[EDITOR'S NOTE: Portland is great at a lot of things, but nobody—NOBODY—beats Portland when it comes to complaining. Especially when Portland is complaining about the Portland Mercury. For proof, look no further than these, the Best Letters to the Editor 2006!]

WE'VE FAILED YOU, ROY SMALLWOOD

I FUCKING DARE YOU TO PRINT THIS: How can it be that so many thousands of relatively like-minded, intelligent, aware people can occupy the counterculture of Portland, and still all we have to show for it is the FUCKING MERCURY? Consider that, simply by virtue of your existence as independent media, it is incumbent upon your publication to print something of value—to challenge SOME idea. I am at long last beginning to smell the vile mold of complete irrelevance growing over my town and my culture. And, unlike the cheerleaders of indifference that rule your staff, I don't like the stench of it.

Roy Smallwood

YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS

DEAR MERCURY: The last issue placed Vancouver at the top of your list of things not invited back in 2006 ["20 Things Not Invited Back to 2006," Dec 29]. We own Portland, you idiot. We schlep across the creek everyday to do the jobs you incompetent morons can't. We do what we have to, then we wipe our asses, wash our hands, and go home to our pristine mansions. A little daily downtime in a traffic tie-up is a small price to pay for not having a MAX line and the negro problem it would undoubtedly import.

Anonymous Vancouver Resident

FROM WM. HUMPHREY'S MOM

TO THE EDITOR: In my work in this plagued city, I have loathsome occasion to view your publication. The mocking, blind arrogance and ignorance of your writers have compelled me to reach out. Certain "highly placed" females on your staff in particular seem to make a mission out of glorifying their enormous appetite for drunkenness, chemical abuse, and real or imagined depraved sexual behavior.

I have watched as they beg alcohol from hordes of losers and idiots, swilling gross amounts of poison as their brains die and their ravaged bodies swell from the gluttony. One of these bloated sluts turned her attentions to me as I watched her sickening display. Her glazed, vacant eyes hungrily attacked me, seeking yet another fix for her carnal urges. But your pulsing nipples and trembling thighs shall not have me. My body has a higher purpose than servicing your squirming flesh. The stench of your desire has no power over me.

 Know that Truth will find you, even as you kneel in the puddles of an abandoned parking lot, puking the seed of another wretched poser through your cracked, diseased lips. Spread wide for Truth and it shall enter you. Let the mighty power of Knowledge fill you, and you will shake with the ultimate fulfillment.

Hipster Is a Panty Style

CUT YOUR HAIR; GET A JOB

TO THE EDITOR VIA VOICEMAIL: "My name is Howard, I'm a resident in the Portland area, and I just wanted to give you my two cents on your Portland Mercury. I don't know if you have any kids—but I think you make a mockery of this city. I think your paper is a disgrace. My friend, you ought to find a legitimate job, or at least have your paper have some literary value to it."

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. 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

I REBUKE THEE, MERCURY!

TO THE PORTLAND MERCURY: Your openly perverted ideas are promoted in ads in the Portland Mercury with the exploitation of people's bodies, showing themselves for the pleasures of people they don't even know!!!! God didn't make sex to be exploited, like you do with your group of people who are of immoral values, which deplete our country of growth and healthy living. I am a Child of God, and in the Bible God says that sexual promiscuity and adultery and prostitution and homosexuality is sin. Do you care what you are doing to society??? I don't know where my son got this trashy magazine—he's 19. In the name of my Lord Jesus, I rebuke your work of sexual perversion!!! 

Anonymous