TO THE STRANGER: I picked up the November 18 issue of The Stranger, and oh bliss! For a warm, fuzzy 15 minutes this temporarily dislocated Canadian felt like I might actually be in Vancouver again. Two articles in a row written by former Terminal City writers ["Busted," and "Fire One Up"]! Yes, "Sean Robert Davis" and "Phil Oats" -- we know who you are!
It isn't the potential for large profits, the availability, or the lure of the counterculture (whatever that means) that keeps people smoking marijuana. People smoke dope for one reason only: the effect. They may use it as medicine, to relax, or to party their asses off, but in the end it is what the drug does for you personally that matters. There is no nation, state, or law that can ever end marijuana use; this is obvious to anyone with a third-grade education. Thank you for your honest portrait of what people will sink to as a result of the insane drug policies we live with.
Anonymous Canadian, via e-mail
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I must admit that I am not a frequent reader of your paper, but your headline for "Busted" caught my eye. After reading the article, I feel you have done quite a disservice to the domestic marijuana industry, and misrepresented and fueled negative stereotypes about marijuana growers. The author [Sean Robert Davis] is an alcoholic cokehead-idiot who obviously got into growing strictly for [the purpose] of making a lot of money. While there is money to be made, most growers start because they feel they can produce better pot themselves, or they just don't want to pay for it anymore. Growers are generally quiet, unassuming, productive members of society who provide a valuable service and keep a low profile. The cokehead-idiot [Davis] was the antithesis of this. Next time, drop the sensationalism and do an article on the guy (or girl) who supports his/her kids by growing. Support your local grower and don't buy the B.C. bud (Canadians piss on the stuff coming to the States!).
Kind Bud Boy, Bellingham
EDITORS: Some moronic, indifferent pot grower gets stoned and, while watching The Killing Fields (that's The KILLING Fields), decides to name his product "Pol Pot" ["Busted," Sean Robert Davis, Nov 18]. That's like Abdul in Afghanistan watching Sophie's Choice and naming his choice product "Hitler Hash." Pol Pot captured, tortured, and slaughtered one third of Cambodia's population. What a moron [Davis] is -- no wonder he got busted.
Chris McCall, Seattle
DEAR EDITOR: When using your car, or Aunt Polly's, you fucks forgot to mention the fact that you have to be white. All of [the times I've come] back into the States from Vancouver ["Run for the Border: How to Smuggle Your Pot into the United States," Adrian Ryan, Nov 18] I have been stopped and my car searched by those motherfucking racist border guards. I'm not saying I think everybody is racist. It's just a fact that all government officials have been trained: "If you're not white, you're up to no good."
Anonymous
DEAR EDITOR: I find it curious that Seattleites look to San Francisco for inspiration rather than closer to home when it comes to queer rights ["Beyond Symbolism," Dan Savage and Adam Holdorf, Nov 18]. Last year, the Oregon State Supreme Court held -- in Tanner vs. Oregon Health Sciences University -- that governments in Oregon were constitutionally prohibited from denying gays and lesbians the same benefit packages offered to straights. And Oregon transsexuals have enjoyed statewide protection from discrimination for more than three years now -- simply because we insisted that the state civil rights agency enforce existing law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability.
California is still in the Dark Ages compared to your neighbor to the immediate south. It is time for your city's queers to stop waiting to be spoon fed their civil rights in little doses like a bunch of silly San Franciscans. Seattle city ordinance has long prohibited employers from discriminating (on the basis of sexual orientation) "against any person with respect to hiring, tenure, promotion, terms, conditions, wages, or privileges of employment, or with respect to any matter related to employment." Duh! You don't need more ordinances -- you just need the gumption to stand up to a city government you mistakenly believe is so fucking sensitive to your rights, and insist that its existing ordinance be enforced.
Margaret Deirdre O'Hartigan, Portland, OR
DEAR CHARLES MUDEDE: I love you so dearly! Never have I heard such knowledgeable and high praise for hiphop ["Black Noise," Nov 18] from a publication released in our almost entirely guitar-oriented, white-hipster city! People are such high-aired asses and noses around here. I'm from Washington, too, but I somehow evaded such nonsense, retro, boorrring bullshit -- along with some other ebullient mutinists. Long live innovative and refreshing music!
Y. Shin, University of Washington
EDITORS: I hate disagreeing with Matthew Stadler, but his praise for that tedious morass of overworked verbiage, Rabih Alameddine's The Perv, and his cheap shot at Jerry Stahl, author of a much better novel, Perv: A Love Story, need answering ["The Psychology of Predation," Nov 18]. Mr. Alameddine is clearly terminally infected by the virus that makes so much "serious literature" unreadable -- tedious, pointless experiments with structure and form until storytelling disappears in a froth of blather. The Perv is no doubt a favorite of academic circle jerks, but will bore actual readers.
Jerry Stahl's Perv: A Love Story is a sharp narrative; an entrance to an horny, grimy, real world, with none of Mr. Alameddine's intellectual masturbation. I find Mr. Stahl's past heroin addiction a much more solid credential for a writer than bullshit academic certificates from institutions whose job it is to preserve writing from being touched by the rabble, and keep storytelling reserved for the gentlemen they license. You'll read The Perv and yawn -- if you can finish it. You'll read Perv: A Love Story, and rub your crotch appreciatively.
Deran Ludd, via e-mail
DEAREST STRANGER: How many times have I perused the pages of a Stranger? Clubs, concerts, exhibits, movies, politics, sleaze, it's all there. When I've needed it, it's always been available, full of opinions most wouldn't even whisper, let alone print. As a resource, it's irreplaceable. One of my little pleasures in life is to visit Beth's Cafe every Wednesday night with my best friend, Laura. We'll each grab a copy and flip through its freshly printed pages. We plan for shows, or occasionally digress into a political argument. We read our horoscopes, see if we've "been seen," and read the "sensitive human drama" of young Jimmy Corrigan.
However, something has been missing for the last couple of issues. It's probably the most elderly thing two people in their early 20s could possibly do. But, I have to ask...WHERE THE BLOODY HELL IS THE CROSSWORD?!? It's a small thing, but then life is made more enjoyable by simple pleasures.
Walter Brediger, Seattle
EDITORS: I am sick "to the guillotines" in regards to dumbasses bitching about stuff they know nothing about, as demonstrated in I, Anonymous [Nov 18] through the discussion of a certain famous and little dog. I would like to say that anybody's poor-sighted grandma could see that the only damned irritant used in the facial expression of that little bitch was to the poor animator who had to painstakingly spend many hours exposed to the radiation of his monitor to make that Chihuahua talk. See, what I'm saying is the dog was the only irritant here, which still doesn't explain why you had to be. Besides, wasn't the "irritant" used on poor Mr. Ed the lip-smacking substance known as peanut butter? Which brings up the question of who in the hell is letting these irritating and ignorant rants into this fine column of The Stranger? Why is this column so damned boring every week, but so short I have to read it anyway? Damn I'm pissed!
Rhett Nelson, via e-mail
The Nov 11 Police Beat column told of a car dealer who spends his weekends drinking and sniffing cocaine. The car dealer lives in Kirkland, not Bellevue, as we reported. We deeply, sniff, regret the error.
