|
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.
READ BEFORE SIGNING
By encouraging foes of Bill Sizemore to fraudulently affix
their signatures to his initiative petitions, "Wendi Meremark"
does WW readers a grave disservice. Along with her
childish invective (see her letter in the June 28 issue)
is advice that would have the opposite of her shortsighted
wish--that being to "fill his (petition) forms with duplicates,
triplicates, fraud and phony names." The key word here is
fraud.
It is illegal to affix your signature to a petition more
than once. It is illegal to sign a petition for a local
measure if you do not legally reside in that locale. It
is immoral and dishonest to sabotage the initiative process
as she proposes.
Not that Ms. "Meremark" cares about honesty--that is obvious
from her letter. But maybe she cares about fines levied
against her if she perpetrates this fraud. Maybe she cares
about a court confiscating the money that Bill Sizemore
works so hard to help her keep. Maybe she cares about others
attempting this scam on an initiative that she supports.
Rotten advice, "Wendi." And
I have to ask: Are you registered to vote in Oregon?
Will Glessner
Beaverton
I REGRET, THEREFORE I AM
I apologize to WW and WW readers for my open
advocacy of criminal actions by knowingly falsifying initiative
petition signatures (Letters, June 28, 2000).
Had I known that knowingly falsifying a petition signature
by fraud or duplication is a crime, I would have so qualified
my advocacy, writing something like "knowingly screwing
up petition signatures will stop Bill Sizemore's government-by-gelt,
and is a felony crime."
I absolve WW of editing responsibility to find and
delete crime-encouraging statements; I would not have tested
the proofreaders that way intentionally.
But what political fireworks my error ignited!
When my letter did not appear in the June 21 WW,
I phoned the Dave & Dwight Show (KXL 750 AM) that afternoon
to broadcast my petition-poisoning idea on air during their
"Screener's Holiday," which airs unrestricted caller cant.
Lars Larson heard my bad idea.
After WW's June 28 issue had gone to press (with
my letter), Larson broadcast during his programming June
27 (KXL, 8:30 am-noon) his encouragement to sign petitions
fraudulently--and claimed it was his own idea.
The next morning, when WW appeared, so did an Oregonian
item (Metro section, "Talk-radio host misinforms listeners
on initiative process"), proving once again that a claiming
sword has two edges: fame and blame. Sometimes you cut yourself,
like me and my illegal letter.
Still, my central point that Bill's strength needs to be
bent against him bears repeating. Echo him. Sizemore, sizeless.
Daily-docket radio programs like Bill Sizemore's Morning
News (KKGT 1150 AM, 7-9 am) wield monster power, lockstepping
Republicans on point--they dart and are directed like a
school of fish magnified bigger than they are. Ever unbalanced--that's
the ideologue's trademark.
On June 30, Sizemore used his "News" programming this way,
describing my letter in WW: "Really outrageous,"
"Whacking on me really good," "person strongly encourages
illegal behavior" (mea culpa). "We checked out the name.
There's no such person that can be found." "My wife kind
of checked all over the place." "We wonder if the Willamette
Week even got such a letter. ... Where did you find
this person? ... Where did you get this letter? ... There
is no such person."
In the style of the well-known riposte of Mark Twain (not
his real name)--"The report of my death was an exaggeration"--let
me here assure Sizemore that his reporting of my nonexistence
is pure fiction. I write using a pen-name for publication
because these politicstalkers who refuse to debate ideas
on the merits instead commit to character assassination
and have even threatened physical harm to their opponents--slaying
the messenger to suppress the message.
Wendi Meremark
Oregon City
NO FAIR HOARDING
Thanks for your article covering Portland's struggle for
a less-billboarded environment ["When Billboards Attack,"
WW, June 21, 2000]. I think this issue is one aspect
of the Good Fight that Americans now face: the uphill battle
to find legal ways of restricting a corporate take-over
of our society, our spirits and our humanity.
I see that some of our esteemed public representatives
are in a pinch to express themselves on this issue. I think
I'm in a position to help out: "AK Media, you seem to be
a hulking bully. You are uninspiring, ugly, and you don't
play nice. Everyone wants you to lose." I'd like to add
that, after living in Portland for close to two years, I
find that this town's general presence of activism is the
factor that makes Portland most "livable" for me.
Christy Brown
Northwest Irving Street
YANKEE KNOW-HOW
I had the good fortune of visiting Vermont last summer.
Vermont, in some ways, is a lot like Oregon: big mountains
and lotsa green. It's different from Oregon in some ways,
too: tons of snow and no billboards! Billboards and,
apparently, all obtrusive signs are not allowed under Vermont
zoning laws. Even the Mc-Donald's in the town I stayed in
had a nice, wooden, little sign!
It makes such a difference to focus on the earth while
walking along or driving on
the highway...so much nicer when the part of the Earth you're
looking at is Vermont
or Oregon!
Your article ["When Billboards
Attack," June 21, 2000] said that billboard companies
get $15,000 per billboard, per month for sucking us into
the advertisers' world, farther away from our mountains,
trees and rivers. We wonder why our earth is so fucked up;
it's because we've shifted our gaze to the bright, yellow
placard telling us who to give our money to and why.
I applaud Charlie Hales in his struggle against AK Media
billboards. I chose to read this article and, in doing so,
chose to be subjected to the 20 advertisements that went
along with it. It's very difficult to choose to divert your
attention from these monolith structures that seem to promise
so much.
People like Mr. Hales are fighting to improve our quality
of life. The corporation that owns AK Media Group cares
only that we continue to let them make millions of dollars
a year. Perhaps we could learn from Vermont and put an end
to this invasion of our eyes and minds, shifting our gaze
back to this beautiful Earth.
Jeremy Kliphouse
Southeast Sherman Street
Philip Dawdy responds: The most valuable billboards
in Portland rent for $15,000 or more per month, but it is
more common that billboards fetch from $800 to $8,000. In
addition to Vermont, Hawaii, Maine and Alaska have statewide
billboard bans. For other jurisdictions with billboard restrictions,
go to www.scenic.org/bb_bans.htm.
WW'S DRESSING-DOWN
Liz Brown, Willamette Week's fashion columnist,
does not typically charm me. In her latest column, however,
she infuriates me. Ms. Brown's article, "Hawthorne's
Rising Star : The Talented Ms. Medoyeff" (June 14, 2000),
goes horribly wrong when she describes Ms. Medoyeff's prices:
"Most pieces are in the reasonably inexpensive $100-$200
range"?
Ms. Medoyeff's clothing is purported to be beautiful, durable
and well-made, and I assume her workers are well-paid (though
it's likely that the Indian workers who make the "exquisite"
fabric she imports are not). These might all be reasons
for her prices to be steep, but Ms. Brown's assumption that
the average Willamette Week reader can easily afford
a $100 or $200 dress is callous at best. A hundred dollars
could buy 10 dresses at Goodwill, a week's worth of groceries
or a month's utility bills for a family.
Ms. Medoyeff's establishment is clearly aimed at providing
luxuries to people with significant disposable income--her
prices could only be considered "inexpensive" by people
who have money just lying around doing nothing. For the
rest of us, buying a dress from Ms. Medoyeff would require
significant stringency in other areas.
In fact, it would be impossible for many Portlanders: According
to the U.S. Census Bureau's estimates, 11 to 16 percent
of Multnomah County residents were living in poverty in
1995. For a family of three, this meant an annual income
of $12,278 or less per year. The average per-capita wage
in Multnomah County in 1995 was less than $18,000
annually.
I doubt even Willamette Week pays its workers at
a rate that would allow them to casually spend $100 or $200
on a piece of clothing, however beautiful. Perhaps Ms. Brown
is fortunate enough to have an additional source of income,
and therefore suffers from a lack of perspective.
Emily-Jane Dawson
Northeast 29th Avenue
TEMP TANTRUM
After reading the article about the
Guerrilla Temps [Q&A, WW, June 21, 2000], there
are a few things that need to be said to this whining bunch
of Gen X-ers. If you are a temp and your contract was canceled
or terminated...get over it. Life does go on, and you should
have known that there were those sorts of risks when you
took on the temp-to-perm assignment. Also, there are many
out there who have had to take jobs that "rot the brain"
through temp agencies because bills needed to be paid. Many
of them would kill to have an opportunity to work in a firm
such as the one that was described in the article, and many
of them, male and female, are duly qualified--except, it
seems, in the area of acting like spoiled brat children.
One has to wonder why it is many dot-coms are having problems
finding employees. Maybe the problem is not so much in the
number of people, but in the quality of those who are in
the employment market.
Randi L. Dennis
Wilsonville
|
