Grateful for the rise of eco-cool

Dear Editors;

I do enjoy Lindsay Nelson’s wry sense of humor and her take on the local goings on, but I’m compelled to respond to the “Green with Envy” rant. Having changed careers and happily devoted my life energy into one of those green businesses she seems to think is a sham, I feel perhaps she is throwing the baby out with the polluted bath water. First and most importantly, “green washing,” (an actual term in the green business and sustainable world) is a serious problem. From Walmart to General Electric, corporations recognize the profitability and marketing potential available by claiming “green.” I believe that is what Lindsay finds most irritating and I would concur. And don’t stop with big corporations! Small businesses and manufacturers want to grab a piece of the eco world, as well as the hippest Hollywood divas and demigods. It is beyond frustrating to those of us who have been working towards environmentally sound practices, and have put our money where our values are to see those who are merely capitalizing on this PR opportunity without really putting sustainable practices into place.

I would disagree that the “rise of eco-cool stands to do more damageto any honest attempts at reducing pollution, waste and environmental degradation...etc.” Her anti-establishment angle denigrates the hundreds and thousands of individuals and organizations that are contributing their life to education and efforts to reduce our environmental footprint and have probably been working towards gaining a foothold with the masses since before she was born. I am grateful that sustainable has become a common household word and the media has finally caught on. Right on if Julia Roberts and George Clooney turn the masses’ attentions to one of our most serious problems today. My own mother understood in greater detail what my business was all about when shesaw Leonardo Di Caprio interviewed on Oprah about his “green” home. Imagine the millions of others who tuned in and “got it!”  So as easy as it is to diss the establishment...if MelissaEtheridge sings a trite song about the Inconvenient Truth or Clooney gets the middle aged women swooney over green, then perhaps we truly can make a difference because we need everyone from TVwatching middle America to the stars and politicians on the green band wagon and we need to move quickly. So roll up your sleeves, Lindsay. Education is the key and there is a lot of misunderstanding out there, as you point out. We need more people willing to say what it really means to create a healthy, sustainable planet and community not criticize those, (and I have to remind myself this everyday) who in their small or big ways are contributing one step at a time.

– Sincerely, Laurie Dickson Eco Home Center

Applauding local heroes

Dear Editors,

This letter is my applause of your feature on Janine Fitzgerald’s (representative Save the HD Mountains Coalition) “The fight for the HD Mountains,” and not so recently, but pressingly pertinent, your expose on longtime local artist, Karen Gabaldon’s efforts (what she calls her “duty”) to record our ridges through her famously spectacular watercolor paintings prior to their being capped with soap and hat boxes. Out of the mouth of Christi Zeller, executive director for the La Plata County Energy Council, which advocates for the deep-pocketed, pillaging oil and gas industry, “What a shame ... ,” drilling progress may be sustained ... I turn to your closing quote by Janine Fitzgerald, “Pretty soon, we’re going to have to make a choice of natural gas vs. water,” and get downright dizzy with confusion! THERE IS NO CHOICE is there? Because of your fine reporting, I don’t feel a need to extrapolate other than to jump for joy that we are graced with two HEROES who stand forward with “eloquent humility” to sustain not only the incredible beauty of our own back yard, but also attempt to protect the livelihood and sustainability of all life. I’ll continue clapping “BRAVO!!! BRAVO!!!” and pledge to stay abreast of these efforts and seek where I may be of value as it is my “duty.”

– Mary Kay Taylor, via e-mail

The whereabouts of Jim Greenhill

Dear Editors,

The answer to the question posed in “The Pole” (Vol. 6, No. 29, July 19) is that Durango is sometimes still my home and still where my wife is. At other times in recent months, in Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Croatia, Germany and other countries and states, I’ve been fulfilling my duties while on a full-time, three-year tour with the National Guard. Also, in bookstores, where you can findSomeone Has to Die Tonight, my true crime paperback, orFire in the Sky, theHerald staff’s book on the Missionary Ridge Fire, for which I wrote the text. So there you have it – an answer, some shameless self-promotion, and a plug for the National Guard, the best decision I ever made.

Oh, yeah, and also, online, still readingThe Telegraph. Obviously.

Y’all rarely make mistakes, I know, but you can correct “one-time Durango...” since Durango still is my home even if, like many soldiers these days, I’m not so much there.

– Very Respectfully, Jim Greenhill, SSG/E-6, ARNG military photojournalist, National Guard Bureau - Public Affairs

Deception by omission

Dear Editors,

In our USA, real asset price histories (e.g. http://homepage.mac.com/ttsmyf/RD_RJShomes_PSav.html ) are kept well-away from the people’s attention, because such truth is “bad for business.” For this massive and treacherous deception by omission, and “speaking academically,” how about USA citizens be excluded from candidacy for the Nobel Economics prize for the rest of the century?

– Ed Hamilton, Durango

Grateful for the rise of eco-cool

Dear Editors; I do enjoy Lindsay Nelson’s wry sense of humor and her take on the local goings on, but I’m compelled to respond to the “Green with Envy” rant. Having changed careers and happily devoted my life energy into one of those green businesses she seems to think is a sham, I feel perhaps she is throwing the baby out with the polluted bath water. First and most importantly, “green washing,” (an actual term in the green business and sustainable world) is a serious problem. From Walmart to General Electric, corporations recognize the profitability and marketing potential available by claiming “green.” I believe that is what Lindsay finds most irritating and I would concur. And don’t stop with big corporations! Small businesses and manufacturers want to grab a piece of the eco world, as well as the hippest Hollywood divas and demigods. It is beyond frustrating to those of us who have been working towards environmentally sound practices, and have put our money where our values are to see those who are merely capitalizing on this PR opportunity without really putting sustainable practices into place.

I would disagree that the “rise of eco-cool stands to do more damageto any honest attempts at reducing pollution, waste and environmental degradation...etc.” Her anti-establishment angle denigrates the hundreds and thousands of individuals and organizations that are contributing their life to education and efforts to reduce our environmental footprint and have probably been working towards gaining a foothold with the masses since before she was born. I am grateful that sustainable has become a common household word and the media has finally caught on. Right on if Julia Roberts and George Clooney turn the masses’ attentions to one of our most serious problems today. My own mother understood in greater detail what my business was all about when shesaw Leonardo Di Caprio interviewed on Oprah about his “green” home. Imagine the millions of others who tuned in and “got it!”  So as easy as it is to diss the establishment...if MelissaEtheridge sings a trite song about the Inconvenient Truth or Clooney gets the middle aged women swooney over green, then perhaps we truly can make a difference because we need everyone from TVwatching4 

middle America to the stars and politicians on the green band wagon and we need to move quickly. So roll up your sleeves, Lindsay. Education is the key and there is a lot of misunderstanding out there, as you point out. We need more people willing to say what it really means to create a healthy, sustainable planet and community not criticize those, (and I have to remind myself this everyday) who in their small or big ways are contributing one step at a time.

– Sincerely, Laurie Dickson Eco Home Center

Applauding local heroes

Dear Editors,

This letter is my applause of your feature on Janine Fitzgerald’s (representative Save the HD Mountains Coalition) “The fight for the HD Mountains,” and not so recently, but pressingly pertinent, your expose on longtime local artist, Karen Gabaldon’s efforts (what she calls her “duty”) to record our ridges through her famously spectacular watercolor paintings prior to their being capped with soap and hat boxes. Out of the mouth of Christi Zeller, executive director for the La Plata County Energy Council, which advocates for the deep-pocketed, pillaging oil and gas industry, “What a shame ... ,” drilling progress may be sustained ... I turn to your closing quote by Janine Fitzgerald, “Pretty soon, we’re going to have to make a choice of natural gas vs. water,” and get downright dizzy with confusion! THERE IS NO CHOICE is there? Because of your fine reporting, I don’t feel a need to extrapolate other than to jump for joy that we are graced with two HEROES who stand forward with “eloquent humility” to sustain not only the incredible beauty of our own back yard, but also attempt to protect the livelihood and sustainability of all life. I’ll continue clapping “BRAVO!!! BRAVO!!!” and pledge to stay abreast of these efforts and seek where I may be of value as it is my “duty.”

– Mary Kay Taylor,

via e-mail

T

Dear Editors,

The answer to the question posed in “The Pole” (Vol. 6, No. 29, July 19) is that Durango is sometimes still my home and still where my wife is. At other times in recent months, in Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Croatia, Germany and other countries and states, I’ve been fulfilling my duties while on a full-time, three-year tour with the National Guard. Also, in bookstores, where you can findSomeone Has to Die Tonight, my true crime paperback, orFire in the Sky, theHerald staff’s book on the Missionary Ridge Fire, for which I wrote the text. So there you have it – an answer, some shameless self-promotion, and a plug for the National Guard, the best decision I ever made.

Oh, yeah, and also, online, still readingThe Telegraph. Obviously.

Y’all rarely make mistakes, I know, but you can correct “one-time Durango...” since Durango still is my home even if, like many soldiers these days, I’m not so much there.

– Very Respectfully,

Jim Greenhill, SSG/E-6, ARNG military photojournalist,

National Guard Bureau - Public Affairs

Deception by omission

Dear Editors,

In our USA, real asset price histories (e.g. http://homepage.mac.com/ttsmyf/RD_RJShomes_PSav.html ) are kept well-away from the people’s attention, because such truth is “bad for business.” For this massive and treacherous deception by omission, and “speaking academically,” how about USA citizens be excluded from candidacy for the Nobel Economics prize for the rest of the century?

– Ed Hamilton, Durango

Bureaucracy gone mad

Dear Editors,

I’ve really enjoyed my stay and visit here in Durango and will return again. However I have experienced a particularly unfriendly attitude here in your fair community that has made me realize that even here in your Utopian community there lurks an organization that wants to deprive me and others of a freedom and right that we have enjoyed most of our lives and some fought and died for. This organization has become an extension of Big Brother watching and even though they might not be in cahoots with the government, they are watching. This organization is (dare I say it?) your local library.

When I asked to use the computers there recently, I was asked for my library card and when I told the lady at the desk that I had three but none from Colorado, she asked for some I.D. (Why? Was I cashing a check?) and so I showed her my N.M. driver’s license, and she placed it beside her computer and began typing the info on it into the computer! I told her that I felt like she was Big Brother and that she was spying on me. She replied that she was! I said if that was the case, give me back my license and that I didn’t want to use their library. And I left.

This is not the only time that this has happened to me (twice before), and I can’t imagine why a library, traditionally a source of free unfettered information, has now got to see I.D. before you can use a computer! Let alone copy it down for whose information? I don’t have to show I.D. to read a book, peruse the weekly magazines or daily newspapers but have to have my name and address copied to use another source of info in the library! Are these usual protectors of unfettered access to information being duped into prying into who is using the computers? Or is this just another indication of bureaucracy going mad and another of our freedoms being watered down by some power mad bureaucrat? I hope that this intrusion into my free access to information, that I4and  a lot of my fellow veterans fought for, will be stopped before we lose  some more of our personal privacy and freedom to some bureaucrat gone mad!

– Sincerely, Doug Johnson, San Fidel, N.M.

Stop whining about chip and seal

Dear purveyors of local news, insight, etc. I just wanted to point out to whoever was “boo-hooing” about the chip sealing planned for Florida Road (Thumbin’ It section on July 19), that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a trail scheduled for chip sealing and that perhaps this is just a sign that it’s time to ride the mountain bike for a little while. I just think there are more important subjects that could receive the thumbs down. ie: the sudden rash of accidental deaths in the area, reports of this being the worst West Nile Virus season in recent history, or maybe we could even be extra positive an have four thumbs up one week!!

– Jarrod Regan, via e-mail

P.S. For the record, I don’t own a road bike and choose to make my daily commute from the northeast suburbs, (aka Edgemont Ranch) via Horse Gulch on my mountain bike instead of on Florida Road. I think this goes through Jake Dalla’s “old cowboy ranch” so if I piss off the old codger by barreling through at 6:30 a.m., that’s just a little bonus.

40 years after Summer of Love

Dear Editors,

Where were you during the Summer of Love? I was a 22-year-old college student in Ellensburg Wash., in 1967. That year, as soon as school was out in early June, I hitchhiked down to San Francisco to see what all the buzz was about. Sure enough, it did appear that the whole world was going to pot.

One of the indicators of a cultural change that was occurring in the ’60s was the emergence of psychedelic music. In the summer of ’67, San Francisco was the world center of the psychedelic scene. Free concerts in Golden Gate Park drew thousands of young people to hear the likes of Janis Joplin with her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company; Jefferson Airplane; Moby Grape; Quicksilver Messenger Service; Country Joe and the Fish; and many other bands, including the Grateful Dead.

I was only able to hang around San Francisco for about a week that summer, but I did get to soak up the good vibes and got to hear a lot of great music for free in the park.

In recognition of the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, one of my all-time favorite bands, Big Brother and the Holding Company, will be performing Sept. 2 at the Sugar Pine Ranch in Mancos. The female vocalist singing with the original band members played Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway hit, “Love Janis” and sounds enough like her to make the hair on your neck stand up.

If all the hippies in the Four Corners area show up for this concert at the Ranch it will be a major flashback. Opening for Big Brother is the Eric Tessmer Band out of Austin, Texas. Eric, the 25-year-old leader of the band, plays guitar like Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix. Although these two bands are separated by 40 years, in my opinion, they blend beautifully. The reasonable $20 admission fee also reminds me of 1967. This concert, which starts at 7 p.m., is part of the Sugar Pine Ranch Rally just north of Mancos.  

For information about the rally and its other concerts, see their website www.sugarpineranchrally.com.

– Mac Musick, Hesperus