LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[March 1st, 2006] PARDON MY GAS

Kudos to Mr. White; he is wise to face the future of declining oil ["My Name Is Randy, and I'm Addicted to Oil," WW, Feb. 22, 2006]. As a young man, so much of his life will be spent in it. And as most of us thinking souls try to wean ourselves from our gasoline-burning lifestyles/treadmills, we could also consider mitigating the CO2 emissions from our driving.

As we use up oil supplies, we pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. "Global warming 30 times quicker than it used to be," says a headline about a new study on the Independent of London's website; it is flanked by stories about rapid breakup of Greenland's ice sheet, and by predictions of a quicker rise in sea levels than current models have forecast.

With carbon offsets such as offered by www.terrapass.com, any individual can invest a modest amount in clean energy such as wind power and biomass projects which prevent CO2 additions to our air in similar quantity to that emitted by one's vehicle's model and annual mileage. Air travel also pollutes, and www.travelgreener.com can help fliers deal with that.

Your Terra Pass is a neat decal that lets other drivers know you care, even if you are still trapped in driving for employment. Think of it as your personal Kyoto accord, not dependent on an enviro-friendly White House.

Ted Kozlowski
Southwest Texas Street

PIMPS' FREE RIDE

How low can you go? The WWeek's article on prostitution ["The Benefits of Big Pimpin'," Feb. 1, 2006] was disappointing to the point of being offensive.

Angela Valdez notes in the article that women are victimized by prostitution. In fact, she offers her opinion that the prosecution strategy "does nothing for the women themselves, arguably the real victims." Ms. Valdez then profiles one of the prostitutes and details her criminal record next to a mug shot for all of Portland to see.

Seems hard to believe WWeek really believes women are victimized by prostitution when the paper simply perpetuates the problem by publicizing mug shots of one of the "victims." I'm sure Ms. Valdez did an excellent job of interviewing Ms. Woodland and getting her take on Oregon's criminal system. You must have run out of space for that part of the story.

Ms. Valdez could have also easily profiled one of the pimps that got away—but then maybe that wouldn't have generated as much reader interest. Pictures of prostitutes probably sell better than pictures of pimps, huh? Yeah, WWeek really cares about the victims.

Chris Winter
Southeast 26th Avenue