Letters to the Editor

A REALLY GRUMPY HIPPIE

DEAR MERCURY—As someone who grew up here, no one will be happier than me when the Portland hype dies. I’m not glossing over the past, but the infestation of hipsters and hype has turned a town where substance mattered, to a place where people get way too much satisfaction from self-indulgence and vanity. We used to be Meryl Streep and now we’re Tara Reid. And just like Tara Reid we’re blindly imitating and creating second-rate versions of other people’s claims to fame. So to the “Fake it ‘Til You Make It” crowd I have a humble request: Please start faking tact. And call me when you get back to the rock you crawled out from, ’cause I’m breaking out the Birkenstocks, bitches!

-Trevor Warren

GETTING FREAKY

MATT—If you commit a crime you are a criminal and should go to jail or prison [“The Criminalization of Mental Illness,” Feature, Jan 14]. It should NOT matter at ALL if you are a mental freak! Chasse got what he deserved and maybe the cops can put a few more mental freaks out of their misery as well… they are nothing but a HUGE drain on society. You really need to start acting like a news writer and NOT an opinion writer, it’s getting REALLY old.

-posted by FIRE MATT DAVIS NOW! on portlandmercury.com

A CIVIL PILL

I want to correct an inaccuracy in this article [“The Criminalization of Mental Illness,” Feature, Jan 14]. Hospitals cannot force medications until a judge has committed someone—and this happens very rarely indeed. Hospitals accept patients all of the time who meet criteria for a notice of mental illness. But you can’t hospitalize someone against their will—even if they are in jail—without proof that their mental illness presents DIRECT danger to themselves or others. In the end, I think the biggest conundrum we have here is a civil rights question. As long as we continue to provide equal civil rights to the mentally ill to refuse treatment, there will be a refusal to take the unpleasant drugs which keep them off the streets and out of the jails and hospitals.

-posted by spartacus on portlandmercury.com

AT EVERYONE’S SERVICE

SARAH [MIRK]—Good piece on the new laws for the first of the year [“New Year, New Laws!” News, Jan 7]. We noticed, though, that protected leave for service members’ spouses (created by HB 2744) was described as hetero only. Because of the catch-all language in HB 2007, specifying that “Any privilege, immunity, right, or benefit granted by statute… to an individual because the individual is or was married… is granted on equivalent terms, substantive and procedural, to an individual because the individual is or was in a domestic partnership,” BOLI’s [Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries] administrative rules DO cover registered domestic partners as well as spouses under the law.

-Bob Estabrook, Office of the Commissioner, Oregon BOLI

KILL POOP ON YOUR TV

HI MERCURY—In regard to the article titled “New Year, New Laws!” by Sarah Mirk [News, Jan 7], I want to thank Sarah for the great entertainment, but I would also like clarification. In the section on TV dumping, she pointed out that while dumping your TV is illegal, it is in fact legal to take a dump ON your TV in most circumstances. Did she mean to imply that television is worthless? Or was it simply that pooping on a television is a fun activity which we should all try once in our lifetime?

-Evan

EVAN, WE THINK that both interpretations have their merits, so long as you are still able to access Mad Men and 30 Rock via Hulu. Better yet, see a movie with your two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater and lunch at No Fish! Go Fish!, where inappropriate dumping is definitely illegal.