Letters to the Editor

To Taylor Clark: Thank you for the article on "The New Urban Sprawl" [WW, Jan. 14, 2004], which was informative and readable.

I have issue, however, with the formula used to find out BMI. There is a fitness expert named Joe Decker. He weighs 185 pounds and stands 5-foot-8. That gives him a BMI of 28.12. That figure puts him in the overweight category, pushing near obese. The Guinness Book of World records in 2000 named him the "fittest man." (Decker wrote a book, The World's Fittest You.) An article about him appeared in the Portland Tribune.

I'd like to know how age affects weight gain and skews the BMI figures. I'm 54 years young, with a BMI of 27. I know I can outperform most anyone in my age bracket.

My point is that a person should know if they are overweight, and formulas are helpful but don't tell the whole story.

I don't think anyone can dispute that as a state we are overweight by appearance and agree on corrective actions: PE classes for everyone in school, put Oregonians to work at decent wages, turn on the sun during the winter. I admit I have no sympathy for fat people, but I usually keep that to myself.

Tony Bevel
Sherwood

NAYSAYERS UNITE

I read the Nose ["Charting a New Course in Pettiness," WW, Jan. 21, 2004] and the John Charles letter [Mailbox, WW, Jan. 14, 2004] today and felt compelled to clarify something which may be helpful.

The views expressed in both pieces on the Portland Public Schools' treatment of the Arthur Academy charter-school application were perfectly on target. However, I can't help but think the Nose (certainly not John Charles) likely believes the conduct by the PPS educrats is an exception to their everyday performance. It is not. The actions by the district administrators to obstruct the establishment of this very viable public charter school were standard operating procedures. Wholly expected and dealt with by the applicants.

The petty nature of the task force's objections emanate from a desire to stomp on any challenge to the status quo system even at the expense of students. That same approach can be found in district after district, at the Oregon Department of Education, the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, at the Oregon School Boards Association and with the teachers' unions.

I applaud WW for publishing such an ultra-clear example why a NO VOTE on Measure 30 can be the first step to purging this brand of management from our Public School System.

VOTE NO, the rest will follow.

Steve Schopp
Tualatin

TAKE A LOOK AT THE MENU

John Charles covers a lot of ground in his letter, but his report that the School Board is "openly hostile" to charters is without grounds.

It's clear Charles needs more information about the broad range of choices available in Portland Public Schools. There is already diversity and choice in our school district, ranging from neighborhood schools to focus programs and options. We have options such as Benson's health occupations and professional technical, Peninsula's year-round school, and Winterhaven's math-science program. Many neighborhood schools also focus on a specific curriculum (i.e., the arts at Humboldt Elementary and Jackson Middle School). And, to improve family choice and provide equity, we undertook a major initiative last year to increase access to all our school options.

The School Board has granted six charters, including three new charters in the past two years: Trillium Charter (Northeast Portland), Emerson Charter (Northwest Portland), and SEI Charter (Northeast Portland).

The Board reviews charter applications using rigorous standards set forth in the law. We have a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers and are accountable to students to ensure that the charter school will provide a quality education which includes meeting standards for curriculum and instruction.

We view charters as one possible item for families to choose from among the broad range of choices on the Portland Public School menu.

Lolenzo Poe
Julia Brim-Edwards
Co-Chairs, Portland School Board

MONOPOLY MONEY

John Charles' logic was flawed in his letter regarding charter schools. He states that the negotiations between the School Board and the teachers union unsurprisingly result in a "high-cost outcome" because they are a monopoly bargaining with a cartel. However, he fails to mention where the high cost is actually coming from: the spiraling costs of a privatized health-care system along with the extortionist rates of private health insurance.

Toni Ferro
Northeast Rodney Street

POETRY CRAM

After reading the short piece in the Jan. 14 issue on poet Billy Collins and his sold-out visit to Portland ["All About Me"], I wasn't surprised to realize that it was written by your usual film critic, Steffen Silvis. I mean, don't poets and their work have a difficult enough time being recognized as real artists in this sports- and Hollywood-crazed consumership of a country of ours without having their work reviewed and commented on by someone, like Silvis, who readily admits in his article that he's only read Collins' poems when they appear in magazines he reads, and then describes how he basically crammed to read Collins' collected work before writing his review (reminding me of a college student before a final exam)? It would be different if Silvis also admitted that he wasn't really in the know about the poet and his work and so offered his article as nothing more than his personal opinion about what he so hastily read of Collins' work. But, come on, poetry isn't another fast-food meal to be gulped down and then passed judgment on. And who would want it to be?

Granted, Silvis is surely entitled to his personal feelings about Collins' poetry, but Collins' work, not unlike that of William Stafford, who was also dissed for his common-word approach when he first began to write, resonates at many, many levels of appeal besides the little bit Silvis commented on. Levels of meaning that reveal themselves over many readings and the subsequent thought about what has been read.

With so many talented writers and poets writing in such a variety of styles in Portland, maybe next time Silvis can step aside and call on his network of contacts to recommend someone else (like someone who has committed more time to reading a poet, or even studied with said poet) for the job of telling us Oregonians about the poets who come visit us in Portland. I find reading an article that says more about the author's unpreparedness for the writing task than it does about insights into the subject of the article, well, to borrow a term, tedious. I look forward to the

articles in your pages that reflect the words of those who are passionate about (one way or the other) what and/or whom they are writing about.

Lilian Gael
Southeast 46th Avenue

Editor's Note: Although Steffen Silvis writes movie reviews occasionally, he is notorious mainly as WW's theater critic. Our usual film critic, Screen Editor David Walker, does admit he's never read Billy Collins' work.

WWeek 2015