IT TAKES A GINGERBREAD VILLAGE

DEAR EDITOR: I would be the first to agree with any article cynically reviewing this time of year. However, in "Constructing Christmas" [Charles Mudede and Dan Savage, Nov 22], the authors didn't seem to understand what Gingerbread Village is actually about.

Yes, the architecture firms take the building of these displays seriously, and yes, there was a big opening ceremony complete with Miss Washington—but the Gingerbread Village is not about them. As was mentioned only briefly in your story, and in a rather sarcastic manner, Gingerbread Village is a fundraiser for the Northwest chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. All donations and proceeds from the cookie sales go directly to funding research to cure juvenile (type 1) diabetes.

Despite the authors' assumptions that diabetics are "naughty diseased children," you would be hard put to find someone whose life is not touched in some way by this disease. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease and, much like other autoimmune diseases, is very prevalent in Washington State. It usually strikes in childhood or young adulthood and results in a drastic reduction in quality of life and shortens the average life span. My daughter was diagnosed at age 5. She requires multiple injections of insulin daily to survive and faces the risk of serious complications. Diabetes complications (from heart disease to blindness and amputation) come on quickly and can strike a seemingly healthy person even at a young age.

As I said before, I have no issues with cynicism. I often find the pageantry associated with Christmas to be empty but, as the authors failed to point out, Gingerbread Village is something more. So go down, check it out, and while you're there drop a dollar or two in the donation box. And next time you're getting a piercing or tattoo, check to see if that little girl there with her daddy is wearing an insulin pump on her hip. You might've just helped save her life.

Angie Ravenscroft

ART IS DEAD

TO THE EDITOR: While reading "Eye of the Storm" [Jen Graves, Nov 15], I was reminded of a presentation recently given by Erin McKean, senior editor for the Oxford University Press North American Dictionary Program. She had a slide up with a photo of James Murray, the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, who was in scholar's robes and an octagonal hat, circa 1880. Her point was how little dictionaries have changed since Murray's day: "When a guy who looks like that, in that hat, is the face of modernity... you have a problem."

In the same way, when Scott Lawrimore says his hero is Marcel Duchamp, all it does is illustrate how little art has changed in the last century or so. Art is no longer "modern"; it is no longer "contemporary." It is reactionary as hell, and it's trying desperately to keep itself locked in a time capsule that reads, "1917." It has become as fetishistic as a U.S. Civil War reenactor making certain his greatcoat contains nothing but wool.

Hal O'Brien

LIVE THROUGH THIS

DEAR MEGAN: As a physician I want to thank you for your article ["The Long Winter," Megan Seling, Nov 22]. The mix of your personal tale and the factual information provided made this excellent piece of prose very readable, but it also did something very important. We are a society that blames its victims for their problems to the point that when we as individuals have problems, we blame ourselves, too. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the area of mental illness and behavioral health. Your piece traced your own progress from someone who wanted to be well without medication to someone willing to accept that the medications may have a role. And most importantly, I am sure that it held out hope to someone who is trying to survive right now.

John Hoagland-Scher, MD

A SAVAGE LOVE

DEAR STRANGER: In August, I moved to Oakland, California, for college, leaving behind Seattle, Bumbershoot, Pike Place Market, and my Stranger. Even though I've continued to read you online over the past three months, it hasn't been the same. When I came home for Thanksgiving, I rushed to the Ave to pick up a copy of The Stranger. It made me so happy to hold it in my hands and see everything I loved between those familiar pages. I brought it back to California where my Seattleite friend yelled for joy at seeing a Stranger.

I can't express how much I love you guys and how excited I am to be home for a month in two weeks and actually be able to get a Stranger for weeks in a row!

Kirsten Schluter

BUT WE DESTROYED CHICAGO ON OUR WAY OUT OF TOWN

DEAR STRANGER: Welcome to the Seattle you have helped to destroy. Is it too late to ask you to move back to Chicago?

Chris Fox