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A commendation to you for covering environmental issues in your urban paper; mixing culture and aquaculture, for instance, will help Seattleites become more informed about the world beyond Bellevue and the fast lanes of I-5. As a native of Grays Harbor, where growing up we always scorned the maligned intertidal bivalve for its faster cousin the razor clam, taking more than your limit of everything was a cultural norm. The marbled murrelets are finally coming home to roost. Thanks for your interest, and Eric Scigliano's journalism ["Viagra on the half-shell," 7/13]. The article HAD to be his idea.
MICHAEL MAKI
LA CONNER
Shorter! Cheaper! More fun!
When a chance comes along to make the political season shorter, cheaper, and more fun, why is it that almost everyone involved with implementing it goes brain dead? I refer specifically to the inability of the state's political class to correctly imagine what should replace our current "open" primary system ("Primary problem," 7/13), which will disappear due to a recent Supreme Court verdict upholding the right of political parties to name their nominees.
The answer is, of course, to create primaries where the Democrats and the Republicans are made to do what the Greens and Libertarians have always done: choose their own candidates at their own self-funded conventions. No longer would office seekers spend the first half of every election year begging for PAC money to spend on expensive TV and radio ads aimed at the now all-important "independent" voter. Instead, candidates could turn their attention to the relatively few convention-going party members through such inexpensive means as mass mailings, phone calls, and face-to-face meetings.
In such a system, voters could focus on the general elections, taxpayers would be freed from having to subsidize the two major parties, and candidates should have to spend considerably less on their campaigns.
In short, private primaries would shorten the now overlong political season, decrease the cost of electioneering, and strengthen that failing civic institution, the state political party. Returning to private primaries is such a good idea that I am sure the press, the Legislature, and the courts will try their collective best to ignore the possibility.
MATTHEW MCCALLY
BURIEN
Downright antidemocratic!
If the state Democratic Party goes ahead with its planned lawsuit to repeal this state's time-honored blanket primary, it's going to look downright antidemocratic in the eyes of local voters [see "Primary problem," 7/13]. Although Party officials may find it inconvenient for our primary system to be run in this wide-open fashion, it is a system that gives voters maximum choice in determining who they elect to public office. Restrict this right, as Democratic honchos are eager to do, and you effectively restrict one of the most precious rights our political system has to offer. It is no wonder, then, that Democratic officeholders and candidates in this year's races are telling the Party hacks to back off. After all, if Democrats are suddenly perceived as really being antidemocratic, it is only the ones who are running for office that we voters will have the power and opportunity to punish.
RUSSELL SCHEIDELMAN
SEATTLE
Intellectual "wanna-be" gibberish!
Dear Mr. Zura: I am writing this letter, knowing it will probably never be printed. That's OK. There are many things I could say about your "review" of Closet Land [Stage shorts, 7/13]. Since it in no way resembles a review, I won't bother.
I do have one request, however: Please continue coming to Theatrical Productions that I am involved in and please keep offering your unique brand of intellectual "wanna-be" gibberish. It is quite entertaining. That's right, Greg, I want you to review my work. The reason is simple: to be insulted by one who inspires so little respect, who so vainly attempt to place himself above and outside the experience of the rest of the audience, is, for any actor, worth his salt, the Height of Compliment. For which is funnier? The clever joke told or the critique of the joke by the one person in the room lacking the mental chops to get the Punch Line.
One more request: if you had read the program, you would know that my name is Clark Andreas Ray not the shortened version that you printed. In your future babbling, please try to at least get that right.
Most sincerely,
CLARK ANDREAS RAY
VIA E-MAIL
Farewell!
In "Farewell, Fairbrother" [7/6], Roger Downey weighs in on the imminent departure of the Seattle Art Museum's esteemed curator Trevor Fairbrother.
Downey perceptively touched on several general issues that have plagued the recent history of visual arts institutions in the Northwest. Most importantly, Downey nailed the crucial issue that Fairbrother faced in particular. It has seemed to many of us in the arts community that Fairbrother's job entailed too many administrative duties aside from curating exhibitions and collections, despite the fact that he is a particularly gifted and energetic contemporary curator.
On a general level, summing up the very different contributions of the last four modern curators at the Seattle Art Museum might go something like this. In the 1970s, Charles Cowles forced Seattle arts audiences to recognize that the horizon line of American contemporary art extended beyond the dawns and dusks of the Pacific Northwest. In the 1980s, Bruce Guenther extended that line into Europe and beyond, while providing an inclusive context for artists of the Northwest. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Patterson Sims concentrated his efforts in gathering the larger community around the institution, increasing the ranks of collectors who would feel an obligation to the Museum. Trevor Fairbrother's great gift has been in curating an enormous number of exhibits that have shown off the museum's existing collection while simultaneously broadening it with new generations of artist heritage.
