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. STROGANOFF WITH THE SWELLS What a treasure we have in Philip Dawdy, your Culture (and Technology) writer ["The Buchanans and the Baroness," Feb. 23, 2000]. We are not given what must be his extensive credentials, but clearly he is prepared to pass judgment not only on the beef Stroganoff (which he apparently did not eat) and the merlot he helped himself to, but also on the Friday night guest list (and where they spend their summers) and on whether the Cossacks offended the Jewish guests. This is to say nothing of his negative assessment of four centuries of Russian art! Added together, that is no small feat! On Thursday, the previous evening, we were invited to a private, invitation-only gathering which kicked off the exhibition. Though I am humbled by Mr. Dawdy's expertise, let me say that the 250 black-tie level, AA-list guests, who, as a whole, could be considered well-educated, well-informed successful people, were, by my careful observation, rather entranced by the exhibition, the dinner, the Cossacks (even the Jewish people at our table) and the baroness herself, who seemed to be having a fine time. Regarding those Cossacks, it is probably well to remember that socially conscious people all over this country find it acceptable to drive German and Japanese cars. Many of those guests said that they planned to revisit the exhibition so they could learn and absorb more of what is so beautifully represented there. Whether any of the pieces there will leave them "in a puddle" is strictly up to them. By mid-March, I will have visited it three times. Poor misguided souls we are. Just think how much time, effort and money we all could have saved had we had access to Mr. Dawdy's wisdom ahead of time! We would have been able to save up for something truly worthwhile like Sadie Hawkins Day! Freedom of the press is certainly to be celebrated, and it should be noted that a newspaper whose circulation (and credibility) exceeds that of Willamette Week, i.e., The New York Times, gave a very favorable review of Stroganoff. We can safely presume, I believe, that they have no special axe to grind. So, I must conclude that a) Mr. Dawdy was in way over his cultural head or b) he was simply socially ill at ease with his admitted F-list status and thus didn't have a very good time. David M. McNutt West Burnside Road COME ON FEEL THE NOIZE What the fuck is wrong with your music reviewers? It seems to me that it would be sensible for a periodical to make some attempt at not flagrantly offending its readers, as long as such attempts do not compromise said periodical's journalistic mission. Accepting that, would it not make sense to perhaps give coverage of metal and rock to someone that at least didn't hate it? As only the latest offense, I refer to the HeadOut of your March 1 issue, featuring a description of the upcoming Korn concert saying, "Don't hate us 'cause we're beautiful...hate us 'cause we're terrible. Korn. Tuesday. Rose Garden. Horrid." I also recall some sort of comic book commentary regarding Limp Bizkit. You don't like Korn. Fine. You're still pissing and moaning that the Sex Pistols broke up. Fine, whatever, go home and jerk off to Sid & Nancy again. But don't assume anyone else in the globe gives a rat's ass about your wannabe intellectual nitpicking. I'm not asking for metal to be favored as rap has in your paper (by the way, someone please tell Claytor that as stupid as homie-speak sounds to the ear, it's twice as silly in print--knock it off). I'm not even asking for metal to be taken seriously by the minimum-wage Reedies (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) who lay out Willy Week. Just refrain from open attacks on the shit, OK? We all know that Fred Durst needs to be slapped, and we all wish the white boys in Korn would quit trying to be so hip and funky, but please just shut up. Now you can all go back to your Throat Singers of Tuva or whatever you hip, cerebral, multicultural bourgeoisie college graduates listen to. Doug Ricketts Southeast Holgate Boulevard THEORY AND EXECUTION Tom Tomorrow's screed on the death penalty [This Modern World, Feb. 23, 2000] reveals the problems of being young, innocent and idealistic. He confuses the "Map" (the idealized perfect world) with the "Territory" (the real world as it actually is). He is worried that on very infrequent occasions, an innocent person may be wrongly executed, thus making us ordinary citizens, who support the death penalty for heinous crime murders, "accessories to murder." Well, to put it in his childish terms, "Same to you, only more so!" What Tom did not take into account (he was too busy looking at the Map, when he should have looked at the Territory) was that with today's safeguards against improper execution (particularly in Oregon), your chances of being murdered by a second-time murderer are far larger than your chances of being falsely executed! Thus people like Tom Tomorrow are in fact many-times-over accomplices to murder, by getting innocent people murdered by murderers who were not executed, as they should have been! The idea that "life in prison without parole" is the equivalent of execution is demonstrably false--in one of many cases, an Oregonian who was convicted of murderer and was not executed then murdered two more people while in two different prisons. Let's face it--murderers kill: [They kill] while in prison, escape, get pardoned, serve their sentence, and then kill again...and again. The irony here is that the underclass bears the brunt of repeat murderers, the very people Tom Tomorrow champions. C. Norman Winningstad Newport PRETENSION HEADACHE I do appreciate your including Cafe Lena in the Cheap Eats section [WW, March 8, 2000], but I wonder what gives the impression that just because we have poetry readings and named our dishes after writers, that means we're "pretentious." My husband and I started Cafe Lena to celebrate poets, writers and, primarily, language. It was not to be hip and cool; it was just because poetry was what was most important to both of us. We wanted a place for poetry readings, to serve good food and hopefully make a living... and that's it. When I renamed the vegetarian sandwich the "Birkenstock" about 9 years ago, it was kind of a joke. The sandwich wasn't selling, and everyone in Portland was wearing Birkenstocks at the time, even though I couldn't stand them myself. The sandwich, believe it or not, started selling like hotcakes when named after a shoe. Go figure. It's not pretension. It's just love of and goofing with words. Frankly, Cafe Lena has been, above all else, almost a decade of back-breaking work. We still haven't saved a dime, started any college funds for our children or even paid off our credit-card debt. I'm sorry if pretension is how this is reading, because it is definitely not the motivation. Trying to serve great food, make a living and promote poetry at the same time is the motivation. God damn it anyway. Leanne Grabel Northeast Davis Street BRING 'EM ON False and unattributed assertions that the state tries to divert people from enrolling in the food stamp program ("Food Thoughts," WW, March 1, 2000) have a similar effect--by discouraging eligible people from enrolling. Not only do we encourage eligible Oregonians to sign up for this important program, but we also are working on making the program easier to access and less administratively burdensome. We have no reason to expect increased "oversight" of our agency as your story contends. We are proud of our tradition of working successfully with all groups who want to improve how this program helps Oregonians. Jim Neely Deputy Administrator, Adult and Family Services Division Oregon Department of Human Services COVERING FOR RACISTS The book Taboo may not be racist (I don't know; I haven't read it), but last week's cover certainly was racist ["Taboo," WW, March 8, 2000], and so was most of the article about Taboo. The cover, "Hollywood proclaims, 'White Men Can't Jump,' and we laugh. Jimmy the Greek suggests the corollary, and he's a bigot," sounds like a pickup truck full of whiney racists acting as if the PC crowd is restricting free speech. The whiners conveniently ignore their own white privilege. Does no one at your weekly realize why Mr. Snyder's remarks are racist? Look at the first sentence: "...slaveowners [had] bred black slaves to produce the best physical specimens." That is a patronizing attitude glorifying whites as masters and African Americans as pieces of meat. No matter what Snyder said after that, he had already revealed his racism. How does anyone make the leap from Africans as talented athletes to the fantasy that whites excel at intellect? If whites were so smart, they would live on a planet without destroying it; their children would become discerning citizens, rather than mall-fed hogs. Africans showed intelligence much earlier than they are usually given credit in this racist society; they helped Europeans navigate the African coast in the early 15th century. Strong evidence indicates that Africans boated to South America centuries before that dude Columbus reared his ugly head, dismembering aboriginal people who didn't bring enough gold--raping and selling 9- and 10-year-old girls. Africans who preceded Columbus lived in harmony with native people, rather than killing up to seven million of them in 24 years, like the white guys who "discovered America." But you forget these aspects of history. You choose racist ways to hype a book about African athletic prowess. You jumped in the pickup with the whiney racists, forgetting that Africans are not merely physical bodies although white bigots are only able to perceive them that way. This is racial stereotyping; it is heat, not light. Hope Marston Eugene - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published March 15, 2000