QUICKSAND

Jennifer Wehunt’s July article “The Food Desert” [Reporter] is timely and important, as validated by a recent report from Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation stating that 34.9 percent of kids in Illinois are obese or overweight. Especially insightful were the sound bites from Wehunt’s interviews with Dr. Terry Mason and Robert L. House Sr., who agree that access is not a silver-bullet solution if people don’t know how to sensibly shop, cook, and eat.

Education is perhaps the single most important tool to combat our children’s growing waistlines. When children become familiar with their food, where it grows and how it’s prepared, they become empowered to make better decisions.

There are very real implications of allowing problems of childhood obesity to continue—enormous health care costs, inability [of] children to function in school, increased behavioral issues, more sick days, etc. This is why this issue should be a priority for all Chicagoans.

Ann Brinkman
Executive Director
Junior League Of Chicago
Chicago

MEET SWOP

I am a little disappointed that you made no mention of our organization, Sex Workers Outreach Project-Chicago, in your Sex & Love issue [July]. We are the foremost sex worker rights organization in Chicago and provide support and advocacy for those working in the various sex industries. While I admire Brenda Myers-Powell’s goal of trying to help prostitutes who want to get out of the sex trade, people need to realize that not everyone who is a sex worker wants to get out of the profession. Perhaps [some] need the support of a community [that] understands what they are going through and can educate them on how to work safely. SWOP is an organization of sex workers working to help other sex workers and not pass judgment on whether they choose to stay in this industry.

Name Withheld
Chicago

NOTHIN’ BUT A NUMBER

While your nice acknowledgment of Tony Bennett’s August 3rd birthday and his Ravinia concerts [“Octogenarians Gone Wild!” by Mark Loehrke, Chicago Guide, August] is always appreciated, I wanted you to be aware that you did make the still-“swinging” singer one year older [than he is].

Tony (Anthony Benedetto) was born on August 3, 1926, in Astoria, Queens, which means he just turned a youthful 83—and not 84! And, if you have the opportunity to see and hear this legendary performer, the word “old-timer” would not be the [descriptor] of choice.

Debbie Silverman Krolik
Tony Bennett’s Chicago-Based Publicist

SMOKE DADDY

In Myra Janco Daniels’s “I Married a Mad Man” article in the August issue [Romance], Daniels claims her late husband, Draper Daniels, “fathered the Marlboro Man campaign” while working at Leo Burnett in the 1950s.

Leo Burnett himself would not agree. In her authoritative biography, Leo Burnett, Star Reacher, Joan Kufrin writes: “Leo had the final word on the subject when he wrote a memo objecting to Draper Daniels billing himself as ‘the father’ of the Marlboro man. Leo wrote, ‘His . . . claims to distinction stretch the truth considerably. The Marlboro man was “created” at my farm one Saturday morning and it was my idea which took us to the cowboy and the original format of this advertising.’ ”

Greg Taubeneck
Wilmette

CORRECTIONS
The item on Tannins in August’s Best of Chicago wrongly referred to its “owners.” Tannins has one owner, Lisa D’Adamo.

August’s Romance column, “I Married a Mad Man,” misspelled the name of Ernie Eversz.

September’s table of contents misstated the name of the singer Zora Young.

Wardrobe for the photographs accompanying July’s Bedroom Confessions and “Buzz Builder” in August’s Arena was provided by Bloomingdale’s.