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. HEAVY IN HIS JACKBOOTS You try so damn hard to be hip and court the gay/lesbian/bi/trans market, what with your vapid column and the way you love to throw around the no-longer-radical word "queer." On the one hand you rightly denounce Lon Mabon and his OCA; on the other, you mindlessly print offensive stereotypes in your quest to wear the eternally hip smirk. The review by Caryn B. Brooks, though, has gone entirely too far ["What Ever Happened to Tammy Faye?", WW, Aug. 9, 2000]. Using the term "light in his loafers" to describe a gay man? Well, Ms. Brooks, what's next? Perhaps you could dredge up some offensive stereotypical terms to use (with a knowing smirk, of course) about Asians and blacks. Yeah, that'd be so cutting-edge and hip. Newsflash--we're not your stereotypes. Nor are we your ticket to hip. Instead of impressing this queer, you piss me off. Kevin Clonts Northwest 16th Avenue TREAT THE DISEASE I find it frustrating in all of the concern and coverage that Jon [Beckel] has received, that nobody has mentioned that Jon was a late-stage alcoholic and suffered greatly from the disease ["What Happened to Jon Beckel?," WW, July 12, 2000]. When first hearing about Jon's hospitalization, I assumed that Jon had suffered from a seizure in alcohol withdrawal. Seizures from alcoholic withdrawal can be fatal, and it is as much an unforgivable lapse for the police to fail to assure medical attention to an alcoholic in withdrawal as it is for the police to club an inmate to death. Yet Jon's alcoholism is ignored. Why? Because the general public has no clue that it is not a behavioral choice but a disease that will prove fatal if unchecked. Whether Jon died from complications of an alcoholic seizure, a head wound suffered during a seizure, or a head wound resulting from a personal assault, it is certain that he would be alive today if he had not been drinking. Jon is the second person I have known personally who has died from alcoholism, in Portland, in less than three months. Still, as a society we do little more than blame the alcoholic. Willamette Week covers the tragedy of heroin addiction, but alcoholism is a different story. Why? Kathryn D. Wright Southwest Pine Street