Cover Girl

Dear Rhonda:

I logged on to [aceweekly.com, January 24] to find myself deified. I am so touched by the lovely things that you wrote.

Sigh. It's like being dead but still getting to read your obits (which, if Heaven is anything like Broadway, you may very well get to do).

I'm sure you all have made a significant contribution to the success of this evening!

My treatment is going well - surprisingly so-and my ability to enjoy and savor my life is undiminished - in fact, has increased...

And that's all for the moment except to send you my love and undying gratitude.

Ace Cover Girl twice in a lifetime - It don't get no bigger than that, honey!

Aunt Ronni [Lundy]

The evening benefiting Ronni Lundy's medical fund will be held February 8 in Louisville, with participating restaurants in surrounding areas. Complete details are in Ace's January 24 issue at aceweekly.com. The June 9, 1999 cover interview with Lundy can also be found in the online archives. Lundy has also been an occasional contributor to Ace in the Southern Voices column, and those are archived as well. Those wishing to contribute to the fund may make checks payable to Ronni Lundy, and mail them to FSA Group, 304 West Liberty Street, Suite 201; Louisville, Kentucky 40202.

Correspondence will also be forwarded to Lundy by FSA.

See also, First Amendment

I picked up a copy of your magazine today because of the feature on Ronni Lundy [cover, Jan 24]. However, when I got it home, I immediately threw it away because of the ad on the back cover.

Why would you place such a provocative ad in a paper that likely goes into households with children? Is that what we wish to convey about our culture to children? How can we complain about sexually precocious behavior in young teens, when we choose to put that type of ad picture on a magazine that purportedly samples and reports on the richness of our local culture? Singles ads, fine, but must sexually provocative pictures be used - and so prominently displayed?

Yours is a privately owned newspaper, so you have the right to publish what you wish. Just wanted to let you know how one reader (ex-reader) feels.

Sandra L. D'Angelo, PhD

Advertising is paid space, and it's the rare newspaper that abridges an advertiser's first-amendment rights to market any legal products as they see fit. Consumers are, of course, equally free to avoid any products or marketing styles they find distasteful or offensive.

For example, many daily papers run ads for "adult" establishments in their sports sections - but we know of no instance where any ad reps forced readers to patronize those establishments. For those offended by the existence of such establishments, they might choose to avert their eyes from what's objectionable, then toss the paper in the recycler, once the news has been digested.

As for defining "provocative," - maybe it's like pornography, in that no one can define it, but we all know it when we see it. Nonetheless, there are no images here that couldn't be seen by any 7-year-old in a garden-variety episode of Friends (during the 8 pm prime time family hour). As for sexually precocious teens, experts agree: the blame clearly rests squarely with Britney Spears.

The referenced advertiser can be seen in hundreds of newspapers, and (daily) on nearly every television station (arguably, with ads racier than their print campaign) - and yet that hardly seems justification for refusing to watch, say, a gripping Walker Texas Ranger rerun. That's what the remote control is for.

Similarly, if one wanted to read about Ronni Lundy and her historic reputation as a landmark Kentucky food writer- along with the ways in which we, as readers and writers, could all contribute to her battle with ovarian cancer - last week's issue was the place to find out about that (a full ten pages away from the referenced ad, which could've simply been folded over).