DISS ON OUR COMIC STRIPS

STRANGER: Who are the people so concerned with their own personal lives that they fail to realize the folly of their own ways in the hiring of comic artists so inept they probably got their master's degrees in art from their mothers with whom these idiots are no doubt still living. These losers make Carrot Top look like a comic genius. (The strips so being described are Maakies, Underworld, and Bidge and Mona.) The obituary page in the Seattle Times has a more keen insight into what might brighten a person's day with a little comic relief than these jestering imbeciles. Please do the readers of The Stranger an enormous favor and show these outlandishly unfunny hacks the front door (or the back alley, since that is where they will no doubt be living due to lack of job opportunities for the tragically unfunny).

Readers of America Concerned for the Betterment of Newsprint

THE FIRST BOGOTAN

ERICA C. BARNETT: I ran into your article ["Fast Lane Fallacy," Nov 24] by absolute chance, but I found it very interesting. I am Colombian from our capital, Bogotá, which now has a fairly extensive BRT in place after several years of debating the same questions that you seem to be facing today. We called our system the Transmilenio (I guess it was supposed to "transport us to the new millennium") and it was an attempt to bring order to the chaotic semiprivate transportation system that still carries most people in Bogotá.

I am no transportation expert, but you seem to gloss over the cost factor when dealing with BRTs. Bogotá considered building a subway system for many years, but the cost of maintaining and building such a system was just too prohibitive and the subway was never built. Another city in Columbia, Medellín, actually did build a light-rail system but it took 10 years to complete, its construction was full of cost overruns, and when it was finished it only covered a very small part of the city. In contrast, the Transmilenio system was put in place in much less time for a fraction of the cost and it transports more people per day than the much older, costlier metro lines do (or probably ever will).

With regard to travel speed and "buses being stuck in traffic": From my own personal experience I can tell you that a bus can go quite fast when it doesn't have to negotiate uncomfortable stops at the side of the road, or drivers that are not interested in yielding to the bus, and so on. The system is also quite a bit more flexible than a rail line ever could be, since the design of the roads that the system runs on allows the transit authority to have "super-express" buses that will go from one end of town to downtown with few or even no stops, making a journey that could take hours in mere minutes even despite the fact that the buses do have to stop at traffic lights.

I hope I was the first Bogotan to write you about this. We are quite proud of our big, red buses and see them as a sign of progress, so I wouldn't be surprised if more Bogotans wrote you about Transmilenio.

Sebastián A

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

ERICA BARNETT: You wrote: "Promises like these have been alluring cities since at least the 1960s, when bus manufacturer General Motors began aggressively pushing BRT [bus rapid transit] as an alternative to rail."

The purpose of BRT has always been to eliminate mass transit. From Wikipedia (which has the best rumors on the internet):

General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy

"The General Motors streetcar conspiracy refers to a contention that General Motors (GM), acting in conjunction with several other companies and through the National City Lines (NCL) holding company, illegally acquired many streetcar systems in various cities around the United States, dismantled and replaced them with buses for the express purpose of promoting the automobile."

There was even a public television documentary about this travesty. It's sad that a "progressive" city like Seattle, filled with "progressives" like Richard Conlin, keeps falling for the same old tricks. Am I the only person who's seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Jason Aaron Osgood

PRAISE FOR THE PEERLESS

ERICA BARNETT: Thanks again for yet another brilliant column in this week's Stranger. Your readers have come to expect nothing less from you as you set the standard for the highest-level reportage in the nation (and you certainly don't have any competition whatsoever in Seatown).

Your coverage of all the facts and variables always makes for invigorating reading. While I don't in any way mean to slight Josh Feit, who does much admirable reporting, nor Dan Savage, who occasionally does great stuff, you are the pinnacle of true journalism—something long missing in this society today.

No one who reads your columns should ever have any excuse for not understanding the issues at hand.

James

HE FORGOT THE GLASS OF BORDEAUX

DAN SAVAGE: coming from Norfolk, Virginia, where brothermen writers, musicians, artists, are plentiful, I am not at all impressed with Charles Mudede. Just 'cause he comes from Africa and has managed to guilt PLU out of a paycheck, he's still a corny-ass brother to me. Let me see Mudede make that Dickens-Nietzsche work at Norfolk State University (kickass, prominent black university in Virginia). The university prez would bust out laughing.

But let's get to the point: I am pissed at Mudede for ruining a perfectly good column with his transparent boredom of everyday crime. Lately he turns each Police Beat column into a stupid-ass "classics" hour. All that is missing is a red robe, a fireplace, and a pipe. I want to read about crime; fuck Nietzsche, Dickens, and all that other corny classics bullshit you've been trying to cram down our throats for the past few years. You want to cram classics? Why not Henry Miller? Grass? Hugo? Anything but religion disguised as classic literature or worse yet, your terrible poetry. Please, Dan Savage, give Mudede a book-review column, or better yet, give him a 10-part series reviewing Emily Dickinson, but get another Police Beat writer who will just give us all the facts, nice and dirty, without crazy hidden religious agendas.

Ray Godinez

SOME PEOPLE LOVE MUDEDE'S POETRY

CHARLES MUDEDE: Likely, you receive scads of e-mail. A probability that has—until now—dissuaded me of sending along my appreciation of your work... But, what the heck?

If your talent for an incredibly well-turned phrase forces you to wade through and delete one after another missive... so it goes.

Only Messrs. James Kirkpatrick and Dan Savage previously have inspired me to tap against and reach through the glass between audience and journalist.

Anyway, thanks for your writing. It is a real pleasure to read.

Josh McIntyre

AW, SHUCKS

HEY JENNIFER MAERZ: I just wanted to thank you for the very flattering review ["The New Romantics: The Tough & Lovely's Wooing Powers," Oct 13]. It's always great to get a good review, but it's even sweeter when the person who writes it is actually knowledgeable and talented at writing. I rarely forward any band stuff to my parents, but I forwarded them your review. Thanks.

Andy/T&L

JOSH FEIT IS SO WRONG

Josh Feit is so right [CounterIntel, Nov 24]! We obviously need new blood in the House for '06! We should totally trade experienced, principled, willing-to-represent-us-no-matter-the-political-cost Democratic Representatives with Dark Horse, inexperienced, centrist candidates! God knows we have just not had enough moving to the center in this country! Until we have moved so far to the "center" that we could be sitting on Tom DeLay's lap, we need to stay on the move in that direction! After all, what has Jim McDermott done but stand up and say NO to the BUSH AGENDA every step of the way, every time, no flip-flopping. We didn't really need someone to do that, did we?

Nancie Kosnoff

HE'S WRONG WRONG WRONG

EDITOR: Josh Feit is wrong wrong wrong. Completely haywire, ass-from-a-hole-in-the-ground wrong.

Jim McDermott is the brightest, most engaged, most socially progressive congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives. Period.

McDermott has been a vocal advocate of universal health care. He founded and chairs the Congressional Task Force on HIV/AIDS. He has strongly opposed oil exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and Yellowstone National Park. And lest we forget, he was among the first, loudest, and most strident national politicians to come out against this god-awful war.

If McDermott has been marginalized, it's as a result of the Neanderthals who fill hundreds of seats in our anachronistic Congress. If he has had trouble establishing his "clout" it's because he has advocated positions that were years ahead of most legislators' head-in-the-sand policies. Swapping McDermott for some DLC moderate is the surest way to wind up with a congress full of the same say-no-evil centrist Democrats that have mired us in our current political purgatory. Trading him for a young iconoclast is a one-way ticket to further marginalization.

Feit's inane suggestions are regressive, counterproductive, and outright wrong, especially now that more congresspeople are finally catching up with McDermott's progressive ideas. McDermott may be Seattle's status quo, but in this case, the "status quo" represents the way forward for the rest of the country. Feit can keep his revolution to himself.

Joshua Okrent

AND HIS ARGUMENTS ARE FLIMSY

I take strong issue with Josh Feit's flimsy arguments to "oust" Congressman Jim McDermott. Feit acknowledges upfront that McDermott is a "good liberal" and that he doesn't even have many complaints about his politics. So what bothers Feit? Allegedly, McDermott doesn't get "stuff" done. I guess my definition of "stuff" differs from Feit's. Jim McDermott has been an unwavering, progressive voice amidst a vast sea of timid, fearful Democrats. Standing up for principles and speaking the truth is the highest order of "stuff" to me. It is what the "Democratic revolution" Feit advocates needs to be all about—and it is what Jim McDermott has and always will be about.

Beverly Marcus

MISTAKES LIKE THIS ONE TEAR US UP INSIDE

I have a correction to Lars Russell's piece on the Red Cross hurricane relief ["Living It Up," Nov 10]. The book he referred to, Filling the Void, did not cost the Red Cross $11 million, at $21 each; they were free, given to the Red Cross and passed along to hurricane victims at no cost. Given the generosity of thousands of people in our community who donated to the relief efforts and the hundreds of people who volunteered their time to help, they deserve at least the courtesy of a little fact-checking before such mistakes are published.

Mike Eagan

FROM THE MUSIC FORUM AT WWW.THESTRANGER.COM

POSTED BY RAWKNRAWL ON NOV 27: DragStrip Riot? Anyone else heard of this band? I saw them on Halloween and haven't heard anything about them before. They were fawking killer, kinda punk blues rock 'n' roll. I think they're local?

POSTED BY JOHNNYO ON NOV 27: YES. The DragStrips rock and they're local. Here's their MySpace site: www.myspace.com/dragstripriot.

POSTED BY CYNICALGUY ON NOV 27: I've seen them open for Deadbolt a couple of times at the Tractor. Good rockabilly punk.

Blather about your favorite bands and connect with fellow fans at forums.thestranger.com.