letters to the editor

[December 5th, 2001]

I, THE JURY
You sure jerked my chain with the article on Dr. Jan Bays [Questionable Stand"] in the Nov. 28 WW. I served on the jury that found Emanuel Sistrunk guilty, and it was a difficult and emotional case. I came off that case vowing I would never sit on a jury again.

Emanuel Sistrunk was and is guilty of the rape of that 11-year-old girl. I don't remember clearly Dr. Bays saying that preteens don't lie about sex abuse. Maybe they do and maybe they don't, but I believed this little girl. Her testimony struck me as guileless and unaffected. When she described the crime scene, the garage in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, and then looked at photographs of the garage, she confirmed that was the place--then said, quite innocently, "but I don't remember the motorcycle," leaving me to think she had nothing to prove.

I believe that as much as possible, with a healthy degree of skepticism, a victim--this victim--has to be believed. So often women and girls don't have any other evidence but their credibility. But there was more evidence.

Emanuel Sistrunk had a lot of witnesses to testify as alibis, but try as they might, they could not stretch their testimony to lap into the time period of the crime. They could not allow for the window of opportunity. Mr. Sistrunk had nowhere to hide.

An odd thing: In the jury room, the men had no trouble convicting this man and the women were very reluctant. Dr. Bays' testimony was nearly as instrumental in my vote as the victim's. I viewed her as an expert witness and a credible one.

Learning the day after the trial of his extensive sex-abuse history put us all at ease and relieved the considerable anxiety we all carried out of the courtroom.

Michael Novotny
Southeast 48th Avenue

THE MASTER'S TOOLS
I applaud the City of Portland for resisting the Attorney General's latest immigration dragnet [see The Nose, Nov. 28, 2001]. It is morally wrong and completely counterproductive to fight the specter of terrorism with the tools of racism.

If we are serious about encouraging non-citizens who are clearly not suspected of any crime to come forward and help the Sept. 11 investigation, we must provide specific, enforceable promises not to detain or deport them for immigration-status violations.

As well, providing law enforcement with a mandate on intelligence gathering threatens the rights to privacy, due process, free speech and free association of every American.

Democracy requires that we see ourselves as a community, and that we stand up to protect one another when undemocratic forces threaten to break us apart.

Candace Larson
Southeast Cora Street

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS AAA?
When my teenage son's Jeep stalled on Northeast Broadway during a rainy rush hour a month ago, he called me for help. As he and I were standing in the middle lane of traffic, trying to figure out what to do, Bob Orians pulled up alongside, sized up our predicament, got out, helped us push the car out of traffic, hooked up his own jumper cables and got my son going again. Orians, whom I know only casually, was already late for a match at a tennis club nearby and had to go. I barely had time to thank him for his unsolicited kindness.

Every person walking on this earth has parts of themselves that are "dark," and getting to know these parts is everyone's personal task. That includes you, me, Bob Orians, everyone. I emphasize personal. What does it say about a tabloid (Willamette Week) that seems to feel the need to gossip-monger about others? Or about the people who read it? Is your journalism really "brave" or actually "yellow"?

I submit that Nigel Jaquiss' article "With Friends Like This..." [WW, Nov. 7, 2001] tells us very little about Bob Orians and a whole lot about Jaquiss himself and Willamette Week in general.

To your readership: There is a reason Willamette Week is free.

James T. Nolan
Northeast Hoyt Street

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TWANG
Becky Ohlsen's review of Jay Farrar's Sebastopol [Sonic Reducer, WW, Nov. 14, 2001] makes good use of bad comparisons and demonstrates a thorough lack of knowledge of the Uncle Tupelo-Tweedy-Farrar dynamic. I know a lot of people are opinionated on this matter, but Becky reveals herself as someone who probably picked up an AM album in 1995 because she heard alt-country was cool and sat patiently though Jay Farrar's incessant droning because she hoped to be a purist.

Portraying Jeff Tweedy as a Tom Petty clone for his "hand-clap-happy pop-rock band" Wilco is convenient, if not altogether absurd. I think she missed the complex, brooding ballads on the daring double-disc Being There and the dark, intricate and experimental pop quality of Summerteeth. She must not have heard their yet-unreleased album either, though any curious music fan with a modem could have the entire album downloaded by now.

But forget all that--Becky could have understood more if she simply stacked Petty's lyrics next to Tweedy's. There are no free-fallin' American girls. But there are chilling abstractions of love and death, moments of pure brilliance and a deep pain resonating from the salt of the Midwestern earth.

It would be nice for Becky to know that there's nothing altogether new or daring in Jay Farrar's latest effort. She refers to "miscellaneous vibrations," "Arabic-tinged guitar" and "exotic intrigue." That must be some good weed. Farrar's "warbles" are in fact the same dressing he's been pouring on his music for years in a transparent attempt to appear more mature and complex since Wilco's critical success stole his artistic thunder. OK, so maybe that's sweeping too. Truth is, I like Farrar. But not because of "miscellaneous vibrations." Complexity is something more painfully appropriate to Tweedy, at least for your standard singer-songwriter. But I guess you'd have to listen to the albums and avoid cliché review writing to reflect that truth.

Brian J. Back
Southwest 54^th Avenue