The current uproar over the Knotty Bodies coffee stand is hilarious, pathetic and embarrassing. Embarrassing because I live in Bellevue, whose residents apparently hold values so Puritanical that a woman in a bikini is considered obscene, and a threat to their children!

Most amazing of all was Deputy Mayor Claudia Balducci’s suggestion that patrons of this coffee shop should have their photos taken, and posted on the Internet.

What?! Really, Bellevue? Really?

I have to wonder what horrible thing these parents think will happen if their children see a bikini-clad woman. Don’t these people ever take their kids to a beach? Actually, a beach would be more obscene, because women at the beach aren’t enclosed by four walls. I am reminded of the HL Mencken quote: “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

Brent Bartlett, Bellevue