If you want to hear the sound of a moral compass spinning aimlessly in its empty case, check lasvegasweekly.com for the comments under Aaron Thompson’s January 
17 piece about the sentencing of Escape the Fate singer Ronnie Radke in the shooting death of a young man during a desert brawl. Specifically, look for the comment by one Christy Sulienroc. “WTF,” Christy writes, unable to comprehend why the mother of the victim, by pushing for justice, is messing with the fate of a band she loves. “i dont care if ronnie killed that dude! okay so she lost her son, i get that. but SHES ruining his ENTIRE career and breaking the hearts of many fans! INCLUDING ME. this sucks. screw her.”
Sure, Christy; never mind the dead son—let’s focus on how this impacts you.
I’d like to say she was alone in her garden of bogus misery, but a commenter named Jess seconds her insensitivity. “I really don’t care either if he killed him. Ok that’s sad... but well... why they have to hurt the fans? ... ronnie is awsome! ... eh, she needs to get over it. ESCAPE THE FATE rocks!!!! :)” Show of hands: Which is more appalling, Jess’s she needs to get over it or the grinning emoticon?
As it happens, Radke didn’t kill anyone—as Aaron’s story makes clear, someone else pulled the trigger. Radke just helped get the fight started. In the eyes of reader Tori Ashley, that should earn him some leniency: “the 5 year probation and $92,732 fine is a teensy bit much,” she says. “I’d say 3 years probation and $50,000.00 fine is enough. He didn’t physically kill anyone. It was just supposed to be a fight.” Alas, Tori doesn’t reveal the math she used to arrive at the value of a human life.
I find all of the above supremely depressing, and mind you I’m writing this on a day when the economy is suddenly up for grabs (“Market panic as world stocks slump,” screamed a headline on my iGoogle page this morning); when the newly announced Oscar nominations underscore the grim solemnity of life in George Bush’s America (No Country for Old Men; There Will Be Blood); when the war drags relentlessly on (“Army misses recruiting benchmark,” says a press release I just got). Times like this, it’d be nice to think you’re surrounded by people of heightened sensitivity and common sense.
And, as it happens, occasionally you are. “Some of you people are SERIOUSLY stupid,” rebuts an anonymous poster on the Radke thread. “... that kids mother did not ruin ronnie’s career. RONNIE ruined ronnie’s career. And the fact that some of you can be so selfish and say such horrible things about a woman who lost her son just boggles my mind and turns my stomache.” I might wish the poster had more bravely left a name and could spell stomach, but otherwise it was a welcome bubble of humanity in that discussion.
Luckily, not all reader interaction has been so hardcore. “Dear LV Weekly: Just a note of positive feedback concerning Steven Wells’ essay, ‘Welcome to Englandland’ [January 10]. I thoroughly enjoyed the wonderfully written and sharp-witted observation. I look forward to the future observations of Mr. Wells. Thank you.” You’re welcome, non-name-leaving e-mailer! Mr. Wells, who is British by birth, and also charmingly nuts by choice, writes frequently for the Weekly’s Diversions page; in fact, he’s there right now (Page 34).
Thanks to artist Drew Friedman, who crafted the new image of me above; he actually made me look thinner than I am. (My cube really looks like that, too.)
Lastly today, an embarrassment—a correction of a correction. In the January 10 edition, I noted that our cover piece on the Palomino Club murders (December 6, 2007) misidentified the client of attorney Bret Whipple. Well, thanks to an internal miscommunication with the writer researching this matter, the person I named as the actual client—Terrence M. Jackson—was really another attorney related to the case. Ouch. So, it’s with all due humility that I note Bret Whipple’s client is Kenneth Counts, the alleged shooter in one of the Palomino killings. We’d better be right this time—according to physics, if you correct the correction of a correction, the universe implodes.
Scott Dickensheets
Editor in Chief
Email: [email protected]. Fax: 990-2424. Post: Letters, Las Vegas Weekly, 2290 Corporate Circle, Suite 250 Henderson, NV 89074. Letters may be edited for length and/or clarity. All submissions become the property of Las Vegas Weekly.