Senators fight for public lands

To the editor,

Public lands are the fabric that binds America together, part of our shared national heritage. Hunters and anglers understand this fact better than most, as our federally owned lands and waters, including national forests, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges and other public places, provide irreplaceable opportunities for hunting and fishing, as well as innumerable other outdoor activities.

Consequently, American sportsmen were dismayed by the recent introduction of an amendment (SA 838 sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska) to the draft U.S. Senate budget that would support and fund state efforts to take possession of federal public lands. It is a thinly veiled land grab ploy by those who would sell public lands to private corporations and individuals for development, taking away our access to public lands hunting and fishing.

However, here in Colorado we’re lucky to have two U.S. Senators (Republican Cory Gardner and Democrat Michael Bennet) who won’t support this misguided effort to liquidate our public estate: they both voted no on the amendment. Thank you! It’s difficult to understand the hostility of some elected officials these days to public lands, given the historical, bipartisan commitment to protecting our land and heritage, which is alive and well here in Colorado.

However, there’s no shortage of extremist ideologues in our midst, and nationally an organized, concerted movement is under way to sell off and limit access to our public lands and waters. One group leading the charge (and attacking hunters and anglers to boot) is the deceptively named “Environmental Policy Alliance.” The outfit behind this group is Berman & Co., a Washington, D.C. based PR firm.

Berman’s work includes lobbying against minimum wages, paid sick leave and affordable health care for working Americans. They also worked to block legislation on food safety. But the cream of their lobbying efforts must be their fight to legalize (nope, not a typo) drunk driving. Details on Berman’s tactics and strategies are available at: www.bermanexposed.org

As users – and owners – of America’s great public estates, hunters and anglers must join together and fight back against this effort to sell our public lands to private corporations and other special interests. We need to fight to keep public lands in public hands. For additional information, visit: www.backcountryhunters.org.

– David Lien, chairman, Colorado Backcountry

Hunters & Anglers

Shan’s dog don’t hunt

To the editor,

 If Shan Wells’ letter (April 2) was an attempt to rationalize his obsessive nature to constantly demonize the State of Israel, he fell way short of intellectual honesty. Quoting Wells, “The fear displayed in recent letters to the editor is understandable. Israel is a small country. A single nuclear strike would be devastating, and the Jewish people’s millennial struggle with appalling racism, oppression and genocide is well known. Such a history makes it easy for some to mistake the sincere criticism of a friend for the race hate of an enemy. It’s an honest error.”

  Friend? Honest error? Keep believing your own press clippings Shan, but that dog don’t hunt. Mr. Wells’ right to draw his cartoons has never come into question, and I’ve defended that right in the past. If anything, they bring out how uninformed he really is. His recent letter says that he mocks Israeli “presidents” when in actuality it is prime ministers he has targeted. Such a mistake of a simple grade-school fact greatly diminishes his credibility. But it is his longtime use of an obvious double standard that is the issue. He condemns/mocks Israel for the act of defending and protecting its citizens, while remaining silent, ever so silent, as acts of barbarism and anti-Semitism are perpetrated on Israel’s borders and around the world by governments and radical Islamic groups. It is that hypocrisy that Mr. Wells does not get.

Wells ignores the fact that (as of this writing) 500,000 Palestinian refugees are in need of humanitarian aid in Syria, while Lebanon and Jordan have closed their borders to them, so he is NOT a defender of Palestinian rights. He is silent when Iran’s top leaders call for the annihilation of Israel, so he’s not a defender of peoples targeted for genocide. He ignores most of the other conflicts around the world where innocent civilians are being slaughtered, so he is not a fighter of innocent civilian deaths. It seems that his only cause is vilifying Israel. Nothing misconstrued here Mr. Wells.

I also did not know, from his own words above, that Wells has this gift of psychoanalyzing the Jewish mind. Normally offensive, I find it rather pathetic and embarrassing for him. But would love to hear about his extensive travels throughout Israel, living among Jews or eating bourekas with Israelis to offer up such deep expert analysis.      

Hope your letter made you feel good, Shan. But it is your history of cartoons denigrating Israel, using a hypocritical double standard against Israel, that tells a different story. And if you don’t like being criticized for it, well maybe you’re in the wrong business.

More importantly Mr. Wells, if you can analyze the mental traits of the Jew, we await your in-depth observations on why African-Americans, Native-Americans, Asians and especially Klingons think the way they do. Sigmund Freud couldn’t hold a candle to your expertise!

– Shelly Perlmutter, Durango

Serving up democracy at DNF

To the editor,

What is a food co-op and why is one important to a community?

These are a few of the questions that Durango Natural Foods Co-op owner-members and community members alike might be asking themselves.

On Sat., April 25 from 4 - 8 p.m. at the Powerhouse Museum, DNF Co-op will host its Annual Meeting where these questions plus others may be addressed by the 11 candidates running to fill five open seats on the Co-op’s Board of Directors. Voting for new Board of Directors members will begin at the Annual Meeting and continue for 10 days enabling nearly all 1,400 active DNF Co-op owner-members to cast their votes.

DNF Co-op is guided by a group of volunteers, the Board of Directors, who are elected by the Co-op’s owner-members. Board members are tasked with representing the owner-members in a democratic process that serves all owner-members, DNF staff, the business, and the mission of Durango Natural Foods Co-op.

I encourage all DNF owner-members and other community members to attend the Annual Meeting to hear from Board candidates so informed decisions can be made about the future of DNF Co-op. This is a critical year for the Co-op as it heals from a campaign of fear and misinformation waged against the Board of Directors last summer, which disrupted public dialogue between owner-members about the numerous possible futures of DNF Co-op.

Conversations must take place amongst Co-op owner-members and in public forums in order for democracy to be served. We DNF owner-members are intelligent, thoughtful citizens who, once accurate information is presented, can decide for ourselves the future direction of our Co-op!

Please inform yourself by attending the meeting and/or stopping by DNF to pick up information about each of the Board candidates … and, if you are able – VOTE!

– Cooperatively yours, Jules Masterjohn, Board of Directors candidate