LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[September 21st, 2005] NOT IN MY NAME

I take exception to the statement that American soldiers dying in Iraq are dying for me [Q Madp Q&A, WW, Sept. 14, 2005]. No soldier who died or will die in Iraq died for me. He or she died to serve the Bush administration's selfish geopolitical interests, which have nothing to do with the security of this country or the liberation of Iraq. Those who died in the War for Independence, the Civil War, and the two World Wars died for me because they were fighting for honorable reasons. If American soldiers were dying fighting to protect women from rape in Sudan, they would be dying for me. I grieve over the deaths in Iraq, but those deaths are in the service of a dishonest administration that is trashing this once great country and imposing on America the 19th century's rapacious form of capitalism to the detriment of all classes save the very rich.

Glenda Goldwater
Southeast 12th Avenue

HOW IRONIC THAT IT'S NOT IRONIC

Mama always said if ya can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. That being said, Drew Gardner is an idiot (Mailbox, WW, Sept. 14, 2005). Yes, [Paul] Koberstein may have come off as slightly biased in the body of his article ["Hot or Not," WW, Aug. 24, 2005], but I'd say he did a damn good job of laying out the facts AND opinions of not just [George] Taylor, but many other prominent officials in the world of climatology, and I don't think the article was ridiculing in any way. Politically green newspaper + cover story on commonly opposed climatologist does not equal ironic sadness (as Gardner puts it); it equals an issue well worth discussing. And here I thought Portland was one of the last places in need of a crash course in objectivity.

So much for enlightenment....

Noah Adams
Northeast 11th Avenue

THIS LETTER WASN'T PEER-REVIEWED

George Taylor, Andrew Wilson, Norm Winningstad, Bjorn Lomborg and others who insist that global climate is not warming at an unusual rate and that this is not caused by human activity, are wrong [Mailbox, WW, Sept. 7 and 14, 2005]. Why do I say this? Because the overwhelming weight of peer-reviewed scientific evidence supports this view. Since none of the above individuals are actively engaged in global climate-change research, their best entree to forming an opinion about climate change should be a thorough review of the literature written by global climate researchers. If they were to perform this review, as Naomi Oreskes of University of California at San Diego did, they would find that of 928 peer-reviewed papers on climate change published between 1993 and 2003 NOT ONE disagreed with the scientific consensus that global climate is warming at an unusual rate and that this is likely caused by human activity (Science, vol. 306:1686). Since the publication of Oreskes' study in 2004, one (1) statistical critique has finally made it into the scientific literature refuting the widely accepted "hockey-stick" climate-change model, but that paper has been debunked in a forthcoming article in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Score: 929 to 1. Many climate-change deniers cite Lomborg's book The Skeptical Environmentalist as an authoritative review of the literature. It isn't. It was sloppily reviewed and has been roundly refuted by real scientists. All that said, could climate-change deniers be correct? Possibly. After all, plate tectonics was derided in the peer-reviewed literature when it was proposed. But the scientific evidence is heavily stacked (929 to 1) against Lomborg, Wilson, Winningstad and my friend and colleague George Taylor, who, global climate change aside, is an excellent state climatologist.

Peter K. Schoonmaker
President, Illahee
Southwest Washington Street

DELTA BLUES

I write in regards to the slander of the Delta Cafe in the Aug. 24, 2005, issue, located in the "Nose" column on page 17. I write as a longtime Delta Cafe employee, and while I applaud your effort to cut through the veil of racism that still exists in Portland, I am disgusted by your comments linking the Delta Cafe to Portland's long-running racial intolerance, ignorance and the most recent headlines, none of which have the slightest thing to do with Delta employees or customers. If the "Nose" can't be bothered to "get up off the couch long enough to figure out these nuances," I suggest that the "Nose" shouldn't bother hard-working Portlanders with its opinions and slander.

Portland is a segregated town. African Americans weren't allowed to settle in town until after the VanPort flood of 1947, and then only allowed to settle in part of Northeast Portland. Now that Northeast is gentrifying, African Americans are settling in deep Southeast. So, gentrification is finally integrating Portland. I've worked at the Delta for going on five years now. We see a lot more because we're near home. When you insinuate in the "Nose" column that the Delta Cafe is popular because its food "just tastes better without black people around," you insult us, and our customers, white, black or any shade of the spectrum. Shame on you. The column in question is about actual racism, attacks on minorities, a very racist thing said by a downtown nightclub owner, and Portland's apparent inability to own up to its racial ignorance. Look, enough already. The Delta Cafe won your readers poll a few years ago, not long after we stopped advertising in Willamette Week, and we've been barely or begrudgingly mentioned in your pages since. Our business hasn't suffered as a result of this slight.

Real investigative journalism and relevant editorial opinion are essential in any community to rout out injustice and to expose ignorance and intolerance. The "Nose" column in the Aug. 24 Willamette Week does none of the above. It's one thing to insult a locally owned and operated business, its owners who provide an excellent work environment and an actual living wage for their employees or the employees themselves, but to insinuate that the Delta's customers are passive racists is completely intolerable and deplorable. The Delta Cafe continues to welcome anyone to enjoy our fare regardless of race, even the "Nose." Please remove your box from in front of the store and stop dropping off papers as we will not be distributing them for you.

Luke Adcox, Delta Cafe Co-Manager,
Southeast Woodstock Boulevard

Correction: Due to a transcription error, Mike Mason's letter last week referred to "intergalactic warming periods"; what he originally wrote was "interglacial." WW regrets the error.