Letters for October 10, 2002

Sacramento provincial

Re “Best of Sacramento” (SN&R Cover, September 26):

I was dismayed to find that some of the “Best of Sacramento” is actually far away from Sacramento in such towns as Woodland, Nevada City, Grass Valley, Galt, South Lake Tahoe, Auburn, Newcastle or Valencia. When did the “Best of” begin including all of California?

Is it possible that the best things are not to be found in Sacramento? I find it difficult to believe that the Sacramento News & Review, with all its advertisers, could not locate any good burgers, amusement park, water park, public art or wine in the city of Sacramento.

The Empire Mine in Grass Valley was awarded “The Best time traveling trip back to the Gold Rush.” Huh? Did SN&R somehow miss Gold Rush Days in Old Sacramento over Labor Day weekend? The Empire Mine is a great place to go. It’s just not located in Sacramento, nor does it have faro dealers, blacksmiths, miners’ provision emporiums, express companies, the squatters’ riots, mail-order brides, tintype photographers, or the Stinking Tent Saloon. Hellooo…

Ken Knott
via e-mail

Mayor Fargo, is this letter approved?

Re “Fully Cocked” (SN&R Capital Bites, September 26):

SN&R talks real tough. Your Web site extols its “hard-hitting,” “take-no-prisoners” journalism that is “challenging the boundaries.” The fearless SN&R “take on issues that really matter to people.” How brave!

However, let media colleagues be hounded by powerful politicians out to squelch and censor opinions, and where do we find this fierce SN&R watchdog? Hiding in the tall grass, with a pusillanimous, navel-contemplating editorial.

Bites agonizes, “Should media personalities freely and openly discuss…?” Should they? It’s called freedom of speech, as in the First Amendment. You are an alternative newspaper that vacillates on freedom of the press? What do you stand for if not that?

It is Armstrong and Getty who have the courage to take on issues that really matter to people even if it upsets the politicians and their constituencies. Not so for SN&R. We won’t expect SN&R to print anything that is so questioning. The mayor might object.

Since SN&R appears to take such a benign view of government censorship of the press, perhaps it should submit its copy to the mayor’s office for her approval. That way, your readers can be assured that SN&R is free of appalling opinions, views denigrating to the city, or themes that are just too provocative. And we’ll all be spared SN&R’s hollow conceit of being courageous and independent.

William von Kaenel
Clovis

Socialism works … not!

Re “Recession Lessons” (SN&R Letters, September 26):

Was this letter for real? I mean, I’m sure it was, but who besides a socialist could advocate taxing capital gains from assets at a higher rate in order to cut the size of the stock-market bubble? How about not over-inflating stock prices just to get your boy elected? And what are excess market investments, anyway?

While we’re at it, maybe we should have people who have too much in the stock market take some of it out and give it to the homeless—I’m sorry, less fortunate. Or maybe [give it to] Gray Davis. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Man, where is all this advice coming from? Econ 101 classes at Karl Marx University?

I’m not saying I don’t have sympathy for people who are at debt’s door. I don’t recall people holding a gun to my head, telling me to invest more. But hey, this is the age of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, so I guess personal responsibility has to take a back seat, right?

Oh, I know, why don’t we have a national investment adviser, and everybody gets $200 just for passing go? That way, no one will ever lose. We’ll all win! Oh, just one favor: Let me know before you implement the program, so I can move or at least quit my job. Yeah, I’ll go in search of Alec Baldwin.

Socialism might work … not!

Richard Copp
Sacramento

Sierra Club equals more politics, less environment

Re “Sierra Standoff” by Cosmo Garvin (SN&R Cover, September 19):

Although I commend your article about the Sierra Club and Bush’s Healthy Forest Initiative—for it did point out to the general public some often-misunderstood information regarding logging in National Forests—there was one critically important error.

In reporting on the Daschle rider on the Black Hills National Forest, you wrote, “The plan was hard-fought and not at all popular with groups like the Sierra Club, which was one of the negotiating parties.” This is simply false. The national Sierra Club helped broker the deal that resulted in the Daschle rider and, in doing so, cut the two primary grassroots groups involved in protecting the Black Hills out of the negotiations. These grassroots groups refused to agree to the fraudulent terms the Sierra Club agreed to. Grassroots groups across the nation called the Sierra Club on the carpet for their involvement in this deal that has ultimately resulted in Bush’s Healthy Forest Initiative.

The Sierra Club knowingly signed off on this terrible legislation that exempted the public from administrative appeals and litigation while allowing the Forest Service to ignore federal environmental laws in hopes of boosting Senator Tim Johnson’s (D-South Dakota) flagging reelection campaign. I have copies of internal Sierra Club memos to this effect.

The Sierra Club has lost credibility among many grassroots activists, including myself. I always make clear that the Sierra Club does not represent my organization, nor do I trust it to speak for me or represent my organization’s interests. The Sierra Club works first and foremost to elect Democrats to political office, often at the expense of the environment.

Finally, Chad Hanson is a national board member of the Sierra Club and was well aware of the role the Sierra Club played in the Black Hills Daschle rider. His not informing you of all of the facts was, in my opinion, an attempt to save face for the Sierra Club.

The public should know the truth about the role the Sierra Club continues to play in wreaking environmental havoc in sensitive areas important to grassroots activists in the name of political expediency. The Sierra Club is a political organization, not an environmental organization.

Denise Boggs
executive director Utah Environmental Congress

Trust the scientists

Re “Sacrifice Trees, Win the White House” and “Watch out for Enemies of the Forest” (SN&R Letters, October 3):

I suspect these two letters, voicing both sides of the issue, were chosen for their representative rhetoric. Both letters illustrate what is wrong with this debate and indicate what needs to change.

Environmental activists, desperate to have their concerns heard by a distracted Western culture that is largely disconnected from nature, seem to frequently misstate the conditions on the ground. One writer, for instance, states, “we’ve destroyed 96 percent of [trees’] habitat,” although a recently peer-reviewed historical, global land-use inventory states that since 1700, “nearly 20 percent of the world’s forests and woodlands have disappeared,” and, prior to 1700, only the Mediterranean basin and Britain experienced significant human-caused deforestation. Credibility doesn’t suffer when facts are checked before speaking.

Proponents of maintaining the economic status quo seem to frequently use arguments such as those of the letter writer who stated, “Hanson is so blinded by his hatred for corporate America … many of his statements are so outrageously untrue and full of bias.” However, no proof for this claim is given—a common tactic in these debates. In fact, the U.S. Forest Service itself has published numerous studies that conclude exactly what was said in Garvin’s article. A century of fire suppression and the proliferation of second homes in the woods are the main reasons for our fire “problem.” Hanson’s “advocacy of deceit, litigation and obstruction” [as the letter writer stated] are attempts to get the Forest Service to comply with federal law. Credibility doesn’t suffer when hyperbole and propaganda are avoided.

Until the Forest Service is freed from the burden of having to pay for programs via receipts from timber sales, the logging described in Garvin’s story will continue. Companies looking for below-cost, taxpayer-funded roads and trees naturally will try to maintain the status quo.

We can end this travesty by insisting that we create science-advocacy positions—instead of lone, politicized people—to advise the best course of action for our politicians to take. Impartial scientists arguing with the current knowledge and avoiding hyperbole are a credible voice for our Sierra forests. Allow them to speak before it’s too late.

Dan Staley
Davis