JAMIE HOOK: Upon beginning the article ["The Death of a Question," March 15], I prepared for the same bone-tiring, urban-atheist-style rhetoric I've come to expect from my "peers" in popular media. Imagine my amazement upon discovering an intelligently written article about a knee-jerk subject. I applaud your ability to honestly and evenly share your personal stories concerning religion. I would like to offer an observation, though, about the generalized notion that "most of us" are fence sitters. I understand that there are many people who are genuinely confused about and/or disinterested in these matters. However, I believe that out of this apparent epidemic of the lost, about half of them are "in the closet"--meaning they do believe in one thing or another but are squelching it because it is currently not considered cool to have any faith in anything, up to and including yourself. I have a few friends of this sort, all of whom read The Stranger religiously (pardon the pun). Perhaps it is simply a trait of youth, or of the desire to remain youthfully rebellious. I hope that my friends and the restless, shifting masses will find eventual contentment with whatever path they choose.

Jeny Pomber, Seattle

JAMIE HOOK: "The Death of a Question" is an insightful work. I enjoyed reading something written by somebody who can appreciate the difficulties presented when trying to deal with the hypocrisy of our society without sacrificing one's own needs. The theses presented regarding causality versus fate are thought-provoking, and I must make a case for fate which is not included in Calvinist doctrine, but can be seen in Vonnegut's theory of time as a plastic entity. I must also note that The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was written by Max Weber, not Francis Weber (he seems to be a French filmmaker). Thanks for a detour from your usual shock-value, trite, holier-than-thou-because-I-don't-give-a-shit attitude toward anyone who has ever read anything worth reading. (Actually that's why I pick it up.)

Alan from Edmonds

EDITORS: On Jamie Hook's use of Nietzsche in "The Death of a Question": It has always amazed me how Nietzsche is held up as an atheist. He has been a source of support for liberal atheists, and antagonism for Christian conservatives, neither of which groups have ever taken the time to read Nietzsche (or at least, to read him well). "God is dead" has become a token phrase, pulled out of context, and read into everything he ever wrote.

In fact, if there is anything Nietzsche considered to be more dangerous and ridiculous than holding firm to a dead religion, it was embracing atheism, which was, to him, just another form of nihilism (to Nietzsche, the dirtiest of dirty words). Who do you think it was that Nietzsche was trying to warn, with another of his oft-quoted statements: "When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you"?

Jamie Hook uses the phrase "Nietzschean abandon." This is a phrase that could only mean anything to coffeehouse intellectuals, more intent upon their turtlenecks and their drive for angst than on any facts or the diligence required to actually study philosophy. If Mr. Hook had listened to his brother's reading of Zarathustra a little better, he would have remembered that Nietzsche's objective was not abandon, but (to speak from his metaphor) for man to still be able to give birth to a dancing star, i.e. to create beliefs.

Thank you Jamie Hook for proving once again that Nietzsche was as prophetic as he assumed: "We incomprehensible ones.... Have we ever complained because we are misunderstood, misjudged, misidentified, slandered, misheard, and not heard? Precisely this is our fate, oh, for a long time yet! Let us say, to be modest, until 1901." It appears his estimate was modest indeed!

David Cornette, via e-mail

DEAR STRANGER: Well Charles Mudede must be very happy! In "Chaos Theory" [Oct 5, 2000], he wants to see Pioneer Square surrendered to lawlessness: "So that those spaces can explode into a perpetual carnival.... Bullets and punches may fly. But it is necessary for a city to surrender a part of itself to the laws (or lawlessness) of the carnival if it wants to maintain sound mental health." Is this Mr. Mudede's own version of "mental health," and is he happy now, after the Fat Tuesday riot? Is this his "dream come true," his unique version of urban nirvana? Irresponsible, wrong-headed journalism at its best!

Dina McDermott, Beacon Hill

DEAR JOSH: I wrote a letter to the editor that appeared in The Seattle Times the Sunday after the "riots," anticipating at least some of what you've mentioned in your recent article ["Blackout," Josh Feit, March 22]. I think of it as the "Sharpton Syndrome," in which black leaders use white liberal guilt to keep the focus off of the issue of why violence and misogyny have become so unbelievably chic among so many young black males. (In the interest of disclosure, I am one of those perhaps-not-so-young-anymore black males.) And anyone who doesn't think that a significant chunk of rap music (and I'm not talking about the Digable Planets here) doesn't cater to this chic attitude about violence is kidding themselves. Props to The Stranger's brass balls.

David Penn, Seattle

JOSH FEIT: I really do not understand why you are attempting to stir up white backlash in one of the whitest cities around. First, you (and the papers) claim that the majority of arrests were of blacks. I do not find this surprising, since the arrests were probably based on videotape and the video seemed concentrated on black violence. The white thugs seemed more intent on sexual assault and car-bashing, but that doesn't make for as graphic a video.

Other than that, there is not much substance in your article. You accept as truth that the violence was "black against white" and then only concern yourself with your "fact" not being addressed. I have no idea what happened in Pioneer Square. I do know what was broadcast. It is premature to see race as a motivation. It is doubtful that any motivation will be established.

The real question: Why does Seattle get its shorts in a bunch over every minor disturbance? Is it that boring in this city? Chicago had riots after winning basketball championships (mainly white violence). Did they have this constant whining? Enforce the law; review how the job of controlling mobs can be improved; but there is no need for hyperbole.

While this has nothing to do with anything I wrote, it might make a difference to you: I'm white.

Dennis, via e-mail

EDITORS: Actually, contrary to the beliefs of Lewis Kamb and/or Charles Mudede, people aren't violent during Mardi Gras in New Orleans because it is based around sex [Police Beat, Charles Mudede, March 22]. They behave [that way] because our police force actually arrests people they see performing illegal acts (such as assault and battery) instead of waiting around to see if these "criminals" will work things out among themselves. I believe the Seattle Police Department arrested 11 individuals, while the New Orleans Police Department arrested over 400. Arrest seems to be a fairly effective deterrent for drunken, violent stupidity.

Hannah Holden, New Orleans

DEAR STRANGER: It's no secret that your paper is widely ridiculed, even hated. Still, I feel it necessary to add to what surely must be a tsunami of bitterly disappointed correspondence. My two cents' worth concerns Everett True's latest anti-Seattle rant ["Days and Nights of Nostalgia," March 15]. Mr. True's worn-out, angry style undermines his attempt to make what could have been a valid statement on the literal and figurative gentrification of Seattle. The smug preachings of this limey wanker, who thrives on cheap controversy, are merely another reason for Seattleites to reject the local culture's recent history of irony and negativity.

You belittle yourselves even further than is customary when you print boring, hateful crap that serves only to validate the ego of a crusty hack who apparently hasn't heard that America long ago made short work of bitch-slapping his socially and culturally irrelevant country.

Of course, I am comforted by my suspicion that Mr. True's article was written by the same idiots who drunkenly compose the fictitious I, Anonymous each week.

Charles Kuhnke, Seattle

EDITORS: GODDAMN they got some ugly kids in school these days! ["Shooting Off Their Mouths," Phil Campbell, March 15.]

Sent in by an anonymous employee of Bellevue while on company time.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: Grant Cogswell's preview for the March 22 Graig Markel/Colin Spring/Michael Serpe show at I-Spy [Up & Coming, March 22] incorrectly attributed the song "Santa Domingo" to Graig Markel, when, in fact, it is the work of Colin Spring. This was not the fault of Mr. Cogswell, and we regret the error.