NOT RUINED, JUST A NEW HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE
Your article “RIP Cancer Caves” [WW, Dec. 24, 2008] and the picture of a SE Portland liberal hipster as a modern-day Marlboro Man misses the point of Oregon’s new smoke-free laws. Instead of romanticizing the lost ambiance of smoking in bars, why don’t you take us back to the nostalgic days of West Virginia coal mining in the 19th century? From where I sit, no person’s indulgence or profit should come at the expense of another person’s health. So while you think it is cool to lament the loss of smoking enclaves and bartenders with a smoke dangling from their lips, I prefer to consider Del, my local watering hole bartender for the past 15 years. Thanks to “neo-puritan fuckwads” he no longer has to breathe the smoke off your cancer stick.

Phil Donovan
Southwest 65th Avenue

CHEERING FOR CHANNING
Thank you so much for your thoughtful feature on Channing Frye [“Here Today…,” WW, Dec. 24, 2008]. From the time he was traded to Portland, labeling himself a “buffet of goodness,” I’ve been a fan—how could you not like such a hard-working, funny, congenial guy? [I am] a lifelong Blazers fan, [and] Channing rates as one of my favorites. This is partly because the trade that brought him here symbolized the final nail in the coffin of the Jail Blazers Era, but more so because Channing seemed to immediately embrace our city in way that a player hasn’t since Jerome Kersey and the late Kevin Duckworth.

If indeed there is not a future for Channing with the Portland Trail Blazers, I’m definitely one fan who will be cheering for him when he returns to the Rose Garden in another team’s uniform.

“Sarah”
via wweek.com

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS
[Re: “Gunning for Secrecy,” WW, Dec. 24, 2008]: You guys are just making this request to agitate things. There is no compelling reason to make these names public. The Mail Tribune nor Willamette Week have the resources or access to the Federal NCIC criminal and other databases that are used by sheriffs offices to determine the suitability of concealed handgun permit candidates. As a matter of fact, you have no credentials to make any judgments on these matters and should butt out. I can just see what your idiot reporters would do with a list. You would compare some court documents, divorce cases are good example, and use the public document “Summons and Complaint” with their spurious unproven accusations to unjustifiably accuse and embarrass legal permit holders.

If WWeek is so eager to do some investigative reporting, why instead don’t you audit the electric companies and see if they are overselling sustainable electricity.

“John Benton”
via wweek.com

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