LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[January 5th, 2005] SEX AD-DITION

Leave it to WW to plug one of its advertisers--Union Jack's--in the Dec. 15 "Nose" column and write a cover story in the same issue on Neil Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl, but ignore the obvious. If you put two and two together and did the math, you'd realize that 50 percent of prostitutes (and, yes, that includes strippers, women who work in massage parlors, etc.) were sexually abused as children, according to Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry (Frédérique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander, eds., Cleis Press, 1987)--and that's a fairly conservative number! It's amazing Neil Goldschmidt's victim didn't end up dancing at Union Jack's (or one of Portland's other seedy strip clubs).

Kelly Wallace
Oregon Coalition Against Sexual Exploitation
Southeast 34th Avenue

BHAGWAN SHREE RAMTHA?

I try to see as many movies filmed in Oregon as possible, so I was really looking forward to What the Bleep Do We Know?, parts of which were filmed only a few blocks from my home ["What the Bleep Is Ramtha?," WW, Dec. 22, 2004]. Several friends had described the movie as inspiring and thought-provoking (although no one could actually say what was so great about it).

When I finally saw it, I thought it was a bunch of garbage. The movie is totally lacking in substance and is a thinly disguised self-help movie for depressed, gullible people striving for meaning in their lives. The "experts," who are not even identified until the end of the movie, rapidly fire off buzz words from several different fields of study, but barely scratch the surface of any single topic.

Then I did a little bit of research and learned that the movie was conceived and funded by a cult based in Washington state that worships a god called Ramtha. Suddenly it all made sense.

Kudos on exposing this movie for what it is: a classic case of the emperor wearing no clothes. I just hope that Ramtha is not so angered at your article that he issues any proclamations involving salmonella and salad bars.

Nathan Baker
Southeast Main Street

THE IDIOT CHANNEL

JZ Knight is a fraud. Ramtha is not real. Willamette Week should have detailed that and not pandered to the same masses as she.

By crafting false dichotomies (one researcher couldn't explain some test results, so she must be a "channeler") and ignorance of the most basic statistical truths (the six of diamonds is no closer to the seven of diamonds than any other card!!!), Chris Lydgate has created nothing worth printing.

Telepathic powers? Nonsense. There's a very easy way to determine if they exist. Ask James Randi. He has a $1,000,000 bounty on someone who can demonstrate such an act. Check it out: www.randi.org. Let me see, $1,000 per person per week or one million for a couple hours' work. And don't tell me you wouldn't go and demonstrate any skill you have for $1,000,000!

Anyone who saw the movie and believes water can understand Kanji is living in a fantasy world. Water has memory? Let me see...it does to anyone who wants to sell you something. And the "scientists" selling Ramtha's view? One disagrees with the premise of the movie, saying, "my views were turned around 180 degrees." The others are all followers. Come on, people! Honest people would not hide that from viewers nor keep WWeek from the camp.

I suggest to anyone who has won the lottery to tell everyone they "channeled" the numbers and to sell "channeling lottery number services" thereafter. They'll make a thousand-fold on the lottery winnings. Why? Because lots of people are idiots.

And Chris Lydgate did nothing to disprove that.

Colin S. Brown
Southeast Ankeny Street