Help Us Out, Weekly

Mr. Anderson’s article [“Miles to Go Before I Eat,” Nov. 29-Dec. 5] illustrates the rewards and challenges of being a “localvore.” However, I think that he and the Weekly did the readers, who might have been inspired to follow, a great disservice by not including a “Source Guide” for the farms, local growers and producers who might have hoped for a windfall of new customers. Where did Mr. Anderson get his local olive oil? How do you get local free-range bacon? If we are to really use this information, we must have the tools to finish the job. —Dave Egbert | Big Sur

Onward, Green Christians

Thank you for featuring Christian environmentalist Bill McKibben [“We’re Getting Warmer,” Dec 6-12]. McKibben first got my attention with his book on population control, Maybe One.

McKibben sometimes shares the platform with fellow eco-Christian J. Matthew Sleeth, M.D., author of Serve God, Save the Planet, who spoke in Monterey earlier this year [see Walter Ryce’s “Eco Pulpit; Evangelical brings ‘creation care’ doctrine to Peninsula,” April 19-25]. Both McKibben and Sleeth are quite clear about population control, and they admonish fellow Christians not to be swayed by those conservative elements who espouse the dangerous idea of spreading the gospel by procreation.

These Christian environmentalists build diverse coalitions wherever they go. When Sleeth spoke at First Presbyterian Church of Monterey, the event was opened by musician Mike Beck, whose usual venues are crowded bars and concert halls. It is hoped that the successful coalition-building by Sleeth, McKibben, and other Christians committed to Creation Care just may turn 30 million evangelical voters green. —Mari Lynch Dehmler | Monterey

Green, Schmeen

It is funny, yet sad, to watch the Weekly, elected government officials, and otherwise rational people bowing down in worship of the Green Calf. Following the prompting of Pope Al Gore, the faithful worshippers at this meteoric new pseudo-religion are pushing and shoving each other aside, intent upon being the first through the door to an economic and liberty-surrendering hell, from which there may be no return. Having handed over a healthy skepticism and logic, these scientifically illiterate true-believers (who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Catholic confessional) seek with frenzied fervor, forgiveness for unforgivable sins (like flipping on an incandescent light bulb or watering their front lawns). As Al ratchets up his apocalyptic rhetoric, I soon expect to see the faithful fools throwing themselves, en masse, off the cliffs of Pebble Beach into the sea. Then they will have given their last measure of devotion to save the Earth from the curse of humankind. —Joe Vierra | Salinas

Keeping Newspapers Alive

“It’s Not Over Yet” [Dec. 6-12] by your new editor Tina May deserves to be cut out and saved by all old-time, hard-copy readers such as myself who locally, recently, and keenly feel the near collapse of our daily newspapers. May rightly deplores the cutbacks she describes at the Herald. But she is too new to the Monterey Bay area to have realized that the Santa Cruz Sentinel has also recently been downgraded to eliminate most local news, along with many skilled reporters in our northern Monterey Bay area. And what about the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian, which won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1956? From before then until its sale in 1995 it was probably the Sentinel’s superior, but since then it has failed in purpose, with no daily editorials, and a short time ago degenerated almost completely into featurettes and fillers. So where does all this leave our daily newspaper readers? Totally starved for traditional journalism, for almost “all the news that’s fit to print.” Now, locally, we will have to depend on Good Times and on the Metro in Santa Cruz, and on this Monterey County Weekly at the south end of the bay, for honest, heroic, and—let’s not forget—ill-paid efforts to provide us with stories on important issues. —Richard Lynde | Watsonville

Correction

Craig Wright of Lovers Point Jazz Productions was the organizer of the Ragtime and Stride Extravaganza in Pacific Grove last weekend. He was incorrectly identified in a story, “Ragtime Revolution” [Dec. 6-12].