LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[May 17th, 2006] BANISHED FROM THE GARDEN OF READIN'

I haven't read a copy of Willamette Week since the last time I wrote to complain about the content of Callahan's cartoons. Lo and behold, I pick up a copy today [April 26] and once again see a cartoon that is entirely inappropriate for publication in anything other than a low-class rag. [In the cartoon, Adam remarks to Eve as they are banished from the Garden of Eden, "Eating the apple couldn't have bothered him that much. It must have been the fact that I fucked you."]

Why does WW continue to publish this crap? I am no prude, but to print that obscene caption under one of his disgusting cartoons is apparently not beneath you. Isn't there enough ugliness in the world today without your paper adding to it? KIDS read this stuff, you know, and you are telling them it's OK to talk like that. It is NOT.

Why anyone would think Callahan's stuff is funny is beyond me. But you have now convinced me that no matter what, you will continue to print his garbage in your low-class rag. I was right the first time in not reading WW for a couple of years. Now it will be NEVER before I read it again.

Claudia J. Corbin
Northeast Portland

JUST SAY NO TO THAT TRIPLE LATTE

"Puff, Puff, Pass (the Petition)" [WW, May 10, 2006] is just another diatribe written by a hyped-up caffeine freak! Medical-marijuana users are former policemen, librarians, secretaries and retired people from all walks of life.

Were you too much in a hurry to hear the speaker tell his story about being able to give his cancer-ridden mother relief in the few days before she died by finally using medicinal marijuana in tincture suspension?

Did you hear the Iraq War veteran speak about how it helped him stop his trauma from combat? No, I suppose you were too hyped up on caffeine to SLOW down for the old hippies....

Except now we pay taxes, we own property, we have our own businesses, we are VOTERS, we contribute to society. We don't kill or maim, or rob or rape. Please bring your antiquated Drug War ideas out of the '80s, or '70s, or '60s. Just say no to caffeine!

Kay Dickerson
Southeast Mitchell Court

SOUND BITTEN

Your snarky, misinformed and misleading "Winners" item on well-heeled kids at Hollyrood and Rieke elementary schools dodging school closures [Winners & Losers, WW, May 10, 2006] demonstrates once again that WW is too often more interested in the sound bite than in the substance.

As I'm sure you're aware but have so far failed to report in detail, Hollyrood did not escape the axe. The school will be open next school year but will be made a part of Fernwood Middle School thereafter. In other words, under the current plan, the only way the school stays open after next year is as an "annex" to Fernwood that can be closed at any time with little or no process. I hardly think this amounts to escaping.

As for Rieke, the parents in that school are forced to act as recruiters for Portland Public Schools and shell out money from their own pockets to keep their school open. If they fail to attract enough students, the school can be closed.

While I understand the attraction of the hip sound bite (especially when it advances your cred as populist friends of the common man), it does not serve either your paper or your readers well. There is a lot of real news to report on the topic of school closures, much of it touching on issues and concerns that go to the heart of what makes Portland what it is. Here's hoping that in the future you can resist the easy sound bite and actually start covering this emerging story.

Sam Panarella
Northeast 34th Avenue