Thursday, April 17, 2008

EW Letter of the Week

Back/Caught you looking for the same thing/It's a...well it's the same thing.

Here we have local realtor and concerned citizen Eric Sprado practicing what I call "Eugenonomics. " You see, Eric is going to do his business substantial harm by withdrawing his ad from the Weekly. He's taking this drastic step because he is offended by another ad the Weekly runs. In Eric's world, in Eugene, it makes perfect sense to say what he essentially says here, "Either you stop running that full-page ad in a prominent location, or you'll lose my quarter-page ad nobody ever sees!"

In a very unsporting move, the Weekly seems to have made their decision, and Eric will be forced to rely more heavily on his Nickel Ads customers to sell his houses.

EW SUPPORTS ABUSE

It is with both sadness and anger that, after 16 years, I have discontinued my ad in EW. I will not continue to support a paper which supports abuse of underage girls by accepting ad money from American Apparel and which supports insults and degradation of many cultures by running the "ÁAsk A Mexican!" column.

"ÁAsk a Mexican!" insults ALL people who have immigrated to the U.S. He has insinuated that everybody "else" had an easy time coming here. Maybe he should look into the fate of some of our ancestors who had pink eye and were denied access through Ellis Island and were sent back to Russia to be shot. Or the boatload of Jewish orphans that we turned back to Germany to be sent to the gas chambers.

American Apparel ads often promote pedophilia with their ads portraying skimpily clad underage girls in sexy poses. It is wrong. I'm told that the ads are justified because American Apparel is a progressive firm which treats its employees well. That is like saying being a pimp is OK if you donate some of your proceeds to a charitable cause. Wrong.

Discontinuing my ad may well cost me a huge cut in income, but if we aging activists don't put our money where our mouths are, who will? Obviously not EW. I would welcome a change in your editorial policy that would allow me to reverse my decision.

Eric Sprado, Eric Sprado Realty


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