FOR THE RECORDS

HELLO—The story on Craig Moerer's "record collection" has a little flaw ["The Record Collector," Feature, Oct 14]. IT IS NOT A RECORD COLLECTION. It is an inventory listed on his web site recordsbymail.com. Next week: The World's Largest Collection of Clothing from China—at TARGET!

-Collector of Dust, COD

MANCHESTER TEARS ARE THE BEST KIND OF TEARS

DEAR MERCURY—It makes complete sense that you would have a tiny column for James and two adoring one-page reviews for a couple of mediocre Scottish-Indie Rock Bands (Teenage Fanclub and Belle and Sebastian) [My, What A Busy Week!; "God Knows it's True" and "This Is Just a Modern Rock Song," Music, Oct 14]. The reason is that James and the Manchester Scene have always been vastly superior in passion and poetic edge to any American indie rock. On the other hand, Belle and Sebastian and TF pander to American indie audiences, they even imitate the soulless, insipid, jaded, cutesy style of American indie.

-Duck Duck

LIKE SO MUCH UNDERWEAR LINT

People will never tire of bitching, nor will the Mercury tire of clinging lovingly to the Mayor's taint like so much underwear lint ["Take Your City and Shove It!" Feature, Oct 14].

-Posted by orgengine on portlandmercury.com

NO TO YES

If TriMet stopped pouring money into streetcars and the little-used MAX (relative to usable capacity) and focused on the buses that actually serve the people of Portland they wouldn't be asking for more money ["Tax Attack!" News, Oct 14]. With the highest income tax in the nation, these measures are becoming incredibly burdensome to the average homeowner in this town. I'd like to see responsible use of the money I am already paying before I give more.

-Posted by BokChoy on portlandmercury.com

SOMEONE WHO'S NEVER SEEN HUMP!

DEAR MERCURY—I find it upsetting to see that a liberal news publication is encouraging the production of pornography [The HUMP! Amateur Porn Festival, Nov 12 & 13, Cinema 21]. I believe the publishers of the Mercury must fail to see how dangerous the production of pornography is. Encouraging folks to make pornography encourages the objectifying of individuals, namely females, and also encourages the spread of disease. These are things that liberal folks fight against, and I believe that this cause trumps the pleasure derived from irritating our conservative religious neighbors. 

-Lu

The Mercury responds: We were too busy watching Portland's hot video submissions for HUMP! to respond to Lu's email—so we opened it up to the commenters from Blogtown to set Lu straight (or in this case, "gay"). Here's the best response from commenter "Lizbo."

Lizbo responds: "I had a ball making porn for HUMP with my lady friends. Maybe Lu hasn't thought of queer ladies making queer lady porn? Or heard of safer sex... or just thinks that porn (and sex in general) means two people and penetration? Get thee to SheBop and learn a thing or two about our own sexuality empowering the fairer sex. Porn is not necessarily a bummer for women (or men or everyone else in between)—it is actually pretty darn fun to make and watch."

THANKS LIZBO, and as for you, Lu? We think you might change your tune if you actually came to a HUMP! screening and saw what it's all about—but in case you don't get tickets (on sale right now at portlandmercury.com), you can watch something else with two passes to the Laurelhurst Theater and lunch at No Fish! Go Fish!, where even blasphemers are served their loaves and fishes.