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Stop smart meters in Durango

To the editor,

Smart meters will begin being installed at Durango homes and businesses this September. You need to be informed of ALL the facts, not just the pleasant-sounding reasons being circulated by power utility companies. This will be a whole new level of surveillance on We the People, as well as possible harm to health through radiation (we are being told the levels are minimal and safe – not true). If the powers that be decide through smart meter surveillance that they don’t like who you talk to or what you talk about in the privacy of your own home, they could shut off your power in an instant, without notice.

1) It generates enough radiation in your home to have a warning from the FCC. The switched-mode power supply (SMPS) that powers the smart meter generates radio-frequency (RF) energy spikes. I know the dangers of RF radiation from my work in the USAF.

Violation to citizens’ health and well-being by irradiation:

2) It sends enough information about the homeowners’ private lives, that the U.S. Congress is concerned. Violation to our right to privacy guaranteed us by the U.S. Constitution.

Violation to citizens’ health and well-being by being a possible fire hazard:

3) It does not have any built-in protection if the meter’s maximum power rating is exceeded.

Please check the following references on the internet for more information and a documentary about the risks of smart meters:

- www.thrivemovement.com/take-back-your-power-documentary

- www.thrivemovement.com/smart-meters-and-global-domination-agenda.blog

To check the video references, search Youtube for:

- “Take Back Your Power,” whistleblower Edward Snowden discusses his knowledge of how smart meters could be used, as well as others;

- “Smart Meters & Surveillance: What Are Your Rights Worth?”

- “Protect Yourself From Digital Utility Meters,” Another by Jerry Day of Jerry Day Productions

- A series of interviews by the producer of “Take Back Your Power,” Josh del Sol at Youtube channel Take Back Your Power.

Get all the facts, make up your own mind after viewing the data for yourselves. In conclusion, I know for a fact that the entire community of Sedona, Ariz., organized to stop smart meters from being installed anywhere in the whole town.

– Niara Isley, Durango

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Stop incarcerating for profit

To the editor,

Durango will be exploring “The New Jim Crow,” whereby far right politicians disregard our Constitution and plunge young black or brown men into penitentiary slave labor. These politicians use religious “divine right” to plunge the prisoners’ mothers into concubine slavery to produce more and more prisoners. This pumps up profits for pension funds and stock options in the privatized prison industry for politicians, corporate executives and stock holders. America plays “see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil” while these politicians deny women freedom of religion and freedom from slavery, to force them to bear children that no one can or will feed. Born children have no “personhood” and slip into malnourishment and guaranteed failure. We have the school to prison pipeline. Do you approve of this business plan?

Gov. Perry of Texas rolled out the red carpet to the privatized prison industry, denied women Constitutional protections and denied free markets in health care. He slashed nutrition programs and education. 

Twenty-five percent of Texas children face malnourishment. Texas, Kansas and Arizona forbid medical institutions to teach women’s reproductive health care. Nearly 30 percent of Arizona’s children face malnourishment. Far right politicians claim to serve Jesus but only serve themselves. The second President Bush entered office with 12 million children facing hunger. After eight years of devastating destruction of women’s Constitution protections, free markets in health care, and slashing funding for children’s programs, America counted 16.7 million children in hunger (USDA). After a devastating recession, we now count 16.2 million children in hunger. That is nearly 23 percent of America’s children. 

The far right politicians legislate for more.

The list of the oppression of women and children expands and continues. It is time to begin indicting and prosecuting far right politicians who crush our Constitution under their religious heel.   They belong in those prison cells. Your taxes pay for our prisoners and for the obscene profits of our religious far right politicians and their corporate sponsors. Stop incarcerating America for profit. Stop warehousing America.

– Ann T. Johnson, Durango

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Poking holes in use of plastic bags

To the editor,

Local residents consume at least 7 million disposable plastic checkout bags each year. Manufacturing this amount of plastic requires approximately 100,000 gallons of petroleum. Using something resource intensive for about an hour then disposing it in a landfill is a failure of environmental stewardship. Problems with recycling plastic checkout bags so outweigh their value most recycling facilities will not take them, including ours. Fewer than 5 percent of bags are ever recycled, contributing to the problem of buildup of plastic in our environment.

Paper bags require 40 percent more energy to produce than a plastic bag, not a good solution.

Grocers tried rewarding customers 5 cents per bag for bringing their own, but that has not reduced the problem.

Annual cost to U.S. retailers for giving away “free” bags is $4 billon. We all pay for this “convenience” with both higher prices on goods up front and later addressing the damage plastic causes to the environment.

Almost 100 cities across America have a ban or a fee on disposable checkout bags. Cities agreeing to a bag fee have shown reduced consumption by 75 percent to 90 percent. In November 2011, several hundred local residents petitioned City Council to ban disposable plastic checkout bags altogether. City Council listened diligently to the opinion of all comers in our community, across our county, at numerous clearly publicized meetings and considered proof of pollution reduction happening in participating cities before enacting a bag fee.

I hope that the ordinance’s opponents will join in a common responsibility to be better stewards of our environment. Unlike a tax that is unavoidable, this is an avoidable fee, avoided by taking your own bags shopping. The average reusable bag has the lifespan of more than 700 disposable plastic bags. Residents have been taking responsibility for cleaning reusable bags and shopping with them for years.

Please support this idea because it is a starting point for reducing plastic buildup in our environment; promotes the use of reusable bags; protects wildlife from plastic pollution in our region; reduces the consumption of fossil fuels; and saves money for both businesses and customers.

– Darren White, Bayfield

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The first casualty of war is truth

To the editor,

Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon and now Syria are all sectarian issues between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in far ff lands that have no national security threats to America. Now a direct invasion of America would constitute a national security threat, or if another country attacked our military that also would qualify. But to mindlessly follow the “One World Government” paranoia that America must be the world’s policeman is to drink a poison that has cost and will continue to cost us the blood of our military and national treasure, both of which we should never consider expending unless it is in direct defense of our homeland.

Here are some facts concerning the selling of this war:

- Our own intelligence community, and the U.N. inspectors that went to Syria, have not come up with clear definitive proof as to which side of the civil war used the chemical weapons.

- The now planned use of our planes over Syria will put our flyers at risk of being shot down by Syria’s highly sophisticated Russian-supplied air defense missiles, at which point we will indeed have American boots on the ground and extraction teams to rescue them and then the back-up to protect them, oops!

- Russia (which has a naval base in Syria), China, Lebanon, Iran and its proxies, Iraq and Hezbollah all support Syria. Attacking Syria could ignite the powder keg of religious conflict in the Middle East that has raged for centuries (and envelope Israel) and also could quite easily lead to WWIII.

- Hezbollah operatives have recently been caught crossing our southern border. The Shiites have a centuries long history of willingness to die for revenge.

The first casualty of war is truth; the first truth of war is unintended consequences.

An example of the lying, reality denying and double talking coming from the Obama Administration is John Kerry saying, “We don’t want to go to war. We don’t believe we are going to war in the classic sense of taking American troops and America to war …When people are asked, ‘Do you want to go to war with Syria,’ of course not! Everybody, a hundred percent of Americans, will say no. We say no. We don’t want to go to war in Syria either. It’s not what we’re here to ask. The president is not asking you to go to war. He’s not asking you to declare war. He’s not asking you to send one American troop to war. He’s simply saying we need to take an action.”

As if sending cruise missiles and bombers are not acts of war! And of course Syria and its allies will just sit there and humbly watch as we self-righteously kill Syrians while calling their deaths collateral damage caused by our non-acts of war! What does one say in the face of such self-righteous hubris and deceit? Well I’ll tell you what you should say and who to say it to: call Congress and most importantly the “Executioner in Chief” Obama and tell them not only do you not support taking such action, you will campaign, financially contribute and vote against them if they take such “action,” which could so easily lead to killing millions.

Lyrics from the Vietnam era come racing to mind (by the way, we were a much freer and conscientious country back then), “ And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn, next stop is Vietnam. And it’s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates. Well there ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee! We’re all gonna die.”

But hey, let’s all just pucker up and hope it’s just the Syrians who make up the collateral damage this time. Really? The fate of peace in the world now lies in the hands of the American people; get involved before it’s too late.

– Avery C. MacCracken, Telluride

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Check big city problems at gate

Dear editor,

This is in response to the Herald’s front page story on the “transportation problem” at our local airport. First of all, I’d like to know who considers visiting Durango as visiting the “city!?” Denver is a city; Phoenix is a city. But Durango? It’s a big town at best. This is not Chicago-O’Hare or New York – Laguardia. The reality is, there’s just not enough walk-up business to justify a cab stand at little ole DRO.

Seasoned travelers know this and are smart enough to plan ahead. Anyone else flying into Durango thinking they are in “the city” should immediately go to customer service, get re-booked and return home. They obviously have no idea what they’re getting into. Besides, even if you fly into many international airports such as in Kansas City, you must call for a cab and one will show up in about 15-30 minutes. Another thing, the population of Durango is around 17,000 – about 45,000 for all of La Plata County. Put that in perspective.

At least the Herald writer got one thing correct: The only transportation company legally allowed to sit and wait for random passengers is Durango Taxi. It’s a hefty fine if either of the other two get busted loading someone without a reservation.

Personally, I ride with the Buck Horn several times a month. They show up 5 minutes early and give you a courtesy call when they’re on the way to pick you up. They have nice, clean, newer vehicles and the drivers are friendly and professional. If you want the best you call the Buck Horn.

If anything around here needs more competition, it’s in the area of daily print-news-publications. I’m guessing it must’ve been an extremely slow news day that justified putting that “piece” on the front page of the Herald. The writer must be either delusional or using her small influence to try and settle some petty score.

– Bill Vana, Durango