WW welcomes letters to the editor via mail, e-mail or fax. Letters must be signed by the author and include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Preference will be given to letters of 250 words or less. Fundamentally Flawed I am writing regarding the March 24, 1999, article by Maureen O'Hagan in Willamette Week titled "Unlocking Doors." Regarding Attorney General Hardy Myers' task force recommendations, Ms. O'Hagan wrote, "It was hammered out over an 18-month period by the best thinkers and strongest advocates in the field, people Myers himself appointed as part of a blue-ribbon task force." Unfortunately, this "blue-ribbon task force" was fundamentally flawed. Imagine a task force to develop changes to Oregon laws regarding access issues for people in wheelchairs. It is absurd to envision such a task force comprised of a sole person in a wheelchair while the remainder are able-bodied. Only one person on the task force was a recovered mental patient. The task force suggests the use of legislated force or coercion to get people to take psychiatric drugs. The only way the mental-health system knows how to "treat" people is with powerful drugs. Many mental-health clients reject these drugs not because of "side effects" but because of real effects that can be painful, permanently disfiguring or even result in death. It is wrong to propose a set of rules that support force and coercion. Force and coercion do not help the "mentally ill." Force blocks recovery and destroys the trust that is the cornerstone of recovery. Force creates fear and dependency, not recovery. Force violates our rights, is costly and diverts money from recovery-oriented services. Individuals must be taught ways of coping that will work for them. Some may take psychiatric medication. Others may choose meditation, stress-reducing techniques, vitamin therapy or other forms of holistic health practices. There are cost-effective and proven ways to help people without resorting to the use of force or coercion. Peer support has been successful in helping people learn to take personal responsibility for their lives and to thrive successfully in the community. Compassionate and understanding assistance from those who have "been there" may have helped prevent the tragedy of Mary Boos without resorting to the use of force or coercion. Instead of seeking the counsel of judges, parents and mental-health professionals who are filled with stories of what doesn't work, the AG would have been better off seeking the counsel of those who have been labeled mentally ill and then recovered. They would have been able to suggest ways that do work. They would also have NOT suggested increased use of force and coercion. Pat Risser West Linn A Man of the People The bourgeois arrogance inherent in the Oxford-Stratford debate drips through the elitist buzzwords in your recent article ("Gods and Authors," WW, April 7, 1999), words such as "ill-schooled," "provincial" and "backwoodsman." It just shocks and surprises you that anyone without the power and wealth of the intellectual/cultural aristocracy could write plays of compassion, power and insight. Shakespeare's "thread of the life lived" is everywhere evident in his plays, perhaps not in the tradition of Euripides or Austin, but certainly in the tradition of Vega, the Yorkshire cycle writer or Kerouac. The plays constantly reveal his lower-class, agrarian roots: the folk/fairy-magic tradition in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, The Tempest; the frail, sometimes broken humanity found in the aristocracy (Timon of Athens, Hamlet, Richard II); the civilized rural world vs. the uncivilized city world in As You Like It, The Winter's Tale, King Lear. As for the "dry" evidence outside the plays, how else is one's life recorded? Ask a genealogist. Playwrights were not held in reverence in Elizabethan/Jacobean England; in fact, they weren't even considered "real writers" (another legacy of the elitist aristocracy). Your cultural snobbery is blatant in your act of rejecting a person's ability to create great works of art merely because they lack an "intellectual" background or "aristocratic" lineage. The fact is, Shakespeare was "one of us," one of the working-class masses, and that just bites you snobs right on the ass, doesn't it? Glenn Williams East Burnside Street Dismay, Part I I am writing in dismay after reading about my children's school, Irvington Elementary, in the education article "Mixing It Up" by Nigel Jaquiss [WW, April 7, 1999]. Our school has been wrongly singled out for receiving undeserved desegregation funds. In fact, last week the PTA/LSAC was so worried about any further funding cuts next year that parents sent a letter to Superintendent Canada. We feel that the budget reductions we have undergone in recent years have seriously and negatively impacted the diverse learning community that we have tried so hard to maintain. We are a successfully integrated school, but this success is very fragile, and academic standards are hard to maintain without the various support staff that our desegregation funds provide. The article implies that our student population has changed dramatically in recent years, from poor minority to affluent white. This is simply not true. While some of the neighborhood has become more affluent, the school itself is still economically diverse (38 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch). The school itself has the same ethnic mix of students it has had in the past 10 years--about half are white and half are students of color. In the end, integration is not about statistics, but about real human interaction between all different kinds of people. It is daily a challenge and a reward. Jaquiss' article implies that the voluntary desegregation program in Portland overall is antiquated and unnecessary. Where do his children go to school? I suggest that he come into our classrooms or walk through the halls at Irvington, and he will see that integration is still a work in progress...which deserves all the resources we can muster! Linda Sladek Northeast 41st Avenue Dismay, Part II I read with dismay the recent review by Bill Smith of Curtis Salgado's new CD, Wiggle Outta This [Recorded Music, WW, March 31, 1999]. Is Bill Smith some kind of authority on music? I have heard and purchased Wiggle Outta This and believe it is an excellent CD. In fact, I believe that it is Salgado's best work to date. There are songwriters who attempt to be singers, singers who attempt to be musicians, musicians who attempt to be entertainers and entertainers who attempt to be artists. Most fail. Curtis Salgado is a singer, songwriter, musician, entertainer and artist. He has more talent than many better-known performers. Your comment that he should stick to cover songs was out of line. I'll assume it came from ignorance or perhaps jealousy. I have heard Curtis' masterful rendition of cover songs. He presents each to the audience with so much passion, energy and uniqueness that it is difficult to remember who sang them before. I loved the song "Cookie Dough" from the first time I heard it. The same with the title song, also an original, as well as "Sweet Jesus, Buddha the Doctor." Do yourself a favor and listen again. In my opinion, you really missed the boat on this one. Maybe you should stick to delivering newspapers instead of attempting to write accurate reviews to be published in them. Teresa Pronovost Wilsonville - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published April 14, 1999