IF YOU SAY SOW
KAREN K. JAMES—I hope you’re trolling [“Didn’t Even Finish Reading the Headline,” Letters, May 20]. I seriously hope you are. If you aren’t, then I’ll be praying to God tonight (I’m an atheist) that you die or learn by some mishap/adventure that judging a book by its content instead of its cover without assumption of context is helpful. The column had nothing to do with beating exclusively women, and everything to do with antithesis satire. The article in fact states that Mr. [Wil] Wheaton will be boning people’s girlfriends, which it would be rude of me to assume means that all of the people at the convention are straight males with their lady companions [“All Right Bitches, Who Wants a Beatin’? by Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s Wil Wheaton,” New Column! May 6]. You could have called that demeaning and objectifying to women, but you instead jumped to the conclusion that bitch automatically means woman, making you a sexist pig… sow? I don’t really care.
-Alex Christiansen
MOODY
At one time or another, every one of us could probably be diagnosed with a mood disorder [“Another Mentally Ill Man Dead,” News, May 20]. If you’ve ever been really depressed, sad, blue, over or under slept, over or under ate, felt no pleasure, etc., you’ve had a mood disorder. This is no excuse for being a criminal. Mercury, stop painting people as robots or dumb animals with no choices. We’re better than that, or worse than that as the case may be.
-posted by Spartacus on portlandmercury.com
CONFRONTATION PROCLAMATION
The sequence was, the guy yelled obscenities, he was Tasered twice, he then leaned over to the glove compartment to get a gun [“Another Mentally Ill Man Dead,” News, May 20]. Look, a cop’s job is to avoid confrontation when possible. When a cop reacts with violence (Taser) in response to words (yelled obscenities), then the cop is promoting a confrontation. And that’s what the police bureau has done in nearly all the fatal shootings of the past few years.
-posted by TimB on portlandmercury.com
SHINE
The questions are simple: Would this [planned mentally ill crisis center] have prevented the [Keaton] Otis shooting [“Help Is on the Way… Perhaps,” News, May 20]? The Jackie Collins shooting? The Aaron Campbell shooting? The beanbag girl beatdown? The [insert beat-up mentally ill person here] beating? Nope—but pay no attention to the mentally ill people behind the curtain! Look at the fancy new building! Isn’t it shiny?
posted by Number 6 on portlandmercury.com
AVRIL LAVIGNE: ROCK GODDESS
MRS. ANN ROMANO—Normally I agree with your week in review. In this case you are dead wrong [One Day at a Time, May 20]. LiLo is a pop star wannabe, Avril is a rock goddess. LiLo has no career to speak of, Avril is a chart topper. LiLo is plain and mousy lookin’, Avril is smokin’ hot. So lay off Avril. I still have her video “I Want to Be Your Girlfriend” in my dreams at night.
-TOMMYCAT
CONGRATULATIONS TO TOMMYCAT for his misguided but passionate defense of Avril Lavigne. Never claim we here at the Mercury don’t appreciate gallantry. TOMMYCAT gets two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater and lunch at No Fish! Go Fish! where pop stars are duly revered.
What is wrong with people who subscribe to cliques? Is inanity “enough” for these chodes? Does snubbing people not already “in” give them the warm fuzzies and declare, somewhere in their little-used brains, their lives to be meaningful or accomplished?
Speaking of books, does last week’s letter writter KAREN K. JAMES think that BITCH magazine is mysoginistic too?
Who the fuck ever said a cops job is to avoid confrontation? That has to be one of the most misinformed, ignorant fucking statements I have ever heard.
If TimB wasn’t so sure of his own intelligence, he would realize that every thing a cop does is a confrontation. From a simple traffic stop to a domestic violence call, it is all confrontation. What TimB has obviously never taken the time to understand is that the VERY presence of a uniformed officer is considered a use of force, failure to promptly comply with an officers orders justifies an increase in the degree of force used.
Maybe if the police saw traffic citations, domestic disputes, and disorderly conduct calls as something other than an opportunity to confront and ultimately dominate, we would have less dead crazies. Crazy people don’t always comprehend compliance as a means to an outcome they will benefit from…that’s why we call them “crazy”.
So fuck the police and everyone else who is too callous to care about anything other than their own safety. Motherfucker, we pay you to put your life on the line, not to shoot and gutstomp every sorry sack of shit who remotely resembles a threat to your personal safety.