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WHY IS PINK HAIR A RIGHT?
Dear WW: You say it's "silly and counterproductive" to disallow pink hair at Powell's at the airport ("Rogue of the Week," March 11). To me it's jarring, distracting, and unprofessional. But hey, we mustn't restrict anyone's right to self-expression now, right?

Your sense of entitlement in this case betrays an "anything goes if I want to" mentality. Since the people in your circle probably don't object to unconventional lifestyle choices, you just can't understand it when someone out there does object.

If people want to wear wacky hair at work let them find a like-minded employer and a sympathetic landlord.

Matthew Sproul
Southeast Powell Boulevard

WIND POWER IS STILL BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVES
[Re: "A Mighty Wind," WW, March 11, 2009:] Oil and coal companies have kept their prices low through a vast and complex system of subsidies that are carefully hidden from the public. The "pump price" is only a fraction of the true cost. It's easy to think that the open and direct subsidies to wind and solar are excessive until you put a little thought into fossil fuel economics.

As for wind farms killing some bats and birds, yes, it is regrettable. But I must ask, have you seen a removed mountaintop with its rock and soil and effluents poisoning entire river valleys? Or been at the site of an oil spill where the stuff is bubbling up years after the event? Portland's harbor is a Superfund site where oil and oil-based products were dumped for years and will cost millions to clean up. The worst of our environmental damage and threats to our future have been caused by fossil fuel extraction, transport, processing and uses—there are disasters everywhere.

So I cannot understand why people balk at making this great change to renewables, and nitpick perceived flaws, while they are either ignorant or silent about the massive problems and costs that oil and coal have created, which we will be lucky to survive.

"Mike OBrien"
via wweek.com

CORRECTION: Last week's cover story "A Mighty Wind" incorrectly stated the annual projected output of Biglow Canyon. It is 1.3 million megawatt-hours, not 1.3 million megawatts. WW regrets the error.

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