 Woody Paige column.
I try to be pretty thorough about reading the front page. To me it represents the entire newspaper staff’s collective impression of what is important for the readers to know. I can only hope that there was a collective sigh of embarrassment from the Denver Post staff when they opened Monday morning’s paper to find the ranting of Woody Paige passing as front-page news. The Broncos can be legitimate front-page news. aps about the Broncos should never be front-page news. Using the front page to rip up a rookie who performed, well, like a rookie is just sad.
Karl Reinig, Denver
…
Woody Paige’s column about Jay Cutler’s performance in Sunday’s game was unnecessarily harsh – and on the front page, at that. It takes little effort and even less talent to sit in a nice, warm press box and criticize a player on the field who is putting his heart into a game that would please the likes of Paige.
It would be ridiculous to ask whether Paige thinks he could have done better than Cutler, but it’s fair to ask: Did Paige’s first-ever published column win the Pulitzer Prize? If not, then he owes Cutler an apology – on the front page.
Gabe Lowe, Fort Collins
PeaceJam club’s dramatization of torture
The picture story of East High School’s PeaceJam club’s dramatization of rights abuses (Nov. 30) so angered me that I must write and ask East High School to also:
Dramatize what it must have been like to be on the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center. To feel the terror of being hijacked and knowing that you are going to die.
Dramatize what it must have felt like to jump out of the 110th floor of the World Trade Center because your only other choice is to be burned alive.
Dramatize what it must have felt like to have the towers collapse on nearly 3,000 people and rescue workers.
Dramatize what it must have felt like to lose your wife, husband, sons and daughters in such a horrific manner.
Dramatize what it is like to be decapitated while you are still alive, or to be blown up by a suicide bomber.
Carl Blackman, Centennial
Suthers’ Saudi mission
Re: “Suthers’ trip for naught,” Nov. 30 Pius Kamau column.
Pius Kamau’s column deserves high praise. Where does our state attorney general get off traveling to Saudi Arabia on our tax dollars to assuage the displeasure of that country’s monarch over the proper application of the state and federal laws of the United States? It is a disappointment that John Suthers would cave in to State Department pressure and become a shill for our out-of-touch president.
Regarding the status of women in the Muslim lands, Kamau described the horrible punishment meted out to the innocent Pakastani woman Muktaran Bibi (in accord with Sharia law). Allow me to cite a relevant incident very close to home. One night some 15 years ago, an Arab woman ran screaming down our street and was taken in and sheltered by our next-door neighbor. Her Arab husband had threatened to kill her as was his “right.” The incident was never reported as she feared for her life. No more came of it. Had it ended badly, I suppose we would be kowtowing to some other ruler over application of our sovereign laws.
Richard D. Van Lew, Centennial
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Re: “Trial of Saudi who raped nanny in Aurora,” Dec. 1 Open Forum.
Letter-writer Kari Ansari conveniently falls back on the facts about Islam. She makes it apparent that there are two forms of Islam: the Arab Middle Eastern version and the U.S. version.
Ansari states that Islam does not permit “human trafficking, blackmail or withholding of wages” or “physical contact between men and women outside of the sanctity of marriage.”
She also writes: “In Islam, all people are equal in the sight of God, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity or social class.” This is easy for her to say. She lives in the United States, where we have fought for these rights.
Finally, she has the audacity to suggest that the media should seek out Muslims regarding traditional Muslim behaviors. Why should the media do this? The media should not. Traditional Muslim behaviors are on display every day in the Middle East.
Give us a break here. Instead of accusing us of joining the Islamiphobia bandwagon, please help us understand which Islam we are to believe: the U.S. version or the Arab version.
Mark Jensen, Denver
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