ROCK & THE IVORY TOWER

A thunderous round of applause for Hilburn’s attack on, specifically, Bloom and, more generally, the kind of closed-minded, conservative hysteria that has infuriated me for years.

To those artists already on Hilburn’s voluminous list, I’d like to force-feed Bloom a little of the gorgeous, insightful poetry of Suzanne Vega; the simply-stated social commentary of UB40, along with (ahem!) liberal doses of Paul Simon, the English Beat, the Smiths, Peter Gabriel and my all-time favorite, the Police.

Incidentally, as far as Bloom’s denunciation of relativism is concerned, how much faith can we young people have in the future and in “truth” with lunkheads like him in charge?

TRACY BERNA

Simi Valley