I moved from West Palm Beach to Daytona Beach five years ago. Unfortunately Daytona Beach is devoid of all culture and does not have a periodical such as New Times.
I am trying to return to West Palm Beach, and in the interim I make sure to get your great paper every time a friend brings one back from a visit to [South] Florida. Thank you for all the good work you are doing.
Rev. Joe Stegumuller
Holly Hill
The Blue Meanies Versus the Blue Bikes
Wow, your article on the blue bikes was harsh, a bit scathing, and so unlike anything that I have come to expect from a so-called "alternative publication" (Undercurrents, March 2). It is your publication that we intelligent and yet "free thinkers" and "nonconformists" tend to reach for when relying on reading to ease rather than clutter our mind. Tsk, tsk and shame on you for writing something that smells, well, better yet, tastes of something seemingly a bit like "sour grapes."
Perhaps it's time that you smack down the top of your laptop, kick your shoes off, peel off that shield of armor, and just take a long bike ride. Who knows, maybe you might have a chance to enjoy seeing one of those "sloppily painted" blue bikes in a whole new light. Maybe not. But nonetheless it seems to me that you could use something to lighten you up. We believers have faith.
Deby Israel
via the Internet
Lay Off the Blue Bikes, Bub
When we were in Fort Lauderdale this past Christmas, my husband and I got quite a laugh out of the blue bike we saw chained to a fence. We had several speculations as to the reason.
Later we saw the story in the local paper. Speaking as a visitor to your lovely city, I do not see anything wrong with the art being fastened to various things. It gives visitors something to think about besides the traffic.
C. Melton
via the Internet
Take the Child and Run
Critics says that's the guiding philosophy of Department of Children and Families' boss, Kathleen Kearney
By Emma Trelles
Meet Your New Child-Protection Worker… Kafka
Having known Paul Scott Abbott professionally for almost seven years now and utilized his professional writing services on many occasions over this period, I am relieved and hopeful to see someone in any realm of the media finally taking the time to look into and disclose this unbelievable travesty of justice inflicted upon Paul and Ashleigh by a system gone amok and whose administrators seem beyond reach ("Take the Child and Run," Emma Trelles, February 24). It appears that the only way this whole matter will ever come to public light is through an exhaustive investigative journalistic exposé.
As I've watched and talked with Paul as this has dragged on interminably, I have consistently been reminded of the unworldly, Kafka-like weirdness of the whole matter. Though I don't know the mother or her side of the story at all, I've seen the travails and frustrations Paul has gone through and, out of a sense of almost disbelief, have encouraged him since the beginning of their problems to take his story to the media.
To his credit he tried to follow the procedural guidelines of the state and legal system in a belief that "the system" would work and for the all-too-real fear of tainting the system against his position (which it apparently has been anyway!). It was only upon his exhausting of these options, going bankrupt from legal fees, and most recently, having the latest judge incredulously try to recuse himself from the case and force Paul to have to start the entire legal and procedural process all over again that he recently informed me he had no other alternative left but to enlist whatever aid possible from the public through the media.
I hope your interest and pursuit of the truth here will help Paul, Ashleigh, and the many others apparently like them in this position, eventually to prevail and be reunited. In doing so you have a unique opportunity and stand in a unique position that can help bring to light how this system, like many of our vaunted democratic institutions (including virtually our entire legal justice system) has been warped to serve the administrators of the systems themselves rather than to serve the needs of the citizens of our fabled free and democratic country, as I want to believe they were meant to. Thank you for your efforts.
George M. Mihaiu
Coral Gables
