DOGGIE DRAMA

RE: “The Mercury’s Cutest Pet Photo Contest” [Feature, Aug 9], in which readers voted to determine Portland’s cutest pet. In last week’s Letters to the Editor [Aug 16], we published one reader’s concerns that the voting process had been hacked in favor of one dog, Louie: “And almost every 30 seconds, Louie is gaining, like, 10 votes. It’s a little bit fishy.” Later that day, we discovered roughly 1,000 votes for Louie coming from the same IP address—and thus we DISQUALIFIED Louie. “We take cheating very seriously here at the Mercury, and future attempts to rig our competition will not be tolerated,” we wrote [“Cheating Will Not Be Tolerated in the Mercury’s Pet Photo Contest,” Blogtown, Aug 16.] “Also, this is way more effort than we’d planned to put into a goddamn CUTE PET PHOTO COMPETITION, and also why we can’t have nice things.”

You guys are being complete assholes about this pet photo contest and Louie getting so many votes. His owner has A LOT of friends and family and we’ve shared the link over and over again to get votes. I guess the competitors can’t take any other pet being cuter than theirs. You’ve turned this cute little stupid pet photo contest into a bad, horrible scandal just to cause drama and get more readers, as the media usually does.

You’ve publicly embarrassed his owner who has nothing but good intentions. You have no proof of cheating, as you’ve mentioned.

Also, where exactly does it say on the voting page that there’s no more than one vote per person??? Did you even talk to his owner? No, you didn’t! You’ve made a mockery of this contest and your company and you should be ashamed of yourselves. All those votes Louie got are readers that you have now lost.

Reagan

NASA PROPAGANDA

RE: “Flat Earth, Eclipsed,” part of our Eclipse Issue [Aug 16], about flat-Earthers’ attempts to explain the eclipse. “In roughly 300 BCE, Greek philosopher Aristotle changed everything by mansplaining that, actually, our planet is a rotating sphere. The flat-Earth theory was debunked,” Kathleen Marie wrote. “Except... in 2017, in the case of people who still think Earth is flat.”

I saw your flat-Earth article online, and I disagreed. You mention a lot of good stuff, and then you just—all the sudden—said the Earth was a spinning sphere. But I didn’t understand why, or how. Please, could you write another article and put some more light on this? Maybe put some light on NASA? Because it’s happening, and the eclipse is big, and you might want to jump on it.

Anonymous, via voicemail

Hello, Mr. Manager. I read your article about the eclipse with the flat-Earthers. I don’t agree that this eclipse proves that we live on a spinning sphere. I’m not asking you to retract the statement, but maybe just to give it another chance. We might be living on a stationary Earth with moving lights instead. If you have time, please write another article in favor of the Earth being level and motionless.

Besides that, it was a great article. Thank you.

Anonymous, via voicemail

Your report on the flat Earth being a lie is so COMPLETLY stupid, and so obviously geared towards making the rock-solid evidence that the Earth is indeed flat seem ridiculous, that it should have “NASA PROPAGANDA” stamped on it. Ignoring all evidence of the flat plane that we do in fact live on is so absolutely ridiculous that it’s almost funny. There is no proof that the world is round, just NASA CGI cartoons and fakery. Answer this: If the Earth is actually spinning at 1,000 miles an hour, how could the clouds hang almost MOTIONLESS IN THE SKY WITH US SPINNING 1,000 MILES AN HOUR UNDER (that’s beneath) THE CLOUDS? IT’S IMPOSSIBLE! THE CLOUDS WOULD BE SPEEDING PAST US AT NEAR MACH 1. YOU PEOPLE ARE LAUGHABLE AND YOUR ABILITY TO FOOL THE WORLD INTO BELIEVING THIS NONSENSE IS COMING TO AN END SO FAST IT CAN’T BE STOPPED. THERE IS NO BALL. THE EARTH IS COMPLETLY FLAT. NO MATTER HOW HIGH YOU GO, THE HORIZON RISES AT EYE LEVEL AND YOUR ARTICLE IS TOTAL BULLSHIT. BUT I’M SURE YOU’RE UNDER CONTRACT FROM NASA TO HELP PUSH THEIR AGENDA OF FOOLING THE WORLD AND HIDING GOD BUT THAT’S OKAY, MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE WAKING UP TO THE TRUTH EVERY DAY. DO SOME RESEARCH YOU IGNORANT MINDLESS PUPPETS AND JOIN THE REAL WORLD. INSANE.

Jeffery McCarty

This is usually when we award the Mercury letter of the week—and two passes to the Laruelhurst Theater—to whoever wrote the best letter! Unfortunately, this week you’re all fucking nuts, so we’re using the passes ourselves. Goodbye!

Letters and comments may be edited for space. Email us at lovenotes@portlandmercury.com.