To commemorate the Fourth of July, the Mercury published a cover photo of a man and woman in festive, patriotic outfits playing water sports with a carwash hose on a hot day [Cover here]. And boy! Did the holier-than-everybody hippies at portland.indymedia.org get in a snit about it! And since they were too chicken to send a single letter to us, we've taken the liberty of reprinting some of their unintentionally hilarious (and anonymous) comments. But first, an excerpt from the original article, bravely authored by "KtS":
THE CHICKEN WHO STARTED IT ALL
The suggestion of domination in the particular pose chosen by the Mercury is not only obvious, but clearly intended. Intended not only to shock or titillate, but also to excuse. Part of the Mercury's demographic are the city's hipsters—those mostly white, fashionably dressed, tiny cell-phone carryin' "liberals" you see on N Mississippi, at Last Thursday, or in the Night Light Lounge—and these kids are being told by the Mercury that Sexism Is Okay.
KtS
HUMPY'S EMPTY BARN OF PAIN
That Humphries [sic] guy has done more to degrade discourse than any other print media outlet save the big O. Honestly I wouldn't wipe my ass with that rag. Humpy is just an egomaniac, an empty barn on the inside: Read between the lines of his rag and you can see his pain, and his desperate need to hide how empty he is inside, by encouraging you, his readers, to be just like him.
I have seen
TOO TIRED TO VANDALIZE
You're totally right on with the Mercury misogyny bit. So what can be done about it? Vandalizing Mercury stands? Burning the papers? I would employ these tactics except that (a) the latter hurts the earth, and (b) I'm pretty sure they'll keep churning out more nonsense "news," and if I do this alone I'm certain to run out of energy.
redfacedgrrrl
SPREAD THE BIODIESEL LOVE
DEAR EDITOR: Randy Leonard finds himself in good company in Portland, especially when implementing a push for an ordinance to effectively require even a small and gradual increase of biodiesel blends ["Chasing the Green Dream," News, July 6]. However, the emergence of such a critical step should not be a quiet one. Let's jump on the bandwagon of the commercialization of biodiesel with our tap shoes on.
Jessica Schneider
ROBOT HARMONY
DEAR MERCURY: Recently, Adam Gnade stated that in Transformers: The Movie, we get to "hear a Transformer say 'shit'" [My, What a Busy Week!, July 6]. In reality, the human named Spike says the curse word in question to Bumblebee after the explosion of the bomb they planted on Moon Base Two failed to even make a dent in Unicron. As long as you keep spreading your lies about robots, we as a community will never get past the hurdles involved in creating an environment where humans and robots can live together in peace and harmony.
Randy
CONGRATULATIONS TO RANDY for fleshing out who in fact says "shit" in Transformers: The Movie. It's super important that everybody gets that straight. Randy, you win tix to see the Michael Showalter/Eugene Mirman comedy show Thursday, July 20th at Dante's, plus $30 to No Fish! Go Fish!, where robots are always welcome.
