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SOUTHSIDE FLAVOR
Thanks for the publishing a wonderful restaurant guide. I sometimes forget all the great choices we have here in Santa Fe and use the guide as a reference to refresh my memory. I thought your readers might want to know about my favorite new coffeehouse that was overlooked in the Where to Eat/What to Eat section.
The Lucky Bean is located in the rapidly growing southside in Rancho Viejo (55 Canada del Rancho), close to the Community College. It serves up Santa Fe's best organic, fair-trade, locally owned coffee, Agapao, which is Greek for unconditional love. And love it you will, along with a wonderful selection of vegetarian fare. Most notable is the veggie panini, chock-full of roasted eggplant, red bell pepper, fresh basil, mozzarella and your choice of bread.
Proprietress Joan Glover cooks up two daily homemade soups for the cold weather that's on its way. Southsiders, you now have a delicious option without driving all the way into town.
Lynn Dimet
Santa Fe
SWEET CRITIQUE
Armando Gutierrez, who dismisses the harm done by aspartame as paranoid and delusional [Letters, Oct. 18:
], is a paid lobbyist working for the Calorie Control Council, a front group for industries in that ghastly business, who has colluded with other corporate lobbyists to scuttle the Environmental Improvement Board's hearings and Senator Ortiz y Pino's bill in 2006.
This is why American democracy is beginning to fail, aside from dropping the Magna Carta.
Here is a definitive article by Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD, the foremost expert in the world on the biochemistry of the harm done by ingesting a sweetener that is metabolized as methanol and formaldehyde, specifically on the subject of the birth defects and chromosomal damage done by aspartame. Take the time to read his letter to the Miami Herald:
www.aspartametruth.com/blaylock/mh_aspartame_letter.html
.
If aspartame is so safe, perhaps Mr. Gutierrez, Antonio Anaya of Coca-Cola, Luke Otero representing Pepsi-Cola and Butch Maki with his entire lobbying firm can host a marathon party at which they personally drink diet sodas, chew Eclipse and Orbit, and eat Dannon Low Fat Yogurt till dawn.
Fortunately, the educators, legislators, physicians, parents, Native Americans and many others can see right through these nefarious lobbyists, intent on soothsaying and keeping consumers completely ignorant.
Richard Dean Jacob
Santa Fe
Editor's Note: When contacted by SFR, Gutierrez stated he is not a lobbyist for the Calorie Control Council or any other organization, nor is he registered as one with the state, according to the Secretary of State's lobbyist index.
OVER THE LINE
Am I the only one who takes indignant offense that Arizona Republicans, called Minutemen, are trying to take over New Mexico's borders and sovereignty [Outtakes, Sept. 20:
]?
In the first place, New Mexico doesn't have near the immigration mass of North Carolina or perhaps Arizona, so quit shoving your oppressive solutions to your immigration population problems in your state on New Mexico. If you think New Mexico lets immigrants through to sneak into your state, then guard the entire circumference of Arizona borders; just keep your hands off New Mexico!
I seldom see more than one immigrant per large business here except for stink work, like replacing sewage pipes in Albuquerque or working in slaughterhouses and factory pig farms in Kansas.
I do feel sorry for both sides of this issue but can snap to the fact that the problem is created by Mexico's corrupt and cruel government that treats its people worse than barnyard animals, whom at least eat on a daily basis and aren't sexually tortured to death, by the hundreds, with impunity.
If US corporate elites quit mucking about assisting in Mexico's rigged elections, causing massive protests for months, then Mexicans could solve their problems there, with a humane populist government that wouldn't steal and pimp off indigenous farmlands and other natural rights to foreign corporations, and who would likewise allow unionization.
Instead of the band-aid solution of some idiotic, overpriced Halliburton fence to keep millions of starving people from eating, why not put progressively heavier pressures on the right-wing Mexican government to allow their citizens to survive?
For starters:
Last I heard on Democracy Now about Andrés Manuel López Obrador-the populist presidential candidate whose victory was stolen with an incomplete recount at token polling places and who led millions of Mexicans on daily marches, taking over federal buildings-he was going to start an alternative government. This was said on more than one occasion.
This is where an enterprising weekly newspaper can come into the solution, with a breaking interview with Obrador!
How does he plan to go about setting up his own perfectly legal government? Where can all us millions of Americans affected by Mexico's refugee problem send minimal monthly donations to help fund this groundbreaking tactic to help Mexicans taking over ours? Weekly news of this transition would make fascinating reading!
Valerie Giese
Albuquerque
ANGER ARBITRATOR
This letter is in response to the letters between Jack Nixon and Andy Hopkins [Oct. 25:
; Oct. 11:
; Sept. 20:
]. I imagine there are some readers who are as amazed as I am that these letters to the editor are continuing.
For you readers, please go back and look at instances of name-calling, labeling and intimidation on the parts of both Mr. Nixon and Mr. Hopkins. Do a tally. Count the actual number of instances.
Then know that the only real way to settle this thing is to bring in three or more trained psychologists. Have them all read these letters and simply determine who is the angriest. Their role here is not to determine right or wrong or the merits of the respective issues. Their role would be only to determine who is the angriest.
My assertion is this…no one can think clearly with that much anger. Anger divides; it does not unite. True dialogue and reason cannot coexist with anger. Anger lashes out at anyone and everyone who gets in its way or calls it what it is. And, most important, it cannot be reasoned with in any way.
So, despite my saying nothing unfavorable about either Mr. Nixon or Mr. Hopkins, let's see what the response to this letter is. Let's see if there is name-calling and anger directed at me. I've discussed no issues here, and identifying anger for what it really is could hardly be considered either conservative or liberal.
Michael Blanshan
Santa Fe
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