It's the economy, stupid! I mean... It's this week's Mercury Letters page!

—Our article on the economics of being a stripper in Portland generated a fair number of comments from the stripper community, including a suggestion that the Regional Arts & Culture Council "geared toward these (mostly) young DANCERS, who are "Performing Artists," on the ins and outs of being an independent artist in the state of Oregon."

—Laylow says "much gratitude for freeing up the news hole"—giving us an interesting visual—for our coverage of the disorganization of Oregon's notification system that lets people know they live and work near hazardous substances.

—There's also much ado about the Children's Levy, including jabberwocki's warning that "this 'administrative = bad' is infuriating and leads to nonprofits that are underfunded and don't have capacity to give the best quality services that their participants deserve."

—In other money news, of course, there's also the state of the Arts Tax, of which Chunty, for one, says, "Stop using kids as a dishonest emotional appeal for funding "prestigious" cultural dinosaurs that the average Portlander can't afford to attend, even if they were actually interested in doing so." Oh SNAP.

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  • ARTWORK BY TREVOR SHIN