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POP APOLOGY
I would like to request that the Reporter please find the space to print my formal apology to Councilor Patti Bushee regarding the comments I made in last week's issue [
, Jan. 18]. My attempt to be humorous was never intended to hurt her or diminish her fine achievements. I apologize.
I hold the utmost respect for Councilor Bushee and, in fact, I regard her as a very hard-working and effective city councilor. If I am elected to represent the other District One seat, I am committed to work tirelessly with Councilor Bushee on all the issues that affect our district and our city-so that we can assure that our constituents have a voice in City Hall!!!
Eric Lujan
Candidate, Santa Fe City Council
District One
PROPER FOCUS
Regarding your cover article on the troubles of the Santa Fe Animal Shelter [Cover story, Jan. 18:
], I recently read that for every baby born in the US, 45 cats and 15 dogs are born. The pet overpopulation problem in this country is fueled by so-called professional breeders, puppy and kitten mills, backyard breeders and irresponsible pet guardians who thoughtlessly let their intact dogs and cats run loose. There's no federal spay/neuter legislation on the books. It's considered an issue for individual states or local governments and only a handful have managed to make any inroads into regulating pet breeding. It remains below the radar of most legislators.
The focus of the pet debate should not be the acrimony between the idealists who want to somehow save all the animals and the pragmatists who want to save only as many animals as they can. It's impossible to determine who's right and who's wrong in that argument and it just diverts attention from the cold hard fact that too many dogs and cats are being born and there are not enough good homes for them. The reality is that while the "kill" and "no-kill" philosophies continue to clash, ignorant and self-serving people continue to churn out dogs and cats with impunity. Our goal should be to promote spaying and neutering any which way we can rather than argue endlessly and fruitlessly about how many animals already born we should keep alive. I wish animal advocates would focus on getting laws passed that would limit breeding so that someday animal shelters won't be forced to make heartbreaking decisions about the lives of homeless dogs and cats.
Ardeth Baxter
Santa Fe
PERSPECTIVE?
It's unfortunate that dogs have to be put down, especially after learning to do amazing things like roll over and not piss on the carpet.
Dogs are great but the truth is that everyone in New Mexico already has at least three. The problem isn't insensitive shelter management; the problem is supply and demand. Nobody wants an old dog.
So what do we do? What we DON'T do is piss and moan and wonder why someone else isn't making things work. If you believe mobile adoption is the answer, organize and make it happen. Posters aren't all that hard to print and distribute. Just because one is paid to make homeless animals sit up and beg doesn't absolve one of complicity in their death. "Had I known…" was, as any high school sophomore will tell you, the German national anthem in the wake of Auschwitz.
Every week a chunk of your paycheck is diverted to a gangster state thoroughly corrupted by the CIA. We're bombing a sovereign nation into the Pleistocene to make the world safe for insider trades. This business of unwanted dogs is a small tragedy, but could we please prioritize and maybe work toward something at least resembling a grip on reality?
Bongo Charm
Santa Fe
NOT NEUTER NEUTRAL
Your story missed the point. By placing the blame for animal euthanasia solely on the Santa Fe Animal Shelter, you overlooked the real issue, which is animal overpopulation caused by people who do not neuter their pets. I find it odd that you neglected to address this well-known problem until the very end of the story, where it was mentioned in exactly two sentences. Even if it's true the shelter could do more to find homes for these animals, the bottom line is that the problem would decrease if people neutered their pets in the first place, or adopted them only from shelters, rescue groups and responsible breeders who neuter the animals before releasing them.
Regina Klapper
Santa Fe
TRASH IT
Here we go again with a winking laugh at America's poor [J Spot, Jan. 11:
]. While I don't have exact quotes from the article, I will paraphrase: There were references to "rednecks with dubious teeth," swilling Miller and the greatness of a show that had a crowd without "yokels," who had all their smart shiny Santa Fe teeth. You get the drift. Another "white trash" bash. Why is it OK to bash poor folks of ANY race, including "white trash?" Is it funny that so many of us can't afford dentists? Can't send our kids to schools? Hahaha. It's hilarious that my uneducated trash grandmother worked third shift in a textile mill, crippling her hands, while her husband died at home.
See, most poor can't even be free of the "educated" and their bullshit class-bashing; of being called an illiterate "redneck" while being marched off to die in Iraq.
The "toothless yokel," a character you refer to with incredible elitism, is such an easy, if not exhausted, target. Who are you, the White Non-Trash? The Important Ones?
Using these references, which your paper somehow finds acceptable time after time, is just as classist and racist as uttering any other hateful epithets. But thanks for printing your elitist shit on good burning paper-it's getting nice and warm in here.
D Levesque
Glorieta
OBJECTOR
I join Dani Martinez [Letters, Jan 18:
] in thanking you for publishing Paul Joannides' article [Getting It On, Jan. 11: "Foreskins Under Attack"]. Like Dani, I am a Jew. My experience with circumcision began more than 20 years ago, when I started working as a nurse: I strapped babies to circumcision boards, I saw a part of their bodies cut off, without their consent, and thrown in the garbage. I heard their screams. I saw their wounds. I heard them whimpering afterwards and I saw their mothers crying. I couldn't stop thinking about what I was doing: It started eating at my soul. In 1993, I joined 23 other local nurses in becoming an RN conscientious objector to circumcision. How sweet it is to live my ethics.
For more information, check out
.
Betty Katz Sperlich, RN
Santa Fe
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