Letters to the Editor

NEW COLUMNIST

EDITOR: Brilliant. Simply brilliant [“What’s That Wailin’?” Sarah
Palin, Sept 4]. Please congratulate whichever demented genius penned
that, and puh-leez make it a weekly feature between now and November.
Absolutely the funniest stuff in the paper since that 8-year-old Jerry
kid was raving in the same space!

Jim Holt

THE SIZE OF IT

Hi: Great article on the contrast of Clinton vs. Palin and Clinton’s
supporters [“Don’t Worry, Ladies (and Gents),” Annie Wagner, Sept 4]!
Just a correction, though: Woodinville, which was compared to Wasilla,
has a population of roughly 35,000 people, while Wasilla has a
population of 9,000. I am so glad to see The Stranger writing
about the illusions that Clinton supporters would even think to vote
for McCain/Palin despite their sadness over her loss in the primary
season.

Sasha Parsley

ANNIE WAGNER RE-SPONDS: My numbers came from the 2000 census,
which lists Woodinville’s population at 9,194 (apparently the official
boundaries of Woodinville do not include all of the households with
Woodinville mailing addresses). I also accepted the more generous
number being reported for Wasilla (estimated current population:
9,780). But you’re probably right, Woodinville is more
populous.

GOD AND CNN

Hi Eli: Thanks for that inside look at the DNC [“How the Party
Parties,” Eli Sanders, Sept 4]. I was wondering what the real story was
behind all the inane Coopering and Blitzering. There are two Americas:
the fictitious, teetering, unsupportable bubble world of how the media
tells us it is, and the reality of people who drink and laugh and cry,
and the people who kill and die overseas. When I first went to the
Middle East at age 23, it wasn’t long before I lost all faith in CNN.
In many ways, it was even more upsetting than when I lost my faith in
God at age 15. The worst part is, most of my more intelligent friends
have at least questioned God on occasion—CNN, however, is still
generally considered gospel.

Pamela Olson

HEARTLESS

EDITOR: There is so much despicable rationalizing going on in this
article [“The Beauty of the Beast,” Bethany Jean Clement, Sept 4], I
don’t even know where to begin. Even as Bethany Jean Clement attempts
to sell us on this supposedly “marvelous” concept of “celebrating the
demise”—a genuinely slimy phrase to apply to such
circumstances—of an animal, she nevertheless describes the event
as “profoundly indulgent, both over- and underintellectualized,
arguably voyeuristic, and plain old disturbing.” Indeed, if the same
words were used to describe the ritualized slaughter of a person, the
dialogue would end there, and certainly any indulgent romanticizing of
the event would be unanimously interpreted as psychotic. Please.
Fucking please.

Also the statement, “Watching a pig die was vastly more interesting
than dining with these people in Culinary Communion’s lovely dining
room” has to be the bitchiest, most heartless sentence I’ve read in a
long time. I understand that Ms. Clement is intending to espouse some
profound revelation on what delightfully highbrow entertainment pig
slaughter can be (who knew?!), but to me the real revelation is what a
complete and total bitch she is (at least in this instance). Whatever
tiny semblance of compassion [the article] does have is promptly
squashed out: “No one cried but me, and I thought of my grandmother and
quickly cut it out.”

I mean why not have a heart? Oh, right—that totally goes
against The Stranger‘s ethos of cool, doesn’t it? How do you
expect to garner respect and sympathy for your various underdog causes
when you can’t even show the same for a poor defenseless animal?

Abigail

HUNGRY

EDITOR: I loved Bethany Jean Clement’s take on the art and theater
of butchering a pig for rich white human consumption in her “The Beauty
of the Beast.” Especially the part where she knows what it means to
raise livestock to eat and earn a living, being the only one to cry
during the actual main-course act of slaughtering a Culinary Communion
pig with a human name, and yet somehow balancing this practical,
compassionate sensibility with a matter-of-fact appreciation for the
diverse interpretations of such a violent, bloodthirsty event by
acknowledging—without an ounce of mawkish, ironic, disapproving
reproach—the community such communion affords.

Strangely enough, reading about this only whet my appetite. I could
only imagine what the vegans in Seattle were thinking in between slops
of steel-cut oatmeal.

Coggie