Love-Hate Mail

Oh, Rhio
With all the really important socioeconomic issues challenging Tennessee residents this week, it's refreshing to find that the Scene keeps its sense of humor by ignoring the really big stories and, instead, provides us with another useless issue of Nashvillian-type colloquialisms, backwoods philosophy and slightly silly, mostly unmemorable witty musings and other examples of aimless thoughtlessness ("You Are So Nashville If...," July 17). Perhaps next year the winner will be, "You are so Nashville if you waste your time reading the Scene.
"Rhio Hirsch
talkingzen@gmail.com (Whites Creek)

Cannon fodder
I am appalled and anguished by the most recent article by Elizabeth Ulrich ("Mother Knows Best?" July 17). I am the mother of Kelley Cannon, and I spoke with Ms. Ulrich regarding this most recent and horrific incident of the murder of her late husband.

This article is a personal attack on me in which she uses quotes and phrases such as "her raspy tone and near-screeching voice!" I have been quite hoarse for this past week because I have been talking too much and can barely speak. My regular tone of voice is not such. I did try to explain that to this neophyte reporter, but she chose to defame me in this manner as nothing less than a shrew who is trying to defame her daughter, not depicting her "true nature."

She continues with her blathering of my "rapid-fire description," seemingly without a filter of how my "statements may hurt" my daughter's case. (Now she is a detective, she thinks.)

She also ventured into the area of speculation (which is total hearsay and the personal opinion of this writer) and, by the way, is now diagnosing a mental illness, my daughter's schizophrenia. When did she get her M.D.? All of this is slander and personal speculation for sensationalism for the news media. Mr. John Hollins has certainly added to that! Mr. Hollins was Mr. Cannon's divorce lawyer, and now he is not. My son-in-law is now deceased, and he has no further interest in this case. He is a news hound and interested in the money he will glean. I am sure he has not been paid.

My daughter has flaws. She addressed them. I think my daughter is a stellar person! I never spoke to her "true nature?" What is her true nature? What is anyone's true nature? What is the author's true nature of this travesty of an article? Is Ms. Ulrich now a psychiatrist and a lawyer? Sheer slander and personal speculation and personal opinion. Let me take her inventory, as she has done to me.

My "anemic" defense of my daughter—a pretty strong word to use. Does she even know the meaning of the word? Is she a doctor now? Or does she use a dictionary?

I am in total love with and defend my stellar daughter, who did not commit this horrendous crime, and my grandchildren. Can the press not think of the innocents here? (The children.) My daughter was a loving, caring, wonderful mother and wife, from my personal observations and interactions with her family.

Ms. Ulrich has totally tried to rape me, slander me and discredit me as a mother and personal witness in this drama. Maybe it is her youth as a reporter and her trying to get ahead.

This is the stuff that lowlife tabloids are made of, and it seems that this city has had its share of the tabloid data and personal details of other people's lives. This is total scum journalism, and it is all hearsay and slander, especially of me, with her statement, "That's the rub though. Sanders never once speaks to Kelley's true nature."

This is the fodder that our press has come to, and this is the fodder for a libelous lawsuit in trying to defame and discredit me, her mother! How low can you go?

Ms. Ulrich's statements, confabulations, personal opinions and methods of journalism are preposterous. No mother would knowingly defame their child for any reason. I am shocked by this article, and it is disgusting and libelous.

I am a Christian woman who abides by the law of the land and a taxpayer, as are my three grown, adult, educated and intelligent children, who are good citizens and great Americans. We don't murder other people.

I do not want the power of the media to defame me in any sense of the word, nor my family. Wow! What a lesson to learn: When you try to be honest and forthright, how it is twisted and skewed. It's like the author is gossipy and still living in a sorority house.

This is total slander of me, and I am not accused of any crime, but unfortunately, my daughter is. I believe in her. Let the truth always be known.

I can use the power of the press just as you can. Never forget that.
Diane Sanders
bds6543@aol.com (Nashville)

Comedy of terrors
I have been fond of saying, with some accuracy, that it's easier to be a musician than, say, a surgeon, because if we make a mistake, nobody dies. Now I find, in Elizabeth Ulrich's article "Mother Knows Best?" (July 17) that the victim met his death by strangulation with a chord. My husband, the wag, wondered if it were a D7b9, or perhaps an Ab#11. Some chords are certainly more lethal than others, but this is the first case I've read of a cluster of musical notes causing someone's death. Now we'll all have to be watching ourselves constantly to avoid future mayhem. A Thelonious Monk tune could leave bodies strewn everywhere.
Beegie Adair
beegiea@bellsouth.net (Franklin)