Letters

Sweet Charity
Congratulations on "Randy Shaw's Power Plays" (March 27). It is heartening to note that SF Weekly tries to research what it publishes.

Since 1992, we have been thoroughly researching and publicizing the questionable activities of Shaw and his taxpayer- funded poverty operation. Since 1986, we have researched the files of the Charitable Trust Registry Section of the California Attorney General's Office. According to their internal audit analysis, they raised questions of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic's accounting reporting at least four times.

Additionally, we repeatedly raised the question about the THC with assorted federal auditors both in Region 9 and in Washington, D.C. Repeatedly, we have been told by these federal program oversight administrators that "we have a plan." On the state level, the administrators demur, claiming that "it's federal funds, and therefore a federal problem."

Outside of program accountability enforcement, the most troubling aspect of so-called "poverty law practice" is the fact that economically destitute senior citizens, single mothers, their children, and even employees are refused legal assistance by such groups as the THC, when these victims have legitimate grievances against the operators of nonprofit-subsidized housing organizations.

In the penumbra of the poverty-funded sector and the dangerous growing politicization of nonprofit organizations, Shaw and other lawyers who do a "little" good for some people have done remarkably well with HUD-subsidized real estate acquisition, fat salaries, benefits, and contract buyouts that they have accumulated for themselves.

Peter C. Paul
Founder and Executive Researcher

Charity Investigation Service
Cruise Control
Lately the portrayal of gay men and women in the movies and in print is starting to grate on my nerves. Even a simple restaurant review has to project age-old stereotypes and ignorance ("Dream Date," Eat, March 27).

Is Paul Reidinger so oblivious to how offensive his remarks about "random sexual energy" are to gay men? Could he make such an observation about straight, black men and still feel so free of prejudice? Does he really think that gay men are cruising anyone within arm's reach all the time? At dinner, on a date?

Maybe he needs to handle some issues privately ("No one cruised me -- a relief and a secret disappointment"), or maybe he needs to see that gay men and women are just that, gay men and women. If gay men hold such a mystique for him, maybe he should try (dare I say it?) talking to some. Living in San Francisco, that shouldn't be too difficult.

Noah Kamp
Hayes Valley

Both Sides Now
Did Tim Kenneally only listen to Side 2 (sorry, Tim, I have the vinyl) of Bad Religion's The Gray Race album (Recordings, March 27)?

How could he have ignored songs like "A Walk" and "Punk Rock Song" -- both of which were listed in big letters on the sticker that came on my album -- and the many other excellent and not terribly linguistically chewy songs on Side 1? If Kenneally thinks that lyrics like "I'm going for a walk/ Not the after-dinner kind/ I'm gonna use my hands/ And I'm gonna use my mind" are too intellectual and wordy, he must be pretty fucking stupid.

Paul Mendelowitz
Redwood City

Correction
In Night Crawler (March 27), the name of actor Christopher Reeve was misspelled.