BAD PHOENIX, BAD

I always look forward to reading each week’s Phoenix, but I have to say that I was furious when I saw the picture of Governor Baldacci on your cover. I know that politics is a rough and tumble sport, but has your paper sunk to such lows that you feel it appropriate to put a picture of the governor with devil horns on the cover? It was totally unprofessional and, to be honest, something that I didn’t think your paper would sink to.

Jesse Connolly, Portland

Letter via email

BASE TO BASE

I am sitting here at 2:45 a.m. PST, at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (see "Goodbye Gravy-Yard," by Rick Wormwood, June 24). I know a few guys that work for Portsmouth, and I must say that most of us here really do feel for your communities. There have been times that I have sat and imagined what I would do if I were to lose my job here. Our community would be devastated as well. The Portsmouth yard’s reputation for being the best at 688s is well known, but when (while in Point Loma, California, on a joint venture) the Portsmouth guys would throw that at us we would respond with a smile: "You only do one thing — I would HOPE you’d at least be good at that." Your article, which questioned why the Portsmouth powers-that-be didn’t try to explore other options for work other than the 688, missed the simple answer: they couldn’t.

It is painfully obvious that the government has finally got the right climate to do what it wanted to do a while ago. I hope your community pulls a Rocky and saves your yard. However, this community is ready and willing to accept and welcome in those who will inevitably end up in the Pacific Northwest. Besides, if the worst does happen, I for one will be happy to learn some 688 tricks and show some carrier and Trident things to those who are still alive enough to teach and learn. Puget Sound will save some families, and those families may well in turn save us.

Good Luck.

Mike Young, mechanic, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard

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