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. Gambling Debts I recently read your article concerning Oregon's growing gambling addiction, "Fold 'Em" (May 12, 1999). As the spouse of a compulsive gambler, I would also urge Oregonians to support creating a ballot measure in 2000. My husband is addicted to video poker, so I agree that eliminating it won't be easy. Video poker has become a multi-million dollar revenue source for this state. We continue to hear about wonderful things the Oregon Lottery does for Oregon. My concern, however, is that the public is either unaware or just doesn't care about the financial drain gambling creates for all Oregonians, whether you're a lottery player or not. For example, the separation/divorce rate among compulsive gamblers is unusually high. Spouses and family members often discover they can no longer deal with the day-to-day insanity of living with a compulsive gambler. Many are left with no alternative but to file bankruptcy due to mounting gambling debt. In turn, their creditors then take a loss, which is passed on to consumers like you and me. As a result, Oregon is left with additional spouses and children in need of state-funded programs, such as medical care, food stamps and housing, to mention just a few. I would like to personally thank Greg Kafoury and Ralph Nader for taking a stand on state-sanctioned gambling. For many families of compulsive gamblers, they are the light at the end of a very long tunnel. Oregon is promoting a growing problem and can no longer ignore the downside of gambling. So let me ask you: Do the benefits the state gains by promoting legalized gambling outweigh the financial drain that all of us must endure? Robin Sawvel Stayton Punk Is Dead, Dude John Graham seems to be afflicted with the deadly "I Only Like Rock If It's Punk Rock" disease that's currently running rampant among music critics [Recorded Music, WW, May 19, 1999]. You know, I'm really growing tired of all this talk about how great punk rock is. Punk died in the early '80s. It might've been resurrected briefly in the early '90s as grunge, but it's gone. What we're hearing now is really bad pop music mispackaged as punk. Graham refers to Van Halen, Ozzy Osborne, KISS and AC/DC as "bad rock" and "atrocious '70s dino-rock." Sure, all were guilty of crappy music from time to time. But the lifespan of their work has certainly outlasted that of, say, the Germs. And classic Van Halen is far more enjoyable to listen to, anyway. Today's music critics' perception is commonly, "No, man. The Germs rawked!" The reality is: "Sorry, dude. They sucked...hard." But during the Germs' lifetime we also got to hear good music like Van Halen's Women and Children First, Ozzy's Blizzard of Ozz and AC/DC's Back in Black. (Even Pat Smear of the Germs/Nirvana recently said in Rolling Stone that Eddie Van Halen is one of his all-time favorite guitarists.) I'm sorry, but that Buckcherry tune is catchy, period. That's part of why it's getting airplay and the Humpers aren't. And it rocks harder than any drivel recently put out by so-called "punk" bands like the Offspring (whose alleged "Ph.D.-bound" singer writes lyrics that make Buckcherry sound as deep and cerebral as Bob Dylan). John McIsaac Southwest 1st Avenue Grow Up (Or Down) Dave McCoy wrote: "Lucas hasn't made the slightest attempt to appeal to the sensibilities and intelligence of the original core audience. He forgot that we've grown up, and he aims everything at children" ["Five Things I Hate About You," WW, May 19, 1999]. Dumbass. Under no conceivable theory was Lucas obliged to do anything to make this series follow us, the original audience, into our 20s and 30s. In fact, it would have been a horrid choice to do so. We had our series, and this new one is for the people who are today what ages we were 22 years ago when the first film came out. I lucked out. The entire audience at the 7 pm showing on opening day at Eastgate, upon the appearance of the Star Wars logo and the first notes of the familiar theme, became 7 years old. This is as it should be. The problem is not with Lucas refusing to follow us into our twenty/thirtysomething years. It's with twenty/thirtysomethings being incapable of watching the movie like they were kids. Get over it. This film isn't for us (unless we watch it like we are 7). It's for the kids. Christopher D. Frankonis Southeast 21st Avenue People Who Need People Magazine I question the motivations behind Chris Lydgate's May 26 cover story on Marcia Hood-Brown's heroin overdose, for it seems to reflect the hype-filled, ratings-hungry characteristics we usually scorn or mock in the likes of People magazine and The National Enquirer. Journalists defend their probe into celebrities' lives on the grounds that fame puts celebs in the public eye and makes them fair game. This argument itself is debatable, but in the case of Marcia it doesn't even apply. She was not a celebrity. She was not in the public eye. Her death doesn't change that. And the attempt to "celebritize" her post-mortem by gratuitously exalting her academic successes, local "hipster" popularity, vintage dress code and "glorious dreadlocks" as a way to dish up a piece on the heroin crisis is, to say the least, tacky as hell. I hardly think that throwing cocktail parties and drinking at the Sandy Hut make a person "cutting edge," so why fawn over her everyday activities? Perhaps in effort to give your story star quality? Yes, Marcia's death is a tragedy, but the details of her downfall are none of our business. You weren't interested in covering her life story before she OD'd, so why do it now? Why not a story exploring the gamut of socioeconomic factors involved in the local heroin "epidemic," making small mention of Marcia as an example, among others, of addicts who don't fit the stereotype of the poor junkie in the alley? You touched on this in your piece, but only as fuel for more Marcia melodrama. I would expect that her close friends and family, interviewed or not, are insulted that you exploited her privacy for the sake of juicy copy. You went tabloid on this one, and you didn't disguise it too well. Doug Cohen Northeast Hoyt Street Portland Loses Big Time Your Scorecard on June 9 implied Portland was a winner over AT&T in Judge Panner's decision on open cable access. In fact, Portland residents are the big losers in this case. If the ruling stands, AT&T has indicated that it will not invest in upgrading Portland cable lines, routers, amplifiers and switching stations to support broadband Internet access. This essentially shuts out all ISPs from access, not just AT&T's @HOME service, and condemns Portland residents to the World-Wide-Wait as we watch our neighbors in Washington County, Seattle and every city in this nation surf the Internet at speeds up to 100 times faster. In their political desire to appear as our Davids fighting Goliath, Erik Sten and other local officials' unprecedented insistence on an open cable policy has prevented Portland from participating in this technological revolution. Their misguided decisions have cost Portland hundreds of jobs for local developers, technicians, installers and suppliers for this technology and millions of dollars in infrastructural development. Federal regulators and other municipalities realize the benefits of these new technologies and have opted not to restrict their deployment. Multnomah County stands alone with this excessive regulatory action, and its residents have become the losers. Mr. Sten stated that his decision to support open cable access was a "no-brainer." I couldn't have said it better myself. Vince Coghlan Southwest Periander Street - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published June 16, 1999