“Baritone” off base
In response to your “Busted baritone” article [Ask Ace, June 22], I’d like to clarify a few things. I am, in fact, a vendor at the Charlottesville City Market (and I don’t sell baskets or cream cheese, I sell produce), so when you say “City Market vendors” felt that Uriah J. Fields needed to be escorted out of the market, I’m wondering which of the almost 90 vendors you are speaking of? Apparently your investigative reporting didn’t include talking to any of the vendors or you wouldn’t lump us all together under your condescending term of “conventional” basket weavers and cream cheese makers.
If you had actually done some real reporting (and while I’m no journalist, I’m pretty sure you are supposed to interview all concerned parties, not just one side) you might have found that some of us at the Market not only didn’t mind Fields’ singing, but encouraged him with a few hearty “Amens!” Not only that, but Fields was approached by the “fill-in” Market manager, apparently at his own discretion and not at the request of any vendors, at least none of the vendors near my stand, which is where the incident occurred.
Perhaps a few vendors did complain to the manager, but your article made it sound like all 90 of us got together in one big fascist assault on Fields. There are such words as “qualifiers” that you can use, like, “SOME City Market vendors,” or didn’t they teach you that in journalism school?
I thought Charlottesville was supposed to be all trendy and supportive of local business and small farmers. So why is the local media trying to insult the people who are trying to make a living selling food to them? Or do you not want local, small farmers to make a living? At any rate, the Market is more than baskets and cream cheese. And what the hell is wrong with flavored cream cheese anyway?
I hope Fields keeps singing at the market and anywhere else he chooses. Snobby, condescending, so-called journalists be damned.
Kathryn Bertoni
hatwaters@netzero.com
Singing our praises
Ask Ace, your question and answer feature that appears weekly in C-VILLE, is not only informative but of a consciousness-raising nature. I like reading your writings. I was impressed by your “Blood feud” write-up last August. In it you discussed blood donations and where the blood comes from that is used in our local hospitals. In early June of this year, under the headline “Putting greener,” you informed your readers about the huge amount of water that is used to keep golf courses green and revealed how one local golf course was successfully conserving water while at the same time keeping that golf course green.
In the June 22 C-VILLE, under the headline “Busted baritone,” you wrote about an experience that I had on May 29 at the City Market when an attempt was made to prevent me from singing and exercising my free speech right that led to my encounter with the police. You discussed this incident and the reactions to it by Chief of Police Timothy Longo and others who read about it on George Loper’s website (http://george.loper.org). Your question and answer about this matter were superb. I consider what you presented to be consciousness raising. The hope for an improved society rests with the consciousness raising of citizens. Thank you for asking the right questions and giving answers that have redeeming value.
Uriah J. Fields (U.J.)
Charlottesville
CORRECTION
In the June 15 How To piece about retaining your phone number, we incorrectly reported that Charlottesville is among the top 100 phone markets and the number-keeping service has been available since November. Charlottesville is not one of the top 100 markets and the service has been allowed locally only since May.