OPINION

NEWS, DEC. 11: "CATCH THE WIND"

BOGUS

When you buy into wind energy you buy into the annihilation of protected species. This fact has been covered up with bogus studies for decades. One project at a time, the wind industry is systematically killing off our rare bird and bat populations. The wind industry hides their carnage by routinely rigging their studies. In doing so the industry hides over 90 percent of their turbine-caused mortality. So, not only should moratoriums be put in place, there are wind projects that should be shut down immediately.

In Wyoming, Duke Energy was recently prosecuted for killing eagles and other species. I have read over the studies of the Environmental Impact Statements used for their two eagle killing projects. These impacts statements were bogus and they used other bogus studies to justify their estimations that eagle mortality would be low.

JIM WIEGAND
SFREPORTER.COM

IF, THEN WHEN?

The 24,000 jobs number is greatly inflated. Those are actually job years or man-years of work for hypothetical, not assured projects accumulated over two to three decades. Optimistically, at any one time perhaps 1,000 people would be employed. The number is very difficult to determine because of the enormous uncertainty in when projects might be built, if they actually will be.

NORM MEADER
SFREPORTER.COM

NEWS, DEC. 4: "ENDING THE RAPE CULTURE"

EXPRESS YOURSELF

Overstating "rape culture" [SEXed: Dec. 4: "Ending the Rape Culture] for the sake of helping women and men to stay safer isn't exactly wrong in theory, but in practice it can be a problem. For example, most Americans live in a culture, and participate in a culture that would doubt a promiscuous girl that claimed she was raped, and they need to learn that this opinion is wrong...

Claiming that our society encourages and promotes rape of women prompts people to fight against the wrong thing. They think the fight is against some instilled violence and psychosis in men, when in reality the fight is in an instilled habit of ignoring bodily autonomy of women.

It also promotes defensiveness in men, and rightfully so, as the term "rape culture" implies that not only do they rape, but they do so knowingly, willingly and enthusiastically.

The problem is that people don't believe a woman when she says no. She claims she doesn't want to have sex, but they think she's just being shy or coy or doesn't know what she really wants (the article pointed this out specifically).

We don't live in a "rape culture." We live in a society that promotes the idea that women don't know what's best for them, or what they really want. We don't have to teach people that rape is bad. They already know that.

We need to teach people that women are fully capable of expressing themselves and their desires on their own.

ANON
SFREPORTER.COM

MOVIES, NOV. 27: "THE ARMSTRONG LIE"

THANK YOU

You [David Riedel] write a bunch of smart aleck comments about a film you obviously don't understand, and then get uppity when someone calls you on it? That's what I call petty… judging from the weekend box office, not many people agree with you.

MARY
SFREPORTER.COM

MEH

Who cares about weekend box office? It doesn't mean much of anything; it certainly doesn't mean a critic is wrong. And who cares how many people agree? He's [Riedel] is just giving you his point of view, saying he'd rather spend his time at a different movie, even an admittedly dumb one, and he's even inviting you to join him. His [Riedel's] smart-aleck response is to being let down by this film, yet in the end the attitude seems pretty generous to me. There have been many great documentaries this year; the Oscar short list missed a bunch of them. So that's not worth too much either.

CONTRARY TO MARY
SFREPORTER.COM

NEWS, NOV. 20: "HEROINE, TRANSLATOR, TRAITOR"

THANK YOU

Now that you publish The Yawp Barbaric I don't want to miss a single issue of SFR. Thank you! And thank you, Jon Davis, for your illuminating column. I appreciate that you choose poems that aren't easy, such as the gorgeous and mysterious "Malinche" [The Yawp Barbaric: Nov. 20: "Heroine, Translator, Traitor"] by Carmen Giménez Smith. Opening for us its many windows, you reveal the pleasures and the transformative power that poetry can offer.

CYNTHIA BROSHI
SANTA FE, NM

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