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KICKED OFF
Am I the only Oregonian glad to have received an end-of-year tax kicker? I am personally tired of people with children thinking they speak for all Oregonians and that their pet project should have priority over all others. As a child-free-by-choice adult, my greatest contribution to the Oregon school system (other than my tax money) has been to save taxpayers and public schools untold thousands of dollars by not adding yet another child to the overburdened system. Selfish person that I am, I took my whopping $153 refund, paid some nearly past-due bills and bought groceries for the
Thanksgiving Dinner That Almost Wasn't. Without that kicker, I'd have been eating a Super Value Meal for the holiday. As important as public education is (and I strongly believe in its value and contribute when and what I can), it is not the only underfunded program in Oregon. Many agencies providing vital social services need help: those for the homeless, people with mental illnesses, and those which provide assistance to workers unable to afford health insurance, to name only a few. Things are tough all over, folks. I worked for the money that was returned to me and only I should have the choice of where it should go. Those who have wanted to forward their kickers on to schools have had the right to do so. But some of us needed ours to pay the rent. Theresa A. Reed, Southeast 47th Avenue
OF CRANKS, REDNECKS AND MALCONTENTS
I am amazed at the liberal use of words depreciating those who would oppose your views on matters that WW has taken ["Correspondence," 500 Words, WW, Dec. 3, 1997]. First, many, many people who do oppose your views are not the "cranks" or "malcontents, rednecks etc." of society as you classify them. Further, I am outraged that people whom you previously employed and seemingly approved of obtain the credentials to challenge your views, while the rest of us are "cranks," "rednecks," etc., and seemingly do not deserve the consideration given to Jorgensen. I myself came to Oregon in 1963, as a successful, middle-class engineering professional who distrusted government even then. Government, just like science and engineering, profits from healthy skepticism, and blind acceptance of status quo, or editorial opinions for that matter, totally unexamined, leads to serious degradation in the democratic process. You should know that! Finally, it's many times the "crackpots" among us that have the willingness to say the emperor is naked, and lead the pack in recognizing this. What are they telling us even now that will come from the mouths of upstanding professionals among the future citizens? Lawrence Hudetz, Southeast Yamhill Street
PATHETIQUE
For a paper that so often bemoans the rising cost of newsprint, arts editor Audrey Van Buskirk certainly devotes a lot of it to promoting Pink Martini and media manipulator Thomas Lauderdale ["Metropolitan," WW, Dec. 10, 1997]. Let's face it, no other musician in this city gets the coverage Lauderdale does. This is not a case of media reporting a trend; rather it's a sad manipulation of the media to create one. Why else did Lauderdale allow moribund Oregonian columnist Margie Boule to sing with Pink Martini? I'm sure it wasn't her performance in Little Shop of Horrors which charmed him so. I once read an interview (in Our Town, in case you're wondering who would want to interview her) in which Margie denied her Pink Martini iconoclasm. However, her "popularity with the 20-something generation" forced her to concede that, "...to them, I guess I am [an icon]." I'm certain Lauderdale's ability to foster that kind of self-importance bought him a lot of column inches and access to Margie's "high-brow" acquaintances. But where is Margie now that Lauderdale has attained personality status? Not singing for Pink Martini. After all, when you're big-shot enough to hold your CD release at the Schnitzer, who the hell needs a two-bit columnist from a daily newspaper that carries all the credibility of the Apocrypha. As to Willamette Week's role in perpetuating this concocted phenomenon, I wondered what Lauderdale had done for Van Buskirk to turn her into his willing amanuensis. As far as I know he's done nothing; it's merely Van Buskirk's own hunger to rub elbows with the monied caste Lauderdale has charmed his way into. From reading her "Metropolitan" column, you'd think Portland culture consisted exclusively of "after-show parties at Zephiro" and the cult of Thomas Lauderdale. It does not. I do not intend to demean Lauderdale's musical ability; nor do I begrudge him his 15 minutes in the sun. He is a "gifted pianist and musical arranger," to quote Van Buskirk. However, I've grown tired of reading the same old tripe about someone who is not doing anything new, or even particularly exciting. ("But Thomas Lauderdale was invited to play for President Clinton," whines the hipster. "Well, so was Kenny G.," snaps the pariah.) Good art creates its own following, taste notwithstanding. While word-of-mouth popularity takes longer, it's infinitely more legitimate than a following induced by pop-culture columnists. Pink Martini is a lounge act, no different than any other supper-club band that predates it, by decades. Moreover, Pink Martini was not even responsible for the revival of the genre with this generation. Combustible Edison was. So, if we judge Pink Martini's new album, Sympathetique, for what it is--a nice addition to a well fleshed-out genre--then it deserves the attention given any other local band's new CD. If, however, we are to judge Sympathetique on uniqueness, then let's drop "Sym" from the title and quit reporting on Thomas Lauderdale's every bowel movement. C. Dorr, Southwest Garden Home Road
A BAD EXAMPLE How disingenuous of lawyer Paula Barran to bring up the case of Latrell Sprewell as an "example of when somebody should be fired, and he's trying to get his job back" ("Stop Your Sobbing," WW, Dec. 19, 1997). "This is an example of what we're facing these days," she continues. While it would be difficult to expect a current article on lawsuits against employers not to mention the Sprewell case, to compare it to the average employment civil-rights discrimination case in Oregon is ludicrous. Sprewell is hardly the typical employee. For one, he makes more than his "manager," coach P.J. Carlesimo. For another, most managers would have filed criminal assault charges on an employee who allegedly tried to strangle them. For whatever reasons, the coach didn't do that. What amazes me is not that the number of federal cases in Oregon last year--320--is so high, but that in a state with three million people it's not higher. I don't have the latest employment numbers at hand, but if only a million of the state's residents were in the work force, that would be one case for every 3,000 workers. Can Barran truthfully say there's not a potential sexual, racial or disability civil-rights discrimination case in one out of 3,000? Darrel Plant, Southwest Park Avenue |
