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KAZU Silenced a Beloved Institution

My mother started listening to the live Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee broadcasts when they began in 1940, sponsored by Texaco and hosted by the venerable Milton Cross. I was raised listening to those broadcasts and ultimately developed my love of opera from that exposure. My children were raised listening to those broadcasts and they too grew to know and love opera. One daughter even insisted on having the Triumphal March from Aida as the recessional at her wedding!

We cannot believe that the marketing gurus of KAZU have been so shortsighted as to slough off the opera buff segment of their audience [Artifacts, Dec.19-25]. They refer to "audience preferences," but I have not been able to find anyone who has ever been surveyed. They admit that the pledges from the afternoon opera show were the second highest, yet they have deprived us of access to a 62 year old tradition of high-quality opera performance. By this act, they have also deprived themselves of the support of an audience they choose to ignore. What a shame, for us and for them.

CAROL L. VOSS/PRUNEDALE

KAZU Ignored a Supportive Audience

In the article Opera on KAZU, some misinformation was provided to your publication by one of the sources quoted. It was claimed that the Met performances broadcast on Saturday afternoon were tapes of previous performances. The fact is, the broadcast is of an opera performed live at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, heard in the house, in the U.S., Europe and many parts of South America at the same time...live! The broadcast begins at 1:30pm eastern time, heard here at 10:30 am, not in the afternoon as stated. This is how it has been since 1940.

The quote referring to program changes based on audience preferences ignores the fact that the Opera Show received the most financial support from KAZU listeners, who in this case obviously didn''t count.

BARBARA SMYTHE/MONTEREY

Vegetarians Avoid Cruel Reality

Gandhi once said "you can judge the character of a nation by the way it treats its animals." Fast-food restaurants catering to flesh-eating urges have helped to create a hell realm of factory farming and slaughterhouse abuses. Abuses that often include skinning animals alive and boiling them alive to save time and money!

There is no need to eat meat, there is no need to kill endlessly for Thanksgiving and Christmas and everything else. And there are millions of vegans to prove it, just as healthy or unhealthy as meat-eaters depending on how attentive they are to their nutritional needs.

How can we call upon God to bless us when we allow such agony and suffering to continue without thought or courage to ask for better ways? Animals are not to be eaten. They are to be loved and to give us love. Go veggie this Christmas and break the mindless cruelty. And if you want to know how to help the animals have a better life and a better death please contact 236-8324. Thank You.

ANNIE GRIFFIN/MONTEREY