Letters to the Editor
ELYDOG
Published Letters: 497 Editor's Choice: 43
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Funny Beans
[Read the article: How I learned to stop worrying and love the recession]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Funny stuff, Heather. Botox is truly more to be feared than beans.
Do you think the glossies or TV Tonight will start featuring contests of people competing to see how low their electricity, gas or gasoline bills can be? (America's Top Losers)? How much vegetables they can grow in their city lot? How they went off meat and just eat Tilapia? Their carbon footprint? Their plastic use? The things they fixed instead of buying?
Naaa, never.
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Muni Broadband
[Read the article: How I learned to stop worrying and love the recession]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In Minneapolis, the City partnered with a private company to bring inexpensive wireless broadband to the whole city. It is not working everywhere right now, however, as you can imagine. I pay $15 a month, if you prepay, and a $5 modem rental that I can change to a buy, which will cut the price further.
Comcast is starting to lower their prices in the city to compete. But they can't get that low. So they are hoping to kill it, as they have sucessfully done in other cities.
If they do, back to dialup!
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Move to Winnipeg
[Read the article: The "bitter" vote]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm so 'bitter' or perhaps disallusioned, that I'm considering moving to Winnipeg, snow and cold and all.
Know it is a cliche, but I've realized something is wrong with the United States, and it is not just the government.
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Usually ...
[Read the article: Ain't no party like a quilting bee party]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The older you are, the more money you have. That will help. Did they correlate for things like class? I love these surveys, which hide so much. Also, the happiness level is probably an average... are some people 'really' happier, while the rest a smidgen more?
I think every part of life has its bonuses, and being 'happy' is not the only one.
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Get a Motorcycle
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Given the production weight, any motorcycle or scooter is light years ahead of the Mercedes or the Prius.
It is also equal to the Prius in fuel efficiency, or much more fuel efficient.
So, if we were environmentally 'rational' most people would be getting motorcycles/scooters, especially in areas of the country that have little winter. But of course, we are not completely rational.
Odd factoid, Minnesota has more motor-cycles per population than nearly every other state ... and we have winter. Minneapolis has the second highest bicycle-commuting stats in the country ... and we have winter. So all you sunshine patriots, you can do it!
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Horses
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kufir,
I'm sure you are rolling in hilarity about horses.
Horses are going to start being used in food production more and more, even in the U.S. Some of the local organic farms use horses at times, mostly because their plots are smaller and more intensively farmed. Here in Minnesota we have environmentally-sensitive loggers who use only horses ... as they don't destroy the woods to haul out the logs like tractors, etc.
In Cuba, which has converted to organic agriculture through necessity, horses have replaced tractors in some places.
I envision horses being ridden down abandoned freeways, passed by bicycles, the occasional Mercedes and maybe some scooters. Sort of Road Warrior, part IV. Laugh? HA HA HA HA! The jokes on you.
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Horses eat mostly Grass
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your figures are wasted because you think corn makes the world go around.
Cows don't eat corn either, unless it's crammed into their stomachs, and then they're made sick. Oh yeah, that is what we do with factory beef. Stuff them with corn. Make them sick, give them anti-biotics, butcher them, eat sick cows full of anti-biotics.
Yummy.
See "Omnivore's Dilemma" for some actual facts, Kufir. Oh, better yet, don't let that stop you.
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Go kill a dolphin
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kufir,
Perhaps you should get it over with and just kill a dolphin at Seaworld, then go up to Canada and club a few Baby Seals, get on a Japanese whaler and kill a whale, go to Asia and kill some rare tiger for his teeth, capture a rare parrott and sell it for money, cut down the last teak tree in Indonesia, drive your SUV into the Amazonian rainforest and keep it running, cut down all the trees around your house, (remember to skin your pets for small coats), then get into your second SUV and drive the Prius drivers off the road, swerve into the guy on the motorcycle, run over the fag who's on his bike, clip the old lady who's trying to cross the street, cut the wires to the electric cars plug-in station, buy a third SUV, then go vote for John McCain.
He needs you.
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Point?
[Read the article: Let's dump "Earth Day"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is this article some kind of snarky sad joke?
As a prior poster has pointed out, there is no "Chinese" wall between the human species and the rest of nature. Whatever you call it, and "Earth Day" seems pretty damn inclusive, most people understand that Earth Day is about saving the humans. But to save the humans we have to save the - earth, environment, biosphere - call it what you will. Everything connects to everything else.
Soil, aquifers, glaciers, animals, forests, temperature, oil, humans - Romm couldn't find just 'one' thing to focus on. Perhaps this is too complicated for the human species - or perhaps just Romm. Perhaps a 'die-off' is our reward.
Until we have a government and economy that gives all humans priority - and sees how they are embedded in nature - we will fail. Right now we have a government and economy oriented to endless growth and profits. It is the root cause of our environmental situation. Perhaps that is where Romm should focus.
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Knowledge is 'unlimited' ...
[Read the article: Malthus is in the air]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... including the knowledge on when to say 'when.'
It is pure idealism to think that science or 'knowledge' will solve all peak oil / climate change / water shortages issues, unconnected to the physical limits of the planet/biosphere, or the limits of the physical world.
And 'knowledge' in the sense, not of wise social organization, or wise political choices, or equitable knowledge, but only that 'knowledge' that is related to new products on the market. A very specific version of 'knowledge.'