Cover, Nov. 5: “Project Censored”
Read the Paper
The avatars of our newest journalism, on the left and the right, are outdoing themselves in efforts to discredit what remains of the traditional press, whenever it fails to toe the partisan line. In Santa Fe, you only have to spend a few hours listening to Democracy Now or the bilious Counterspin to get the message. The faulty premise of the Santa Fe Reporter's recent cover story is a glaring example.
SFR's story by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez wrote that the national news media failed to cover a major environmental story—the devastating impact of carbon dioxide on the world's oceans.
In 1997, the Times-Picayune of New Orleans won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the depletion of global fishing stocks as various pollutants helped form dead zones that starved aquatic life of oxygen.
A decade later, the Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer for Altered Oceans, a series of articles that revealed how toxic algae among other manmade perils was responsible for mass die-offs of sea mammals and sea birds. The final story in the Times' series began this way: "As industrial activity pumps massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the environment, sea water is becoming more acidic and a variety of sea creatures await a dismal fate."
A quick Internet search turns up a score of recent stories about ocean acidification and the damage inflicted on coral reefs and other sea life in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Sacramento Bee, the Contra Costa Times, The Oregonian, CNN, National Geographic and other mainstream media outlets.
Perhaps, if groups like "Project Censored" spent as much time reading daily newspapers as they do denigrating them, they wouldn't look quite so foolish.
Frank Clifford
Santa Fe
Born Here, Nov. 5: “The View From Here”
Awesome
Several years ago, when I first moved to Santa Fe, I was showing slides of art to a contemporary music class. I showed them Henri Rosseau's "The Sleeping Gypsy" and explained to them that in real life, the sky never looks like that and this kind of painting eventually became known as surrealism. Then I went outside to drive home, and the Santa Fe sky looked exactly like the painting. It was surreal.
Steven Paxton
SFReporter.com
Briefs, Nov. 5: “Not So Single Stream”
Elephant in Room
So they're going to spend money to make some changes, and end up right where we are now, with an insufficient recycling program. And why must Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency make a profit on glass? Since when do we collect only refuse/recyclables if they turn a profit? It's a service and should be treated as such.
Either stockpile the glass until such time that New Mexico gets a glass-processing facility (it will happen sooner or later), or pay to transport it and pass that cost through in the fees, but don't undermine the entire recycling program because you are too stupid to figure out what to do with the glass in the interim.
William Peterson
SFReporter.com
School, Oct. 29: “Pick the Best Answer”
Right On
I have found that everyone—from boards of education all the way up to the Public Education Department and governor—say they want parent involvement. But the reality is they only want parents to do the fundraising for cash- and supply-strapped schools so they can fall in line with the corporate reformers who will feed their political coffers. So, I as a parent opt my children out of EOCs and PARCC tests. I would like to opt in my children to well-funded arts programs (drama, music, choir and the like), to longer recesses at the elementary level and more after-school elective programs at the middle school level. I want my children opted in to programs that make them well-rounded and not high-stakes tests that label them and their schools as failures. Thank you for your piece!
Kathy Korte
SFReporter.com
Cover, Oct. 15: “Stomp”
The Real Issue
The part that really gets me regarding the disrespect of the teaching profession is how terribly adjunct faculty are compensated for their work at Santa Fe Community College, even though we make up the bulk of the academic workforce at the college. I realize that a lot of our full-timers started out as adjunct professors, but I see no signs of positions opening up for the hundreds of adjuncts who want them, and our hiring practices are hardly merit-based.
Some of the adjuncts who taught me as a struggling student in '99 are still adjuncts, still facing job instability every single semester. We need to change this. Our students deserve to be taught by professors who earn a living wage and have health care. It's not about personal choices; we are talking about systemic failures at SFCC and in higher education, the casualization of an entire profession. This is definitely part of a larger societal trend, one that is being challenged by the faculty and student heroes organizing around the country.
Miranda Merklein
SFReporter.com
Cover, Oct. 22: “Kitchen Ink”
Covering All Bases
Congratulations on a front cover that manages to offend Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, vegetarians, vegans, believers in animal rights and anyone seriously concerned with the contribution to world hunger and climate change made by farming animals for meat. Pigs are more intelligent than dogs, cats and many other animals. Displaying the severed head of a pig corpse on the cover and interior of your paper is both revolting and offensive. And all for a pointless article on hipsters with tattoos who work in restaurants—restaurants in which many of us will now never eat. The supposedly progressive slant of SFR is looking more and more like a pose.
C Ortiz
Santa Fe
Cover, Oct. 8: “Return to Gitmo”
Man Without Country
"A third of today's Guantanamo Bay detainees have been cleared for release, but [prosecuting attorney David] Iglesias says no country will accept them."
We captured and detained these people more than 10 years ago, and now we (finally!) have cleared a number of them of all charges and have no legitimate basis to hold them under international law or under the Constitution. Yet they remain jailed, in all our names.
If no other country will accept them, then I guess we'll just have to take them ourselves. Shouldn't free men be allowed to be so in the Land of the Free?
Bill Leavy
Santa Fe
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