LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[July 27th, 2005] HARRY POTTER AND THE GREAT WHITE NORTH

In your July 20 Winners & Losers section, you mentioned that fans of the new Harry Potter are winners because they had to wait two years and now they get the precious book. However, under Losers, I would have loved to have seen Scholastic, the U.S. publishing company that printed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Scholastic decided not to use recycled paper to print the book, while publishers in Canada were smart and used 100 percent recycled paper. Not only does Canada have better Medicare, now they are looking after the environment better than the United States. I urge everyone to go to Amazon.ca and purchase the book from the Canadian publishers, while at the same time heading over to Greenpeace.org (www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/save-muggle-forests) and sending a letter to Richard Robinson, CEO and President of Scholastic, expressing your dislike for their poor decision.

Jeremiah O'Sullivan
Southwest 12th Avenue

WE'RE SHORT-SIGHTED BIGOTS

Your newspaper does its best to put a good front on being a great defender of justice. But all that you really are is nothing but a bunch of short-sighted bigots. See, you have finally done it. After 19 years of dealing with you people you have got me stooping to name-calling.

[Byron] Beck had to really play that wild card to be able to jump on the bandwagon and get a piece of the current media frenzy going on about Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology. Amazingly, he was able to trump up something to tie it to Portland, i.e., that fake letter found outside Coffee People ["From the Desk of Beck," WW, July 13, 2005]. I bet you didn't really question Beck on how it was that this letter just happened to turn up in his hands-no, that would be the logical thing to do, and we can't have that sort of thing going on at the Willamette Week now, can we?

How far does Beck's religious bigotry go? Would he dare to write something to ridicule, say, the Jews? What about the Muslims? And if he did write something like that, would you then, as the editor of the great liberal defender of justice newspaper Willamette Week, give the go-ahead for it to be printed?

I'm tired of the lies, and I'm tired of media personnel who put themselves out as doing a service for the community when in fact those are the people who create hard feelings and never show up to the table to lend a helping hand on real issues like how to handle hunger in Oregon or how to develop peace dialogue amongst those of differing cultures.

Oh ya, and one last thing, is it true that everyone at Willamette Week thinks that every thing they read on the Internet is god's truth? It would explain a lot to me about what comes out in your paper.

Gwen Barnard
Church of Scientology,
Celebrity Centre Portland
Southwest Salmon Street

Editor's Note: We regret that some readers may have thought the note from Beck (the musician) to fellow Scientologist Tom Cruise was a real letter, rather than a satirical fabrication. We blame the Internet.

WATCHDOGS FOR THE MORALITY POLICE

I'm hoping you ran the Stephanie Snow Q&A [July 13, 2005] strictly for its chuckle-then-roll-your-eyes appeal. I have to agree with her about one thing: TV is not a true mirror of reality. Most of it is the absolute worst of stupidity, dumbed-down nonsense to numb and proliferate a culture of uninformed sheep.

But wait. We're talking about Beaver(Stepford)ton, where the lawns are green, the cars are new and few bother about such trivial matters as the U.S. Constitution. Everything is just fine as long as the mall is open.

I find myself among (I hope) a few rebels out here who are sick and tired of the morality police run amok. As far as I know, we still have the right to read and watch what we please, although I admit it's on shaky ground. It's sad that Ms. Snow and her ilk have nothing better to do than try to impose censorship on the rest of us. Obscenely expensive home makeovers aside, we have a country in crisis: a fraudulent war, a corrupt administration and an economy in ruins, to name a few.

I don't blame Ms. Snow for not watching the news. It's almost as bad as reality TV. Whatever she and the Parents Television Council do, trying to force their brand of values down everyone else's throats is not OK. She has her freedom of choice to eschew programming she deems offensive for herself and her children. That is her inalienable right. Just leave us to ours.

Emily Calkins
Beaverton

CYBERSTINGS AREN'T JOURNALISM

Thank you, thank you, thank you for "First. Live. Loco" [July 20, 2005].

I am so sick of Fox 12 News, especially the Cyberstings. How is creating artificial online hookups "news"? They may think that they're doing the community a favor, but I think what they're really doing is ignoring their greater responsibility to provide in-depth information to the public.

When I studied journalism in high school (yes, high school), it was impressed upon me that being a reporter entailed great responsibility-to facts, to truth, to telling the whole story to the best of your ability. I see nothing resembling this from pretty much any corporate media I view these days, but Fox 12 is the vilest offender by far.

And sometimes I feel like punching Shauna Parsons and Wayne Garcia, but that's neither here nor there.

The weather guy on Good Day Oregon [Andy Carson] is the only one I have any use for.

Jennifer Howell
Southeast 61st Avenue

NOSE SHOULD DRINK THE KUL-AID

The Nose should wake up and smell the coffee or even have a cup, instead of drinking Abbot Ales before writing about Gov. Ted Kulongoski's ghostly presence [WW, July 13, 2005].

First, Kulongoski makes a point of traveling throughout the state, even during a legislative session, to stay in touch with Oregonians who must live with the laws and policies developed by legislators. He is the governor of all of Oregon, and not a representative of a particular portion of the state.

Second, when in the Capitol, Kulongoski is the most available governor in recent memory. He has met numerous times with State Sen. [Kurt] Schrader (and shame on the senator for saying otherwise) and other legislative leaders with regard to the budget. Legislative leaders decided months ago that the "Joint" Ways and Means Committee should no longer be "joint"; the difficulty in resolving some budget issues results from that decision, not from some perceived disengagement on the governor's part.

Third, Kulongoski is anything but a "bit player" on major issues facing Oregon: His transportation legislation is rebuilding our bridges while putting Oregonians back to work; his job development efforts have led to many businesses locating in Oregon-from Amy's Kitchen in Medford to Lowe's in Lebanon, to Yahoo! in Hillsboro to Google in The Dalles-and his education-funding plan improves on other proposals and could be enacted in one day if the legislators would stop treating their jobs as a personal contest and start acting in the best interest of the state.

Leon Schneider
Southeast Stark Street