WW welcomes letters to the editor via mail, e-mail or fax. Letters must be signed by the author and include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Preference will be given to letters of 250 words or less. UNJUST DESERTS I am the parent of Ethan Thrower, of Grant High School [Scoreboard, WW, Jan. 29, 1999]. My 19-year-old son will be leaving town soon. He'll be heading for Snake River, Umatilla, Baker City or some other Godforsaken place to spend his youthful years in an adult prison. There, in the most oppressive of environments, he will be shaped into an adult. Why haven't you done the courageous work of a true journalist by questioning if it benefits anyone to send him to prison? Why aren't you challenging the morals of people such as Kevin Mannix and Steve Doell, who support Measure 11, which takes all the discretion away from judges and puts it in the hands of state prosecutors? My son is a first-time offender. I don't believe this became real to him until the day he was arrested. I don't think he understood at all the terror his actions caused. In fact, I know he didn't, because despite his crimes, he is one of the kindest people I know. When he put on his stocking cap and armed himself with a weapon, he became someone else, "a bad guy." It was a game of cops and robbers being played by immature teenagers who didn't consider the consequences of what they were doing. Ethan has a sentence of 102 months. In case math is not your forte, that's 8 and a half years. He'll have to do every day of his time. In jail, he is not learning about accountability, nor is he gaining an understanding of his actions. He could learn so much more about right and wrong, about ethics and forgiveness, if the adults in his world would hold him accountable in a just and compassionate way that says, "Yes, you have broken the law. You have made some terrible choices, but we want to help you learn from this, make amends for this, so that everyone affected can move on. You must understand the severity of what you have done, but you also can learn that this does not have to define you." Ethan would have been in awe of, and forever humbled by, a system of government that held him accountable in such a way. It is called restorative justice. Give him 10 years probation. Sentence him to participate in a victim-offender rehab. program, where he could meet the victims of his crimes, hear their pain. Make him voluntarily work for store owners that he robbed. Arrange for him to speak to at-risk youth. All of the above. The options are endless. That kind of justice would be so powerful. It makes me cry to imagine it. Instead, we send our children to be warehoused in prisons, where they can become bitter, disillusioned adults. Then we turn them back out into society. Why don't you write about that? Kandi Kaiser Northeast 32nd Avenue   WAXING CLINICAL I enjoyed WW's "Phys Ed" supplement [Feb. 3, 1999]. One exception was the advice to use ear candles as an alternative to Q-Tips. Some health-food stores have sold the candles as a means of ear wax removal. The theory is that the burning cone creates a suction which removes the ear wax. When you're done there's an impressive glob of the offending wax. I'm afraid this treatment goes under the rubric "if it sounds too good to be true...." We did a little trial of some ear candles at NCNM's Natural Health Center to see how they worked. Unfortunately, there was no difference in the amount of the ear wax (detectable by an otoscope) before or after the treatment. We also found that the "wax" that appeared to be coming out of the ear was actually the residue of the burnt paraffin from the candle. It made no difference if the ear candle was plugged into a patient's ear canal or if it was allowed to burn in the air. The candle had the same "glob" of waxy material which the manufacturers purport to be the removed ear wax. I have to agree with the FDA on this one. Ear candles don't remove ear wax and probably don't warrant the risk of burn injuries. Richard Barrett, N.D. Associate professor of medicine National College of Naturopathic Medicine - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published February 17, 1999