The editor of our local weekly paper resigned last week. They say it wasn’t because of the meth issue, but it’s pretty clear it was, or at least was one of the main reasons. What was the meth issue? A few weeks ago they ran a piece detailing how to make methamphetamine–right down to a grocery list and cooking instructions. (They have not put the recipe on the website, which should tell you something). Its publication was defended by the remark that it’s easy enough to find out how to make it with a simple Google search. While I agree that much is true, I still think it was a stupid move. It wasn’t even written that well. For instance, it wasn’t really emphasized that nine times out of ten the shit is going to explode in your face before you ever complete your white trash vitamins. And the fact that it will get you major jail time is barely mentioned. Personally, what I really hated about the article is that it makes people like myself feel like Republicans for believing they were over the line to publish it.

Tons of people wrote in about it. Here’s one a poet friend of my husband’s wrote:

As a writer, I fully support your right to publish whatever you wish, but the article on methamphetamines was beyond foolish. Right now, all across the county, kids who never thought about this kind of thing are attracted by your cover. Some of them are thinking that it may be fun to make this stuff, and it may be fun to take this stuff. When providing kids with the know-how and the unwitting encouragement to make such a destructive drug, you help to place them in all kinds of danger.

The juvenile tone of the article belies the allegedly serious journalistic goals of your publication. It also obscures your target audience. When Jonathan Swift published his satirical essay “A Modest Proposal,” in which he suggested that the Irish should eat their children, his tone was rhetorically mature, and thus it was clear his intended readership consisted of bigoted adults, even if their bigotry prevented some of them from understanding the irony.

The tone of your article, on the other hand, appeals to youngsters. Perhaps intended as hip, wise-ass, wink-wink sarcasm, such tone makes your targeted audience unclear. When I consider the poor writing coupled with the sensationalist cover, I’m led to think that New Times was far more interested in increasing its circulation than in the ideals of the Fourth Estate. I suggest you find ways to make amends.

Kevin Clark
San Luis Obispo

He said that so much better than I would have…my letter would have read something like, “Were you on meth when you decided to run this?” (They got a lot of those).

A website client of mine also wrote in (not a conservative either):

“I suppose there will be those of you who object to our cover story this week [about a recipe for meth],” writes the managing editor. Object isn’t the word. I’m totally disgusted! Write about how kids and adults are getting into trouble using meth, and what the long-term consequences are, but DON’T tell everyone how to make it! This sends the entirely wrong message. I’ve never been ashamed of New Times before now.

In the same note the managing editor decries “what is happening in SLO.” Well, just maybe those two young thugs who beat the county employee were on meth. In the next few weeks there will be MORE people on meth thanks to you, and street crime in what was once a fairly crime-free enclave like SLO County will escalate.

Incidentally, I published a book that tells people how to make solar power (electricity) cheaply, which is helpful. But I would never tell people how to make nuclear power, which idiots could then level on our fair communities as a dirty bomb. And meth seems to be sort of a “nuclear” drug that affects only one person at a time (but obviously not for long).

I’m no prude. I smoked grass a few times and took LSD once. Thankfully I learned that living drug-free is something that actually makes you feel good and prolongs your life. If you want to clean up, there’s plenty of help out there.

William L. Seavey
Cambria

So in the aftermath we have: newsstands getting vandalized and stolen everywhere, an editor being fired, and a ton of lost advertisers. Worth it? Probably not. By the way, how the hell do you become editor of Weekly from the opposite coast? I thought I was hallucinating when I read the dude lives in Miami Beach. Are you kidding me? Miami Beach? I know you can do a lot of things through email, but running a paper obviously isn’t one of them.