LETTERS

TREE HUGGER CAN'T SEE FOREST
What troubled me most about Josh Harper ["The 'Terrorist' Next Door," WW, March 7, 2001] was this interesting pseudoanarchy he promoted when he demonized the police. Yes, there are corrupt politicians and corrupt policemen. And yes, our society is based on a monetary system in which even the most virtuous can slip off into materialistic power-brokering.... However, let's step back and look around the world and observe the injustices that occur on a horrendous scale. Or perhaps go way back in time and evaluate what life was like without the police. The same police accused of beating and killing innocent civilians are the ones who provide for the safety and freedom so our friend Josh can live the way he does. Social Darwinism would have fed him to the wolves in a world without rules and police.

I am no fan of the "rat-race" of the 40-hour workweek. Some days it gets me down. But when he said that he prefers to scrounge rather than live by a clock and "punish...desires" and that most people would fall in line with him...he convinced me that he is living in a dream world. I enjoy my job. It challenges me, allows me to help others and the environment, and gives me a purpose. True, the same cannot be said of everyone, but Josh H. definitely does not speak for the majority.

Josh, you must truly fancy yourself an enlightened individual, but I think to be a truly righteous promoter of the environment, you have to step back once in a while and truly get the big picture. Maybe the disenfranchised apathy/anarchy that Josh sells is just another lame marketing scam. If not, why has Madison Avenue embraced this alternative counterculture and turned it inside out?

Mark Wilcox
Northeast 58th Avenue

IT'S THE TRIP, NOT THE DESTINATION
Josh Harper is 180 degrees wrong when he says that "what really matters to people is the righteousness of the cause and not the tactic" ["The 'Terrorist' Next Door," WW, March 7, 2001]. Although at his tender young age he still thinks that the ends justify the means, he fails to see that virtually everyone (including the police) believes their own particular cause is righteous. If we are all free to use illegal and violent means to support our own particular "righteous" causes, our world will quickly descend into a chaotic bloodbath where the guy with the biggest machete wins.

Maybe when Josh grows up, he'll learn the first principle of how to wage a moral struggle: Process is more important than outcome. Only by using honest and ethical means can you achieve an honest and ethical result.

Curt Dewees
Southwest Morrison Street

WHAT'S IN IT FOR US?
Have you ever noticed how government and proponents and lobbyists of fluoride (F) downplay the ingredients in the substance being used to fluoridate ["The F-Word," WW, Feb. 21, 2001]? That substance is hydrofluosilic acid (HA), a toxic waste from the phosphate fertilizer industry that would require to be disposed of at $1.40 per gallon. They couldn't give it away, unless you believe the "hyperbole" from proponents that you're "getting a deal" and "it's for the kids."

In Sacramento, Calif., we got "the deal" alright, at 45¢ per gallon...citizens have been forced to abandon the water supply without public consent and forced to ingest a substance six to seven times more than what a doctor can prescribe. Purchase bottled water at approximately $100 per month and/or $5,000 distillation units to filter out the aluminum, cadmium, lead, arsenic, radon, uranium and fluoride, a.k.a. HA. If anyone is concerned about having GMOs in their food, HA goes way beyond that and deserves your immediate attention. One of the most important things that I can think of is the issue of labeling requirements in regard to HA. Most people who are health-conscious read labels. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) knows it should label, yet simultaneously lobbies for fluoride. I have had firsthand experience with news media on all levels downplaying this substance when it came up for discussion. Why? Wouldn't you want to know what substances you're ingesting and what's in them? My take on this issue is to make sure the ingredients of fluoride (HA) are open to the light of the public for discussion.

No one in their right mind buys a substance unless they know what's in it.

Show me the Label!
George Holden
Founding Chair, Sacramento Citizens for Safe Drinking Water

ARTLESS PROSE
As a political science major with a passion for art, I taught civics and history for many years, became a law-related curriculum specialist, but somehow ended up owning a Pearl District art gallery, which has been a 24-7 focus for over seven years. As a local, I grew up with Willamette Week, devouring more or less meaty articles in politics and art as one source of usually reliable information. While the coverage of local, state and regional politics by WW has remained generally good (although watered down with a greater emphasis on buzz, murmurs, pulses, grunts, whatever...), the incredible shrinking visual-arts coverage of late reached a new low with the Jan. 24 issue.

Although the cover story ("In the Name of the Father") was somewhat arts-related, showing the cheesy side of cheesy art peddled by a convicted felon, what does the local arts community get for coverage and gallery listings? In one-third of a page (in an issue with 16 pages for music, clubs and related ads) there are no reviews, no general listings and a mention of five shows for "Last Thursday" in a metropolitan area with approximately 80 exhibition venues. A visitor to my gallery from Virginia, holding the Jan. 24 issue, said to me, "There's got to be more than these few shows happening, right? I flew to Portland because I'd heard about the visual arts being so strong here. Where are the gallery listings?" After helping her look, my only response: "I guess they've dropped those, too."

From a publication proclaiming on every cover "Portland News and Culture," the current amount and quality of non-movie, non-club, non-product-related coverage is inexcusable. An adequate exhibition listing should list all art venues with changing exhibitions in all sectors of the city, every week.

There have been good arts writers of varying tenure at WW who have improved and moved on. Kevin Francis to a doctoral program, D.K. Row to The Oregonian, Kate Bonansinga to New Mexico, Karrin Ellertson as a special writer for the Mercury and The Oregonian, and so on. One local arts writer and postal carrier, Mike Roberts, got so fed up with the lack of local coverage that he produced his own, handwritten Untitled visual-arts zine (which I'm convinced will be in the Smithsonian one day) and personally visited scores of shows per month, often scooping the Big O on art-world changes. (He also left, for Florida.) Can anyone ever have a real job writing about art for a publication apparently receiving the numerous awards we read about, in a metro area approaching two million? I would invite artists, aspiring arts writers, collectors and art lovers in general to offer their suggestions and résumés to Willamette Week and the Portland Tribune.

Mark Woolley
Owner, Mark Woolley Gallery
Northwest 9th Avenue

Caryn Brooks responds:
Our coverage is geared toward the cycle of visual-arts events in the city with the hope that we can bring something more dynamic than a simple directory to the table. Each week we publish a different set of listings. The first issue in the cycle is dedicated to First Thursday. The following week we review selected shows that opened on First Thursday. The next week we provide a citywide gallery listing. The fourth week we focus on Last Thursday. Our visual-arts critic, Lisa Lambert, also files longer reviews at least once a month, and we often feature visual-arts events on our WWPicks page. Look for our virtual gallery guide, coming soon to wweek.com.