HOT OR NOT?

TO KATIE SHIMER VIA VOICE MAIL: "Hi, Miss Shimer. I'm a Portland Mercury reader and I saw Marjorie Skinner's pictorial ["Hot Off the Presses," Oct 28], which was really fabulous. But my number one request would be to see pictures of you. That would be the hottest thing around. You are one beautiful woman. I hope you can do a back-to-back issue or something because the women of the Portland Mercury are pretty. Thanks!"

TO THE MERCURY: THAT'S your sexiest reporter? Jesus, what a mutt! You're fucking with us, right? Probability demands you must have some chick on the payroll who is at least cute, but this... this is just unacceptable.

Slasher Monkey

TO THE EDITOR: You know what? Nobody gives a shit about pictures of your staff. We like to read the columns... but most people think you guys are a bunch of egomaniacs. And you think that party cover picture was hot [Jenna Roadman, Oct 14]? All I could think was "How many STDs does this chick have?"

Aaron Nielson

JENNA ROADMAN, COVERGIRL OF THE PARTY ISSUE RESPONDS: I have six.

WE WILL NOT BE MOCKED!

TO THE EDITOR: I guess we don't need the corporate press any more, since the Mercury is here to mock anyone who questions official propaganda about what went down on 9/11 ["Letters," Oct 21, in which Pixie postulated that the Bush Administration planted explosives in the World Trade Center, and concocted the threat of al-Qaida]. We're all wacked-out tin-foil-hat nut-jobs who misplaced our meds while searching for Elvis and Bigfoot, right?

So you're buying the government/media conspiracy theory, that 19 Arabs and a guy in a cave were able to penetrate the world's most sophisticated air-defense system with walkie talkies and box cutters, coincidentally giving Cheney, Bush, and Co. everything on their wish list?

If you'd pull your head out of your honey-baked ham, you'd realize that practically every war the US has gotten into started with a staged or falsified event. Remember the Maine? The sinking of the Lusitania? The "surprise attack" on Pearl Harbor? The Gulf of Tonkin? The Kuwaiti babies ripped from the incubators? Why would the "War on Terror" be any different?

Cheney and his sponsors know the oil's almost gone, and they want to control whatever's left. They wrote as early as 1997 that in order to seize the Middle East they would need some kind of cataclysmic attack--a "new Pearl Harbor"--to galvanize the American masses. And they pulled it off. And you fell for it. And you use the freedom of the press to make fun of people who didn't.

Daniel Coble

WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY RESPONDS: Actually we use the freedom of the press to make fun of anyone who deserves it. For example, I'm making fun of YOU because you're wasting time defending a horseshit theory instead of concentrating on what should be our true goal--getting Bush out of office. Good luck on your hunt for Sasquatch.

HONKY, GO HOME!

TO THE EDITOR: Some white people in Portland piss me off. It sickens my stomach to see you walking down NE Alberta and Mississippi, like it's your turf. Please stop thinking you're down because you live in an area that was once populated by gang members.

Gentrification sucks because the shops you guys build don't serve the community that's slowly leaving. Bicycle shops and vegetarian groceries and prissy ass bars? Give me a fucking break. If black people moved to NW 23rd, the white people would be running scared. No more Starbucks, no more restaurants that serve six ounces of chicken for 30 bucks. The Mercury talks about Joe's Place ["Bars of the Damned," Oct 28], but do white people go there? No, because--god forbid--they would be the only cracker in the joint. If white people supported black businesses more then maybe they wouldn't shut down so often. I can't stand this fake ass "we are the world shit." You guys have had everything since the beginning; so let me slap your ass with affirmative action's hand.

ButtaLuve78

CONGRATS TO BUTTALUVE78 for winning the Mercury "Letter of the Week!" For his determined diatribe, ButtaLuve78 will receive two tickets to the cracker-riffic Laurelhurst Theatre and two passes to see all-honky rock band Panthers (part of the Vice Records Tour) on November 12 with the primarily white crowd at Dante's.