DEAR LAST DAYS: On behalf of pigs nationwide, I wish to complain about your labeling of that moron George W. Bush as "pig-butt dumb" [Last Days, Oct 12]. You may not realize that pigs are intelligent and sensitive creatures, and that this comparison is deeply offensive.

"Porkie," via e-mail

EDITORS: David Schmader's Last Days is ALWAYS a yummy treat, and Oct 26's was no exception. "Meanwhile, in real president news" was particularly insightful; and thanks for running that super-sexy picture of Martin Sheen--even though it was tiny, it still gave me an immediate woody! And "Dana Plato's Thoughts on NATO" was so great-o that I laughed till I had to pee (and then Troubletown did make me pee). Thanks for the laughs and other bodily functions.

Chip, via e-mail

EDITORS: The removal of Adrian Ryan's It's All True is so nonsensical, I initially thought it was a layout error, or that it was another one of those inside jokes no one gets (your specialty). But now I see the column's disappearance for what it is. And I see The Stranger for what it is: an autistic child tripping over his own whims and failings. You have thrown your Picasso in the trash to make room for a basketball poster. May your house of cards burn brightly.

H. M. B., via e-mail

RICK LEVIN: Right fucking on! I can't tell you how much I love reading your Sonics column [Courtside] in The Stranger. I watch Sonics games religiously. I'm now in some godforsaken remote part of Virginia, and seriously thinking of whipping down the 160 bucks for DIRECTV's NBA package. Your column is a fucking gem. Go Sonics!

J. Tayloe Emery, via e-mail

DEAR EDITOR: I take issue with your [Table of Contents] statement [Oct 26] that the [death issue] is "devoting its love to Seattle's least productive citizens." I have been unemployed for two and a half months after being fired from my second job in less than three years, and I think I can be considered even less productive than some of these peop... er, ex-people. Many of those expired are busy providing nutrients to the soil, and thus providing a substructure for new life. I, however, spend my days sleeping in, surfing the web, watching television, drinking beer, and occasionally exercising. So I implore you to get your facts straight before blindly assuming that the dead people of Seattle are its least productive citizens--I'm sure there are other unemployed losers who will concur.

Barry Hodges, Seattle

DIANA GEORGE: "The Scent of Bitter Almonds," in the Halloween issue of The Stranger [Oct 26], was quite intriguing. One thing that intrigued me more than the article's content itself was one of the sentences you used: "Her heart was a flight of stairs that her brain couldn't climb one more time without having a heart attack." This phrase sounds an awful lot like a lyric from a Modest Mouse song, "Heart Cooks Brain," off The Lonesome Crowded West album (UP Records). More specifically, the lyric goes like this: "...my brain's the weak heart and my heart's the long stairs." If you do know who Modest Mouse is, shame on you for stealing that line; if you don't, you could probably write some stunning lyrics.

Etoile Rouge, Seattle

DIANA GEORGE RESPONDS: All I can say in my defense is this: I never thought the Modest Mouse reference would go unrecognized, not out here in what I like to call "the lonely but paradoxically at the same time also pretty densely populated West."

EDITORS: Talk about "playing fast and loose with the facts": Josh Feit's recent diatribe against Sound Transit certainly fits the bill ["The Latest Lie," Oct 26]. To date, the "unwieldy cost overruns" Feit mentions amount to exactly 10.8 percent of the light-rail budget in constant dollars, all of Emory Bundy's smoke and mirrors notwithstanding (just check the latest Sound Transit budget). Unlike Feit and Bundy, Sound Transit is not trying to dupe anybody. If the tunnel construction costs do eventually come in over budget (no one knows yet), Sound Transit will have been "blind-sided" as much as the rest of us. Nothing in "subarea equity" prevents Sound Transit from borrowing from total revenues. Remember, borrowing means paying back. Each subarea, including the Eastside, would still eventually get its due. Hopefully, this won't be necessary, but the Federal Transit Administration is quite right in looking at Sound Transit's total resources. It's just like a bank considering a household's total resources, even if one spouse had an agreement with the other to shoulder the cost of the mortgage.

Dick Burkhart, Rainier Valley Transit Advisory Council

EDITOR: "The HOBBIT TRILOGY???" What... how could... AAAAAAAGH! [Stranger Suggests, Jamie Hook, Oct 26.] Really, you guys are gonna get lambasted about this one--and if you don't, you should. Now, you editors should definitely have caught this one; [and] what the hell was Jamie smoking? First of all, The Hobbit isn't even a part of the trilogy, it's a prequel. Although Hobbits are still main characters in the three books, as everyone knows, it is the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. The Hobbit trilogy. Jesus.

Sam, Ballard

PHIL CAMPBELL: There's an error in your article on AR-15s ["Loaded on Campus," Oct 26]. The AR-15 has a great deal more penetrating power than the 9mm Glock, or any other 9mm pistol for that matter. The AR-15 is the civilian semi-automatic version of the famous M-16A1, the standard U.S. armed forces assault rifle. The .223 rifle round is delivered with over twice the velocity of a 9mm round. While the .223 has a smaller diameter, it is quite a bit longer, and muzzle energy is more than half again that of a 9mm. A high-velocity projectile with a small diameter is much more likely to over-penetrate than a slower bullet with a larger diameter. Not only does this hamper the weapon's stopping power, it significantly increases the danger to bystanders. Assault rifle bullets go through pretty much anything. They can easily punch through a human body, and still have more than enough energy to go through a wall and kill somebody on the other side. Of course, it's unlikely that the UW police know most of this. Police officers are often woefully ignorant of the weapons technology they spend so much time worrying about. I suspect that their concerns about "feeling helpless" stem from the same kind of ignorance (not to mention, of course, too many action movies). If the UW police are really concerned about not feeling helpless, they should spend more time on the range and in simulation, and less time trying to achieve a techno fix by escalating an arms race. A great big gun is never a good substitute for simple on-the-job competence.

J. C. Schmidt, e-mail

EDITORS: If we give all parents the option of receiving a $5,000 check they can use to buy education from the "best" provider, entrepreneurs of every stripe will come out of the woodwork to start schools. To their delight, these schools, as Trisha Ready points out, will be exempt from certain pesky "state laws and rules governing... public schools." ["Unchartered Territory," Oct 26.] Relatively low startup costs, lots of ready customers holding lots of money, and few rules: We'll end up with a "school system" that looks like a melding of the worst of the espresso, microbrew, and fast-food industries combined with the hype, excitement, and cash hemorrhaging of the recent dot-com debacle--and oversight will be a nightmare. Then it will get better: competition, shake-outs, failures, mergers and acquisitions, major lawsuits, consolidation, restructuring. Most of us are not so naive as to think "nonprofit" means altruistic, or that no one is making money from the operation. Charter schools are businesses, plain and simple.

R. C., via e-mail

DEAR ELLEN FORNEY: Thank you very much for your illustrated article, "Mary the Blacksmith" [Oct 19]. Efforts such as yours do a great service by heightening public awareness of our craft, and giving creative artisans the recognition they deserve. I found your [comic] to be tastefully composed, and particularly enjoyed Mary's bed detail used as a top border. In the other drawings I also noted your accurate depiction of the various tools we use, and for that I owe you a debt of gratitude.

Paul Casey, metalsmith, via e-mail

DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS: In "Tent City Hall" [In Other News, Oct 26, Allie Holly-Gottlieb], we reported that Mayor Paul Schell wants to spend $867,569 to maintain 50 shelter beds all year in City Hall. That was not correct. Schell has proposed spending $89,000 for the City Hall shelter beds; the $867,569 is Schell's proposed amount for funding all emergency shelter services.