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. Win-Win Situation "Will they or won't they?" That was the question in my mind as I turned to the WW Scorecard [April 28, 1999] to see how WW would characterize the Powell's Books union election last week. Sure enough, WW met my lowered expectations and, following the lead of The Oregonian, framed it as a negative: Mike Powell--loser Wrong. Mike Powell--winner. Mike Powell's employees--winners. Powell's Books--winner. Powell's customers--winners. Portland--winner. The unionization of Powell's Books was as much about preserving the store's culture and sales-staff professionalism as it was about money. Michael Powell didn't have a union "problem" until he gutted the knowledge-center sales structure of the stores' departments. Employees whose talents, experience and leadership are valued and utilized by their employer approach their jobs with a high degree of personal pride. Take that away--that one priceless component of employee compensation--and morale sinks and the business itself suffers. Powell a loser? Hardly. It was a close call, but Portland and Powell's escaped intact. By the way, Michael Powell--described as a good Democrat, champion of liberal causes and civic leader--should be proud of his newfound affiliation with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. It couldn't fit his politics more neatly. Few other unions operate with such a strong sense of fairness and social justice. Never mind that the ILWU's officers' salaries are no higher than its rank-and-file members', or that the ILWU shut down West Coast ports last Saturday in support of the call for a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal (didn't see mention of that in WW), or the myriad other local, national and global causes the ILWU supports--all of which seem to go unrecognized by the mainstream media. Instead, here's a pop quiz for WW's reporting staff: Which human rights activist, the execution of whom at the hands of his own government was stopped by the ILWU's direct intervention, went on to become president of that same country two decades later? The answer to that should go in next week's Winners column--right below Michael Powell. Kenneth B. Shirk Secretary-Treasurer Portland Musicians Union Much Ado... Steffen Silvis' pretentious review of the Tygres Heart production of Much Ado About Nothing seems a bit topsy-turvy ["Love's Laborers Lost," WW, April 28, 1999]. He criticizes the production for being entertaining, rather than serious or substantive. Perhaps he forgot that Much Ado About Nothing is not a serious or substantive play; it's a comedy. The play doesn't solve the world's problems or delve deep into the human psyche. What it does is make us laugh. It is entertainment. That is a compliment, not a criticism. Shakespeare's plays are about nothing if not entertainment. He did not write them for the pointy-headed intellectual elite. Instead, he wrote them for the masses. He wrote them to entertain. And this play does just that. Delightfully so. For Mr. Silvis to say that the wit in this play "degenerates into a romp" is most certainly a mischaracterization. The wit in this play is a romp. A wonderfully funny romp. This production is guaranteed to make you laugh and to entertain. It is not to be missed. Professor M. H. Sam Jacobson Willamette University College of Law All Front This in response to H.V. Claytor Jr.'s sadly misguided article "Hip-Hop, You Don't Stop" featured in the May 5 issue of WW. Certainly support of the Portland hip-hop scene in this strangely segregated city is welcomed; however, Monsieur Claytor's comparison of apples and hand grenades was ridiculous and grossly inappropriate. No doubt the high-gloss antics of superstars Jay-Z, Method Man, Redman and DMX were an excitement and an opportunity for unification, but such pyrotechnics and dangling from wires, however skilled, present only so much strange fruit in the face of hip-hop's apparently forgotten roots: the underground. Eternal Golden Void is a powerful force in the burgeoning vanguard of underground beat culture (not just hip-hop neither). The event at Tiger Bar on April 19 admittedly may not have been the ultimate beat event, but nor was it attempting such. The event was an informal, small, free affair to celebrate the release of EGV's second record. And since which fascist hip-hop dictatorship is it a crime to be peculiar, or even a slow scratcher? If hip-hop is supposed to be all speed and no atmosphere and no subtle invention, well, it sounds to me like hip-hop is dead! Beat heads know better than to rely exclusively on glitz, and I suspect that all the kids fronting to be music journalists are going to be exposed and flipped like pancakes. So, Mistah Claytor, put your pen in the air and wave it round like you just don't care. The rest of us will progress just fine without you. Elsa Teicher Southeast 14th Avenue School-Reform Success Story Your article on school reform ["None of the Above, " May 12, 1999] fails to consider where school reform has been successful. I serve on the school board for the West Linn-Wilsonville School District. From that perspective, I see school reform as a crucial factor in accelerating school curriculum statewide by establishing rigorous benchmarks for what is expected from our schools. As an example, because of school reform, our district now offers first-year algebra and geometry to all middle schoolers ready for those classes. To meet the demand of the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM), our district has also revised our science curriculum, moving some programs to the middle school that used to be offered at the high-school level. Because of CIM requirements, we expanded foreign-language offerings at the middle-school level for this school year. Our discussions about foreign language, moreover, provide a keen insight into how school reform drives improvement and how lack of funding undercuts that drive. Just this past week, our school board postponed a meeting to address the addition of foreign languages into our primary-school curriculum. One reason for this postponement is that the state recently announced a delay in implementing the foreign-language element of the CIM. Also, our district is not likely to have funds to add primary-level foreign languages in this biennium (even at a $4.95 billion statewide funding level). As for testing, from my perspective as a school board member, tests provide a powerful tool to see what we, our district and individual schools are (or are not) accomplishing. "Disaggregated" test data can also be used to focus on individual student needs. Yes, there are problems. There always are when changing a system. Perhaps we are overtesting, and it may be time to rethink which tests are useful and affordable. But please, we should not destroy what is a good, sound and effective concept at its heart. Jeffrey P. Chicoine West Linn - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published May 19, 1999