Over the years, there has been a lot of talk about the evils of "raunch" 'n' roll music. But the people of Salt Lake City still don't seem to get it that this stuff hurts kids and communities.
A perfect example is the visit to the Delta Center by the rock group Nine Inch Nails last month. One newspaper reported it took over 100 private security guards to keep 12,000 youth fanatics from spiraling into a nihilistic frenzy to the beat of these anarcho-musicologists.It happens that Nine Inch Nail fans have adopted a variation of the "whirling dervish" trance-dancing that developed early after the founding of Islam. Only today's teens use their dance and other techniques like slam-dancing and "moshing" not for spiritual celebration or healing, but for deliberately injuring one another and destroying as much property as they can get away with.
Doesn't a youth event requiring 100 cops as baby-sitters prove that we have carried indulgence of kids just a tad too far? Where are our priorities? The rest of the city - with its old folks, working people, women with children - must get along with the protection of many fewer police officers on duty at any one time.
In fact, it seems likely that our children leave the Delta Center after acting out primitive fantasies only to add more to the burden of youth delinquency and citizen fear.
Kim Shinkoskey
Salt Lake City