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BRAINWASHING? Wow, you managed to insert a particularly nasty little barb into your 7/14 Slant section. I'm glad you feel that the popularity of PR courses at the UO is "disturbing." And how wonderful that you can now label someone as interested in "deception and greed" by a glance at their college major. Grow up. To blindly brand anyone in the field of advertising or PR as a propagandist is narrow-minded and — as so much of EW seems to be lately — just plain rude. I'm majoring in public relations because I like the creativity aspect, the psychological aspect (oh, right, I suppose that would be the "brainwashing aspect"), of it. Do you honestly think that all corporations spin "media schlock?" Not all businesspeople are soulless, and not all journalists are "voices of truth and justice." There are plenty of people who major in journalism — not PR or advertising — who end up working for companies or in fields that I imagine EW believes are a fast road to hell. All those journalists working for Fox news will be thrilled to hear that liberal-leaning EW sees them as voices of truth. Though you state that the skills in journalism and business schools can be used for "enlightened purposes, or for deception or greed," you don't seem to give the same respect to PR skills. Let me remind you that it was not a public relations major who headed WorldCom or Enron, as those companies cheated stockholders out of their life savings. There are miserable and redeeming qualities to every profession, though it seems that the Slant writer seems to think that only pure journalists — or maybe just those shrilly sounding off in the pages of a weekly magazine — are deserving of any respect. Emily Keizer, Eugene
ODE TO THE ROAD Please do not run me down/ when I cycle into town./ I'm just an old hippie trying to get by./ I don't want to die! It's been said that the old boys own the road,/ and gasoline taxes that I don't pay/ is the cause of their hormonal overload,/ that makes them want to grab those gears,/ and turn me into a la mode./ No, don't do it! I don't want your fucking beer cans/ please don't throw them at me./ I just want to ride my bicycle./ I don't bother you, why in hell do you hassle me? Your talk radio that you listen to/ teaches hatred of cycling liberals./ But please understand the law./ Murder is never political! Hey, boys and girls in your monster trucks./ It isn't cool to eradicate me./ No, I don't want to be the murderee./ Because murder is precisely what that will be. It's a bad idea to sideswipe cyclists./ No, don't do it!/ In the end, there will be only your cellie,/ snoring on his belly,/ and there are no trucks at OSP. Lee Norris, Cheshire
SIZES OF LIES One of the things to keep in mind when evaluating the George Bush presidency is that like many despotisms and tyrannies of the past, they all begin and continue with big, medium and little sized lies. Lying is the basic political philosophy of Bush administration. The litany of lies is so long that it has become tiresome to recount or refute them. This episode of one of the Bush retainers outing a CIA agent in direct defiance of the law should surprise no one. It is merely more of the sideshow of the Bush administration designed to distract Americans everywhere and every-when. The Bush administration, in a corrupt conspiracy that would rival the Mafia's best work, is striving with the "military-industrial complex" to usurp the entirety of human freedom to work, play, worship, read, write, travel, parent, live and breath as we want. This is the real point of the Bush administration: to control all human enterprise of any monetary value on the face of the Earth. All other indicants, including endangering the life of a CIA agent, is secondary to the first. This is the legacy of the Bush administration: absolute control for the few, misery for the many. Gerry Merritt , Eugene
TEN WAYS TO TRASH Regarding the article "Short, Sweet and Sour" (6/30) by Jef Stout: This article should have been named "Ten Ways to Trash Local Bands." What a disgusting joke. He either didn't listen to the music or he was too interested in writing about his mother. His comments were out of place and out of line, especially #2, "Could possibly play a children's cancer ward without getting booed." If I had a band, I would be proud to play a cancer benefit. I suggest Jef volunteer some time in a cancer ward and give a little to his community instead of making them the butt of his joke. I don't think Mr. Stout even opened up the CDs to listen to them. I've heard groups such as Icelick and Reeble Jar and I've thoroughly enjoyed their music. Just because they aren't punk or hip hop, they are still excellent bands. He definitely didn't give good reasons why he didn't like them. As editor, I think it is up to you to oversee what gets printed in EW to prevent a future faux pas on the part of one of your writers. Brad Boice, Veneta
DUELING CONCERTS I read Emily Freeman's article (7/7) about freeing the Cuthbert with interest because last week I went to see Ladysmith Black Mambazo at Music on the Half Shell in Roseburg, and this week I went to see The Chieftains at the Cuthbert. The crowd at the Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert was rowdy and loud. People treated it more like a social event than a concert and it was very hard to concentrate on the performance, let alone enjoy it. I felt the crowd was incredibly rude to the performers who really gave a great show despite that. In contrast, the crowd at Cuthbert last night was really into The Chieftains and was, on the whole, very nice to be with. I'd much rather pay to see an event and be able to really enjoy it, than to see a free event that I can barely hear over the roar of the crowd. Now, I realize free concerts were not all the article was about, but that is what I am addressing here. What a huge difference there was in my experience of the two concerts. If freeing Cuthbert means making it like Music on the Half Shell, then please don't! Rachel Browne, Eugene
BAD FOR AMERICA Our mis-directed war has squandered the global sympathy we enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and converted it into almost universal contempt for American foreign policy. History will always remember that this Iraq war was started with a series of lies (WMD, aluminum tubes, yellowcake uranium). We now know some of those lies were covered up by felonies committed in the Whitehouse (Karl Rove exposing the official cover of a CIA operative in retaliation for her husband's blowing the whistle on the yellowcake lie). Far from accomplishing its objectives, this war will not result in the spread of democracy in the Middle East, nor will it halt the spread of terror, but it will result in an invigorated network of global terrorism that is well trained in urban warfare, and eager to exact revenge on America. Founded on lies and felonies, and with hundreds of thousands of innocent victims, this war is undeniably unjust, and because it is unjust it will cultivate its own opposition. Every bomb we drop and every house we invade converts potential allies into new enemies of America. In short, this war as currently prosecuted will be ever expanding. That may be good for few war profiteers, and for immoral politicians who want to get re-elected on the "fear platform," but it is bad for America. It pains me to think of the world my 11-year-old daughter will inherit. I am still trying to figure out how my country got so off course, and how to right it. Some ideas: First, let's establish a solid political majority from the "reality-based community." Then we should adapt Afghanistan Plan B for the rest of the world by "bombing them with butter." That is the only way I can see to win the hearts and minds of the world and secure a peaceful future for our children and the world. Doug Heiken, Eugene
FEED THE HUNGRY I am asking you to support SB 289 and SB 467. Both of these bills are crucial in maintaining the health of our most vulnerable children. Research has definitively shown that lack of access to healthful food in sufficient quantities has disastrous effects on children and contributes to many long-term problems in physical health and learning capacity. These factors effect not just the individual but society in general. Effects are felt on physical, emotional, mental and budgetary levels. Hunger is an income issue. Until incomes catch up with expenses, we can help alleviate the impact of hunger through nutrition programs. Legislators have the opportunity to help protect more children from the harmful effects of hunger by passing two child nutrition bills. House representatives need to take action on a bill to expand the successful WIC Farmer's Market coupons for women and children SB 289 and a bill to support summer meal programs SB 467. Feeding children should not be a partisan issue. House members should take action now to help more children gain access to nutrition programs. Linda Kelley, Eugene
SENSELESS IDEOLOGY In his 6/23 letter, Steven Gider appears to not understand my 6/16 letter. I simply showed that Chris Calef's claim (Viewpoint 6/9) of Jeff Luers' sentence being greater than that of murderers was untrue, as the minimum in Oregon for murder is longer than Luers' sentence. I never said that he did not receive a long sentence for arson. Gider has unfortunately missed the critical problem with Calef's editorial. And that was his clearly anarchist philosophy: stating that it was meaningless for people to vote, that communicating with politicians did little good, and that peaceful protest was pointless. It is this kind of dysfunctional thinking which has led to tragedies such as Luers' long imprisonment. If people wish to point fingers in this matter, it should be towards those in the local anarchist movement who indoctrinated Luers into this corrupt and senseless ideology, and thus ruined his life. Recently, the city of Eugene renamed a major street after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Just this past week, Springfield began construction on a major parkway, also to be named in his honor. The key question here for our community is whether we want to be a society that pays homage to Dr. King's commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi, or whether we want to be one that disgraces his memory, by rejecting his guidance about violent protest. I believe that 99 percent of the people in Lane County want to do the former. Lance Jacobs , Springfield
HERITAGE OF MURDER The Senate recently voted to apologize for never making lynching a federal crime. Twenty senators still could not bring themselves to sign on to the bill, and to protect them, the bill was passed on a voice vote in the dead of night so no one had to declare their vote. They missed another opportunity to truly confront America's murderous heritage, because they never stated why the Senate defeated more than 200 attempts to make lynching illegal. They merely acknowledged that those defeats happened, and they still have not passed an anti-lynching law. The mass media did no better — not one program addressing the lynchers, their motivations, and the ongoing impact of their actions on any major TV or radio network. There was no mention that most lynching victims had in some way tried to assert social and/or economic equality between blacks and whites. The media did state a body count of fewer than 5,000 since the 1880s, and that count only includes cases documented in newspapers and is low by tens of thousands. There was also no mention that most of the lynchings occurred in what we now call red states, and that the most conservative Christian states had the most lynchings. Furthermore, no mention was made that lynchings were considered family entertainment. Lynchings have happened in all but two states and continue occasionally to this day. This is not ancient history, and most whites refuse to participate in any truth and reconciliation efforts to address these crimes. Because of the reopening of the Goodman, Cheney, and Schwerner and the Emit Till lynching cases, there has been some acknowledgement that lynching is a form of murder most often used to control black people. However, there has been no acknowledgment that lynching is an integral part of the American heritage. There was no mention that while dredging the rivers for Goodman, Cheney and Schwerener's bodies more than 200 bodies of missing black men were found. Only a few were ever identified. I have yet to hear a white Christian, conservative or otherwise, explain why whites felt comfortable attending lynchings with their wives and children. They don't explain why they proudly took photos with the bodies or why they took home souvenirs including body parts, and they don't explain why the Post Office proudly delivered lynching postcards or why people would travel hundreds of miles to attend show lynchings, demanding that they don't kill the victims too quickly. Less than 1 percent of the perpetrators have been prosecuted, much less convicted. Charles Dalton, President Emeritus, Eugene/Springfield Branch, NAACP
FEED-BAG POLITICS I see Karl Rove has crawled out of his fat farm feed bag long enough to blubber about the Dems being traitors and wimps for starting a phony war and killing a bunch of non-terrorists while subverting the Constitution and bankrupting the country. Perhaps we cowardly Dems should be stuck in a concentration camp or something like that ... like those poor twits from Afghanistan down in Cuba. Yes, that would show us all just what democracy is really about, according to the tubby man and his fellow feeders ... oh, pardon me, "freedom fighters" ... and maybe we would appreciate the wonders of corporate hegemony just a bit more than we have, gazing from barred Haliburton windows while trying to explain habeas corpus to smirking guards. A few years of this due process would certainly put some backbone into our limp liberal spines, and even compel us to replace our self-righteous scowls with empty toothed smiles of capitulation — after Karl's team successfully whittles away the Bill of Rights to the single nub of the Second Amendment. The marketing gurus of the Republican Right should find themselves comforted indeed — since Amendments Four, Five, Six, Seven and Eight are already dust. And since there is no profit in reporting a loss, our media will continue to cherish the feed-bag soothsayers while gagging the coal-mine canaries like myself. Tom Erwin, Eugene
WAR IS PEACE: 1984 Now W is saying we'll fight until we win in Iraq. That could take awhile, maybe longer. In Afghanistan, the Taliban and allied tribes are coming back from the ashes. I read about an Afghan jihadist who fought against the Soviets. They hiked the Khyber pass carrying heavy loads of weapons and ammo on a sparse breakfast of turnip soup and bread. How do you beat those kind of people? At this writing, 1,751 American soldiers have died in Iraq. 13,000-plus have been wounded. We can't find agreement on Iraq casualties, and $250 billion has been spent. Read your math. I've always thought that the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict has made the Middle East what it is. Non-stop death and destruction. We have al-Qaeda right where they want us. Good luck to us. Greg Hume, Creswell
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