STRANGER: My Aunt Frida makes a really bad tuna casserole, and Brendan Kiley's review of Psychiatrist's Night Out is worse than that [On Stage, Dec 5]. It is probably the worst review I have ever read. Can I get a job as a critic at The Stranger now? Apparently that's all it takes.

A critique of anything--whether it is a movie, book, restaurant, etc.--should have a reasoned and thoughtful argument praising or damning the subject. It shouldn't just be a mean, egocentric diatribe about the reviewer's personal life. I don't care about a book by Brendan's relative. In the short amount of space he had, he should have written about the play's subject and a few elements of the play he didn't like and why. I have no idea why he didn't like it. He hasn't argued his case. His review is a useless piece of writing--vaguely entertaining, but useless. Is he getting paid? I hope not. He should read the reviews of his colleagues so he knows how to write a review.

I have seen Psychiatrist's Night Out. There are some things I did and didn't like about it. The play is not as bad as Mr. Kiley says it is. And I question his truthfulness when he says it's the second worst live performance he's ever seen--unless he has only gone to see a few live performances in his life, or was being hyperbolic and didn't mean it in a literal sense.

Andy Morgan, via e-mail

STRANGER: Thank you for your article suggesting that the WTO may be the best mechanism to keep international corporations in check ["Three Years Later," Amy Jenniges and Josh Feit, Dec 5]. It's always refreshing to read an article that questions liberal assumptions about the WTO.

I agree with you that the WTO may have benefited the majority of the world's people from time to time, but the real problem with the WTO is that its decision-making process is entirely secretive and elitist. It undermines the basic right of people to self-govern--to establish a sovereign nation and participate in the processes of policy.

The basic tenets of free-market liberalism, the underlying impetus of the WTO, conflict with those of our nation's democratic institutions--to say nothing of the fundamental flaws of the capitalist system (e.g., wealth leads to market advantages, etc.). The WTO respects the right to economic freedom, but it does so at the cost of people's right to have a voice in the structures and institutions that govern them. A community ought to have the right to restrict products from corporations that violate human rights; it ought to be able to subsidize the education of its children; and it ought to have the right to restrict economic development in the interest of ecological balance or quality of life.

Richard Myers, via e-mail

SEAN NELSON: I want to thank you for the enlightening article "Coffee Capitalism" [Dec 5]. A Seattle resident since 1975, I've watched with amazement as first Starbucks, then Tully's, then Seattle's Best Coffee (and simultaneously Uptown), then Caffe Ladro, etc., appeared on the scene. I have yet to find the ultimate four-way scenario--a different espresso bar on each corner of an intersection--but the junction of Queen Anne Avenue and Boston Street comes dangerously close. It's probably just a matter of time, if it hasn't occurred already. In any case, I appreciated your finding and sharing the human side of the 15th Avenue story.

Sanford Farrier, via e-mail

EDITOR: I practically purred with pleasure when I opened the latest issue and found Sean Nelson's magnum opus on coffee shops on 15th Avenue. The world's on fire, we're about to go to war, and The Stranger decides to devote four full pages of newsprint to the beverage politics of a single neighborhood on Capitol Hill. Wonderful! What's next--a full dissertation on the merits of Pike vs. Pine? A theological treatise on why the divine nature of rail transport is always single, and never dual? Keep it coming, please--I've depended on The Stranger for 10 years to keep me on the correct path when it comes to hopelessly self-referential Seattle hipster issues. Oh, and please get Dan off the geopolitics, and back to writing about cock rings.

Nick Keyes, via e-mail

STRANGER: It's good to see that, like grunge, worrying about where other people go to drink their pints of warm milk never really goes away in certain circles in Seattle. 15th Avenue has been a nice little shopping street for a long time, but if anything's going to kill it off, it's more goddamn coffeehouses with carefully posed stances, and the kind of self-absorbed nitwits they attract. If Sean Nelson would grow up a little, he might realize that coffee is not important, and sensible people don't think about it as much as he does. Starbucks and chain coffeehouses are not destroying the world. Fortunately, neither are the legions of fretful latte sucklings. Worry about something important, okay?

Steve Thornton, via e-mail

EDITOR: The one thing I don't like about Victrola Coffee & Art AND Caffe Ladro is that no one thought about controlling noise. If lots of people are in either place, the combination of people talking and the sound of making coffee drinks bounces off the walls and makes it hard to concentrate on reading or thinking, and makes conversation an extraordinary chore.

That said, I like both places--Victrola for feeling like home, and Ladro for the chairs outside (which don't need tables)--but I'm not going to stand behind 15 other people in line at Victrola because it feels like home. I'm glad there's a choice, and that QFC serves espresso (on Thanksgiving, at 10:00 a.m., when Victrola was closed and Ladro was as full as a sold-out Safeco Field!) too.

Too bad you didn't include Two Gals, which has morphed into the same business under a new owner and name, in this article about cafes transforming 15th Avenue.

Thornton Kimes, via e-mail

STRANGER: I had previously written your paper blasting Charles Mudede and telling you not to let him write any more film reviews. Then I read his review of Solaris ["Lost in the Cosmos," Nov 28] and some of the angry letters in response to it [Letters to the Editor, Dec 5], and I've changed my mind. His reviews are highly engaging, even if he refuses to tell very much about the movies in question. As a side note: You need to do more full-length reviews like the one for Solaris and get rid of the stupid Movie Review Revue. We readers have a longer attention span than you think! Oh, and Sean Nelson is still God.

Jonathon, via e-mail

STRANGER: I've been meaning to write a letter about Mistress Matisse for a while, and the cranky man on the back page gave me a reason to do so this week [The Stranger: A Critical Overview, A. Birch Steen, Dec 5]. "Why," he asks, "does this column [The Control Tower] exist?" While it's true that a column for people interested in BDSM would be more fitting in a magazine devoted to sexuality, I hope The Control Tower is here to stay. And I am Mistress Matisse's polar opposite as far as sex is concerned (no interest in BDSM, no interest in nonmonogamous relationships). The Control Tower puts a human face on people who Joe Normal would never otherwise understand (and possibly never respect). Matisse's writing is the most sensible and straightforward in the whole damn magazine (probably due to her limited column space), and unlike everyone else in The Stranger, I've never disagreed with a single word she's said. She's a likable person with good political and personal messages for the readership. Don't diss that Miss.

Anonymous, via e-mail

DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS: In last week's theater calendar, we mistakenly published the wrong performance venue for Book-It's evergreen holiday classic Owen Meany's Christmas Pageant. The production actually runs through December 22 at North Seattle Community College's Stage One Theatre, which is on the North Seattle Community College campus, just off the 85th Street exit off I-5, a few blocks south of Northgate. We deeply regret the error.