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WHAT A JOKE
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read Dennis S Perea's letter in your Feb. 28 issue [Letters: "
"], wherein he stated, "Most everything you need to know in life is learned by the eighth grade."
This has certainly not been my experience (I'm 51), nor that of any of my peers. If this attitude is actually common in New Mexico, it would go a long way toward explaining why this state is at or near the bottom of every list of social indicators you'd care to mention.
He may have been speaking tongue-in-cheek. But if not, those of us who assiduously read the Letters page need no longer take his opinions seriously.
David Silva Lusby
Sandia Parkland
SAME OLD SWIG
I just finished reading Gwyneth Doland's column regarding the renovations expected for Swig [Total Pig, March 14: "
"]. I just have to say how appalled I am that Miss Mannick was low class enough to call the scene at Swig "ghetto." I can only assume that she was referring to the hip-hop crowd on Friday nights-which makes that comment VERY discriminatory.
Undergoing the new renovations to bring in and attract a more "quality crowd" is just indicative of the same stuffy, snotty, pretentiousness of the staff at Swig. Call it what you like, renovate it the way you like, but if the same attitude remains, nothing about Swig will change. Miss Mannick and the staff at Swig should be embracing the diversity of clientele.
Give it one week after its grand opening and it will still be the same homogenous, white, pretentious crowd, who feel like they are entitled to be assholes to the other clientele, and will still ooze the same "I am so cooler than you" high school drama.
Also, I'd question any self-proclaimed marketing director and Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce communications director, like Miss Mannick, to learn a few new diplomatic vocabulary skills. I am curious to know if Miss Mannick refers to the City of Santa Fe as "ghetto" when signing up new businesses to The Chamber?
Joseph and Maria Garcia
Santa Fe
GO VEGAN
Regarding the letter from Colin Donoghue about Gwyneth Doland's column [Letters, March 14: "
"], I couldn't agree more about
her lack of taste and decency. Clearly she believes that in
order to be noticed, it's necessary to be as mindlessly provocative
as possible. She claims that vegans/vegetarians would be "overpowered" by the smell emanating from Hog Heaven.
A better choice of words is "grossed out." Unfortunately, that smell is familiar to us all, meatheads and vegheads alike.
Want to be healthier, especially if you have no health insurance and can't afford bypass surgery? Become vegan. Want to eliminate your consumption of the pesticides, hormones and antibiotics lurking in the bodies of intensively farmed animals? Become vegan. Want to prevent the land, water and air around factory farms and feed lots from becoming septic hells and the earth's rapidly shrinking biodiversity from disappearing completely? Become vegan. Want to respect animals? Become vegan. Want to be subversive in a society that makes you feel powerless over your government and your own destiny? Become vegan.
The "aroma" you may find so attractive, which wafts from not just Hog Heaven but virtually every meat-serving restaurant in town, is really the stench of death: not only for the animals involved, but also for the planet and the people who swallow that poison and the false propaganda that goes along with it. You as a consumer have the ultimate power to effect positive change, should you choose to wield it.
Ardeth Baxter
Santa Fe
SHUT IT DOWN
This is in regards to [Cover Story, Feb. 21: "
"]. I am a Diné grandmother from Shiprock and just went to Farmington to get my truck from a towing service. The young lady told me different charges than I had been told. She said she didn't have to help and wouldn't give me my keys. As a tribe, we should boycott that redneck town and leave them crying as they shut down their businesses.
Barbara Goodluck Morgan
Window Rock, Ariz.
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