I SWEAR I DON'T CARE

DEAR MERCURY—Okay, that does it. Your news is laughable, you pander to the basest, cheapest cross-section of the local population, and I don't even care enough to list a third element of your multi-faceted worthlessness. Imagine my surprise to find big sappy apologies all over the last issue to Thomas Beatie [Letters and One Day at a Time, April 17]. I don't care enough about you or your worthless magazine to tell you why you're gutless and ball-less.

 Nathan Daniels

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

DEAR MERCURY—RE: the letter from "Douglas" [Letters, April 24]: Like you and me, Thomas Beatie has an innate sense of gender identity, and a mental map of what his brain thinks his body should be. Unlike you (I assume), Beatie and I have bodies whose topography is at odds with our self-knowledge. Like you and me, Beatie dresses and acts so as to reinforce his internal identity: That's gender presentation, and everyone does it (usually without thinking much about it). Unlike you (I assume), Beatie and I have also had to take certain steps to buttress our gender presentations by altering our secondary sex characteristics. The only difference between Beatie or me and the next guy on the street is that it's taken a little more effort for the likes of us to make our presentation match our identities. When you meet a new person, you observe their gender presentation and categorize them as a man or a woman accordingly. You don't categorize them by looking at their penis, at their vagina, at their chromosomes, or by asking them to prove their ability or lack of ability to reproduce, or the lack thereof. I assure you that our masculinity does not in any way diminish yours. Only you can do that.

Tim Chevalier

CITIZEN IDIOT

DEAR MERCURY—Hey, that citizen is an absolute idiot ["Turning the Tables," News, April 17, regarding a citizen citing a police officer for a parking infraction]. So what if the officer was parked in a no-parking zone getting his lunch? What happens if while he's inside, a serious emergency call is dispatched and he has to respond immediately? That officer is still on duty even when he's eating his lunch. I hope that citizen never needs a police officer in a hurry.

Sergeant45

TRAIPSING OUR PAGES

OH MERCURY—How I love thee, let me count the ways... (1) When you're offensive, you crack my ass up. (2) When you offend others, you crack my ass up. (3) Every single one of your writers, articles, comics, and so on crack my ass up. I don't know how many more cracks could possibly be on my ass but please, please keep offending me and all the other readers that dare traipse the pages of the best fucking weekly we'll ever see!

Nashyra Tuininga

SUCK 'EM & SHUT IT

DEAR MERC—[To I, Anonymous, "Cracking the Window Whip," April 24] Sorry, but when you begin your request to a bunch of people AFTER you've used an array of adjectives that have nothing to do with their personality in general (fat, ugly, smelly, I mean Christ, you're more intolerant of trivial attributes than the KKK), I can only think of one equally unhelpful suggestion: Suck my balls and shut the fuck up.

Doug Young

JUNKIE GEOGRAPHY

DEAR MERCURY—As a longstanding member of Portland's drug abuse subculture, I would like to point out the very basic and egregious flaw in the title of [Gus Van Sant's] recent movie Paranoid Park. First of all, what is referred to as "Paranoid Park" is actually just the Burnside Skatepark, and has no commonly used nickname at all, as the movie would lead you to believe. Secondly, as anyone who has ever bought drugs on the street in downtown Portland would know, the actual spot known as Paranoid Park is O'Bryant Square. The reason for this is that it is located across the street from a police sub-station, and is the site for much of the methamphetamine and heroin traffic in Southwest. I would think a Portlander so in touch with the youthful masses of PDX, such as Van Sant, would know this, but then again maybe it's just bullshi... I mean, poetic license.

 Vik, former street junkie

AND THEY SAY DRUGS make you stupid! Congratulations to Vik on kicking the smack and winning this week's Mercury letter prize. He gets two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater and lunch at No Fish! Go Fish!, where only the fish are paranoid. (And how can you blame them? That name is disorienting.)