Ben and Jerry's: The Real Scoop

In the program that just came out for the Northwest Folklife Festival, on page 32, it says that the ice cream carts at Seattle Center will be Nestle--not, as in previous years, Ben and Jerry. What can the Folklife Board have been thinking??? I smell a story here--An Offer They Couldn't Refuse.

I don't need to tell you about huge international conglomerate Nestle's; people including me are boycotting it still, and for life! How ironic they weaseled into Folklife, of all places--after their notoriety for marketing baby formula in the Third World, in a way that discouraged mothers from breast-feeding and led to thousands of babies starving to death! To enrich Nestle! How ironic! And, there are other issues, too--child slave labor to produce chocolate, genetically engineered foods, etc.

Do something! Expose Nestle! Don't let it happen again!

Barbara Tomlinson, Seattle

And another moral--when trying to ferret out fact from marketing spin, whether for brands or for political policies, the truth, to quote the once-great X-Files, is out there. Sometimes, it's not very far away at all. You just gotta go find it.

Today Is...

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world" -Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (1929-1945)

Beyond saving a particular species, stopping urban sprawl, buying hybrid cars and not SUVs, reusing and recycling, and keeping foods from becoming genetically modified (all of which are good efforts) we need to engage in a global shift in our thinking. Picture Wiley E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner off a cliff - we're still running, and just realized there's no ground below our feet.

The global shift that needs to occur is immense, but at the same time relatively simple. There's very little time for us to act before the human population doubles again from 6.2 to 12 billion (40 years or so). For the sake of the other species on the planet and our own future generations, this shift needs to happen now.

My sense is that the shift will require: a switch by the entire human population to a vegan diet; the reintroduction and use of hemp worldwide for textiles, building materials, fuel, clothing and other uses; a complete halt in the US and other industrialized countries in any further suburban sprawl; and an acceptance and promotion of family planning on all levels - something like the practice in Holland: - medically accurate sex education and easy availability and widespread use of contraception.

I am hopeful that the world's people are ready for this change. We only have one chance to live a full, exciting and peaceful life - this is it!

Earth Day is every day!

Albert Kaufman

Crank it Up!

I wrote about this subject last October, and the adventures of Luke inspire me to repeat my request.

Could you please change your subscription ad to eliminate the phrase "uniformed agents of the state"? Postal workers have enough problems with dog bites and slips, trips, and falls.

The anthrax attack on The State hurt postal workers more than anyone else.

Luke's pipe bomb adventure against The State hurt postal workers more than anyone else.

You feed into an anti-government sentiment and then direct it at the letter carriers and other postal employees.

I quit my postal service job last year in disgust over the postal service which is simply a BAD EMPLOYER. It is not an arm of the state. Its employees are not uniformed agents of the State.

Maybe it is good that attacks on postal workers are federal crimes, since so many nutcases seem to view postal workers as easy targets.

Why do you have to feed on that misperception? Can't you find another way to have a laugh? Geov brushed this comment off last fall because "no one has complained about this before." Well, this is your second complaint. Loony Luke seems like he might be one of your regular readers (based on his manifesto). He fits your demographic, and maybe you ought to at least THINK about your subscription ad.

Frank Patten

TS Replies: And we are going to brush it off again. The same person complaining twice doesn't equal two complaints. You're stretching your point past its tolerance levels by equating our ad with "direct[ing]" anti-government sentiment at postal workers. And you insult our readers for good measure. Isn't there something better you could be doing instead of feeding into the ill informed attacks being directed at hard working leftists?

What about Whitman?

I read with great interest Maria Tomchick's response to a letter from a Mr. Cox, dealing with (among other things) E.A. Poe, Latin-American leftists, voting procedures in Latin-America, etc., etc.

As you can tell by my e-mail address, I'm in Latin-America. And I know a lot of Latin-American leftists. Droves of 'em...it's one of the reasons I am here. I don't think I have EVER heard the name "Poe" spoken by any of them. Perhaps they don't want to embarrass me, as I am somewhat obviously a gringo. In any event, I think it safe to say that the "Latin-American left"--a terribly nebulous term for which I apologize--considers Edgar Poe about as relevant to themselves as a giraffe might think the Wall Street Journal relevant to itself...that is, not much.

In the lands of Bolivar, Marti, Sandino, Zapata, Guevara, Castro...who in hell cares about a drunk, English-speaking poet?

Additionally, let me point out that there are several "Latin-American countries." I shan't bother to count them ... but it seems certain that there are enough of them that generalizations about their political processes are both risky and presumptuous. But then, what are gringos, if not presumptuous?

Warm regards,

D. Pan, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Estados Unidos Mexicanos

The point is, leftists who write a lot tend to read a lot, too, and we read more than just newspapers, journals, and political books. The next time you have dinner with a leftist friend who writes, ask what she reads for fun or check what she keeps on her bookshelf. It might surprise you.