Kevin Sutton wrote: >Normally, I am no fan of Donald Vroon, editor or American Record Guide. >I usually disagree with him just on principal! However, today I got the >new issue and I think that he has some very valid points about freedom >of the press, and the freedom to pursue what ever musical avenue you >find worthwhile. I encourage you all to read it. It increased my respect >for the ole boy ten fold! Really? I thought he sounded like a whining putz. To summarize, he related to his readers that every time he runs one of his bloated, redundant editorials (the subjects rotate, but are limted to: modern American culture sucks, modern classical music sucks, advertising classical music to people other than cm specialists sucks, HIP sucks, any music other than classical music sucks, Europeans are better than Americans, and black people don't listen to classical music) a subscriber or two writes in to cancel their subscription. He then goes on to whine that cancelling a subscription is bad for free speech, confusing the right to free with the right to a paying audience. Oh, and he tosses in a bit about how most publications in the U.S. are unfortunately owned by corporations. (The publication notice in the back of the magazine reveals that ARG is published by Record Guide Publications, Incorporated.) Some of my annoyance at his little screed comes my having read the publication for ten years (and it was damned hard to find on a regular basis in Gainesville, FL!), and as such having purchased nine or ten versions of each of Vroon's standard editorial topics. Although there are small differences between Fanfare and ARG, the differences balance out, and the magazines are roughly equal, with an equal number of issues, and are released on the same schedule at the same price. I enjoy reading them both, and am subscribed to both, but that really is a luxury and I don't see the problem with someone subscribing to only one of them, and chosing the one with the editor that doesn't normally insult a portion of his readership. However, aside from the blacks topic, which I doubt Vroon will return to and which, I am sure, originated from Vroon having, for an editor, an incredibly hamfisted writing style rather than racial animosity, Vroon's usual suspects debate topics and slant are rather generic and stereotypical fuddy duddy white guy subjects, and aren't really reasons to avoid a magazine that is quite good, and far better than any of the British glossies. It would be nice, though, if he'd just put his standard editorials on a web site and print the URL in ARG with "See standard rant no. 3" when he feels like raging against HIP. That would save a few pages of ARG every two months, and that way *he* would be paying to disseminate his views, rather than demanding that *I* pay to receive them with other content that I actually value. I don't see Vroon editorals as sufficent reason to not subscribe to ARG, but it would be nice if Vroon recognized that others have the free speech right to not purchase his speech. (Besides, the best argument for remaining on ARG subscription rules is again in the federal publication disclosure--ARG's circulation per issue is less than 10,000, with something around 6,000 subscribers, the last time I checked. It is rather daunting to think of trying to carry on from month to month publishing a magazine whose subscribership is only approximately five times that of this list!) Jason