Under the heading "Gathered Wisdom" (Aug. 8) on page 8, please note that the illustration labeled "Blueberries" is actually Oregon grape, and the one labeled "Currants" is mountain ash.

Whoever proofs your stuff should be taken for a walk, bare-legged, through a field of nettles, which they probably would think were bracken.

— Charles Stavig, Anacortes

Perfect portrait of discontent

William Dietrich's essay ("The Changing Face of Work," July 25) on the changing topography of work and employment in the U.S. was an intelligent dissection of much that is wrong in contemporary American society. The demographics of wages and income are becoming increasingly skewed. Instead of an honest and fair distribution of wealth, we are witness to a process whereby the relative few enjoy skyrocketing, even obscene, incomes while the toiling masses watch their pocketbooks shrink. These unjust trends continue unabated as our citizenry is treated to a relentless avalanche of slick advertising that penetrates every corner of the electronic and print media. Thus are the consumer appetites of everyone young and old perpetually whetted for an endless array of alluring goods, most of which we could all do very well without.

Dietrich omits some other alarming features of our contemporary employment dilemma, namely the many millions who are underemployed and unemployed. Our society serves the needs of business, industry and commercial enterprise first, and deals with the social wreckage later, if at all. Homelessness that now counts millions of economically disenfranchised and marginalized citizens in its ranks is the most egregious expression of systemic social neglect.

Despite this oversight, Dietrich has composed a remarkably accurate portrait of the discontent and alienation that are palpable undercurrents in our contemporary American polity. In doing so, he offers a rather damning critique of the inhumane excesses of cut-throat capitalism.

— Joe Martin, social worker, Seattle

Not feeling the love

In Eli Sanders' otherwise outstanding article on Ann Rule, ("A Life of Crime," July 18) I take one serious exception. He states that in the downtown Seattle Barnes & Noble, the "True Crime section is on the lower level, next to the trashy romance novels." He draws an apparent comparison between "true crime" and "trashy romance," then demolishes the comparison by explaining that we must understand the motivations and causes of violence in order to eliminate it.

I'd agree with the latter. However, I submit that the only thing that will truly eliminate violence in our culture is love — in all its forms. — parental love, romantic love, love of mankind. Love leads to more love, which is the antithesis of violence. Romance is anything but trashy, and Mr. Sanders owes the writers and readers of romance (the largest segment of the publishing industry today in sales) an apology.

— Judith Laik, Auburn