LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[January 19th, 2005] No Truck with WW!

I am not in the band Truckless, who were reviewed negatively in your music listings Jan. 12, but I am the promoter for the previewed show. My complaint is not that "JAR" [Jennifer A. Rapf] didn't like the Truckless EP, but that he/she spent a paragraph making fun of my usage of one exclamation point in my promo page, and for the term "CD release party." Truthfully, CD release parties are no different than other shows, except that a band has a new CD that they have labored hard over finishing (in Truckless' case home-recorded and -produced) that they want to show off.

I did not make up the term "CD release party," which "JAR" obviously hates. An exclamation point is used to portray excitement or energy in this case, but "JAR" turns it into a point of ridicule. I am not a professional promoter, just another musician in Portland trying to help out fellow bands. Obviously I do not know the correct promo rules. Maybe "JAR" should write a list of do's and don'ts so he/she doesn't need to be pissed off by lowly local musicians anymore.

By the way, the EP is a cool mix of low-fi vox and thunderous guitars in the style of the Replacements meets early Cheap Trick and is great if you like that sort of thing. And it is not their "debut" EP as "JAR" assumes, but their third release.

Nick Levine
Southeast Gladstone Street

Bootstrap Metaphysics

The free-will gospel ofWhat the Bleep Do We Know? is the old-time free-enterprise, self-reliant Horatio Alger myth repackaged ["What the Bleep Is Ramtha?," WW, Dec. 22, 2004]. JZ Knight learned from the masters like Ayn Rand and Werner Erhard.

To find out where they were going with these ideas politically, I invited the film's director, Will Arntz, to Portland State last April. I also did some digging. In her autobiography, Knight sings the praises of "King Reagan." When Jeffrey Satinover says that quantum physics "puts responsibility squarely in your lap," he is not talking about science. Visit his website and you find a portal to the world of right-wing fundamentalism, from curing immoral gays to praising Bush administration attacks on welfare and the war.

But isn't it wonderful for people to feel their potential is unlimited and up to them to realize it? To put this to the test, I opened the discussion with a photo of a boy with Down syndrome. I asked if this child was responsible for his condition. Did this child have freedom to create any life he wants? Yes indeed, he was responsible, said Arntz. He is reaping his Karma from a former life.

We all come into this world with brains that have unique talents and weaknesses. The myth of universal unlimited potential is the road to self-attack and social scorn for those who "fail." A deep appreciation of the power of our vulnerabilities opens the door to loving compassion for self and others.

John Olmsted
Portland State University
Department of Psychology