Oregon Humanities Fall/Winter 2007

Cover of Oregon Humanities Fall/Winter 2007
Kathleen Holt
EDITOR
Jennifer Viviano
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Leigh van der Werff
PUBLICATIONS ASSISTANT
Allison Dubinsky
COPY EDITOR
Editorial Advisory Board
Tom Booth
Brian Doyle
Debra Gwartney
Julia Heydon
Marianne Keddington-Lang
Guy Maynard
Win McCormack
Camela Raymond
Kate Sage
Linny Stovall
Rich Wandschneider
Curt Yehnert

Oregon Humanities, a journal of ideas and perspectives about the humanities, is published biannually by the Oregon Council for the Humanities, 812 SW Washington Street, Suite 225, Portland, Oregon 97205.

We welcome letters from readers. If you would like a letter published, subject to editorial discretion, please include a daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space or clarity. Oregon Humanities is provided free of charge.

To be on the mailing list to receive this magazine, please e-mail us, or call the OCH office at (503) 241-0543 or (800) 735-0543.

To submit articles and essays for consideration, please read our writers' guidelines.

Letters From Readers

Having finished Mr. Battistella's provocative investigation of what he calls "secret languages" (Spring/Summer 2007), I found myself thinking of the labyrinth of euphemisms, code words, or terms pried loose from their usual contexts in order to evade facts or truths that our federal officers do not want us, the citizens who foot the proverbial bills, to know about.

In particular, the "democracy and freedom" being hauled into the Middle East--almost literally in poorly designed and manufactured vehicles that are too often a menace to those operating them on sandy roads. I for one can recall thinking that the bumper sticker reading "No Blood for Oil" as the unaccomplished mission began was something of an exaggeration. As the blood continues to spurt, some 3,600 American citizens slain to date, the evidence now points to profits from petroleum as the driving engine (somber pun intended) in those tanks, Humvees, etc., as well as the grandiose black limousines that rush top federal officers from one meeting to the next.

My only satisfaction, if that is the word for what I feel, derives from the fact that polls show that those who constructed the labyrinth of secrecy are finally being seen for what they are by growing numbers of citizens. Yes, truth will make us free!

--Frederick G. Rodgers, Portland


I've just read the Spring/Summer issue of Oregon Humanities, and I have some questions. I was struck by the fact that Mary Rechner's little gossipy bits about secrets focus almost entirely on Jews, with the exception of Nabokov (maybe she put him in because he married a Jew and/or because his father helped many Jews in Europe's fearsome years).

As a Jew, naturally I'm interested: I'd heard about Freud's affair with his sister-in-law, and had long ago learned that honesty and integrity were pretty far down his list of things that matter; I knew about Sontag and Leibovitz and am among those unhappy about their preference for the closet even as I respect their right to privacy; I didn't know about Miller's hidden child but, given his character, including his behavior with Marilyn Monroe, I'm not surprised.

I've always assumed that the Oregon Council for the Humanities struggles with our state's extreme whiteness and Christian default, but the Rechner series seems an odd way of engaging that latter element. So I'm writing to inquire: What's on your minds here? What was the purpose of this emphasis? Did you ask Mary Rechner to send in text about Jews with secrets? Or is this her research interest and she sent you these on spec? Or maybe you folks didn't even notice what she--and you--had done?

Jews, like anybody else, don't much like it when the bad behavior of one/some of us is made to seem central, definitive, or a focal point of our identity--and that is unfortunately the effect of your decision to feature this particular collection of "secret lives" in the magazine. Maybe Oregonians have tired of the old Jew-hating calumnies (Christ-killers, avaricious, physically unattractive, et al.). Maybe not. But I sure wish you hadn't offered these new ones (cowardly, incompetent at intimate relationships, generally mendacious, and, obviously, secretive).

I hope you will pay much more careful attention as you continue to work on the Council's responsibility to, and representation of, our state's humanity.

--Judith Arcana, Portland


Editor's response: Mary Rechner was asked to find and write about secrets of famous authors in order to explore how knowing these secrets affects (or doesn't affect) our understanding of their works. We on the OCH staff were surprised at the commonality among the authors that Ms. Arcana uncovered and thank her for letting us know.

Correction

Because of a typo, the letter from reader Paulette Wittwer in the Spring/Summer 2007 issue was confusing as published. The second sentence should read, "She goes on to summarize the Constitutional Convention of 1857 and the decision to place both the slave/free state question before the voters, as well as whether Oregon would allow 'free negroes' to live in the state." We apologize for the error.

Published in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Oregon Humanities.

© 2007 Oregon Council for the Humanities