GREETINGS—I am a staunch 99 percent citizen and supporter and I wanted to let you know about something that I think could hurt the movement badly. I think some smart one percent person slipped a postcard into the Portland Mercury [paid insert, Nov 10]. The letter states that the writer is a 21-year-old Army wife with $120,000 debt for college that she didn't finish because it was too expensive. How did she obtain a loan that big without a good paying job, or at least a co-sign from a parent or guardian with a stable job? Why was she staying in a "ghetto motel with prostitutes and drug addicts"? What about military housing? If this postcard is actually distributed by the 99 percent, then the letter should be coming from a 59-year-old who has worked and fought their whole life to obtain the life they have now, without pensions, due to corporate greed, who doesn't have health care options because they cannot be afforded against buying bread. This 21-year-old "Army wife" has no idea, nor the person who gave the go-ahead to print this flyer.
-GS
DEAR MIRK AND EDITOR—In response to "We Have Enough Humans, Thanks" [Feature, Nov 10, about young people taking permanent steps not to have children]. We also have enough young people who make really poor choices, the kid who starts smoking at 15, the girl who gains self-worth by sleeping around at 17, and the idiot who does a beer run at 20 because he can't wait until 21 to buy his own damn beer. So yes, there should be an age that one must mature to, to have sterilization considered. Yes, I am a young mother and yes, I gave up a career at 25 to be a stay-at-home mom. It's really rewarding knowing that you are imparting knowledge and being held responsible for something that requires a ton of patience and love. Unlike Portland dog owners, who lock your dogs in your apartments and go off to work for eight-plus hours, only to return home to take them for a walk and let them pee on the same 8' x 3' patch of dead grass every day.
-OHart
THANK YOU, MERCURY!—After fighting my growing disgust as people everywhere "celebrate" the fact that the Earth's population has now reached a staggering and unmanageable seven billion, and watching news reports that Michelle Duggar has joyfully announced her 20th pregnancy, it was a heartening relief to read your story about people in their prime child-bearing years choosing instead to be sterilized ["We Have Enough Humans, Thanks," Feature, Nov 10]. Global overpopulation leads to famine, environmental damage, disease, animal endangerment and extinction, increased prices of food and drinking water... the list goes on and on. Having as many children as you want is no longer a personal decision: It's a global one.
-Lily-Rygh Glen
DEAR MERCURY—I am so grateful for your article this week on young adults who have made the choice to be childless and the difficulty of getting medical procedures to support that decision ["We Have Enough Humans, Thanks," Feature, Nov 10]. I'm a 24-year-old woman, college educated, in a stable relationship, and I'm hoping to save up to get sterilized as soon as I can. It's getting increasingly frustrating when people find out that I never want children and tell me, "Oh, you're young, you'll change your mind, blah blah blah," without them even asking me WHY I don't want kids, as if my feeble 24-year-old woman brain is just overestimating the immense sacrifice it is to raise a family.
-Miss Rocketship
CONGRATULATIONS TO MISS ROCKETSHIP and her un-feeble young woman brain for winning this week's Mercury letter of the week! She wins two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater, where children are allowed for shows starting prior to 5:30 pm.
