Danish fails again
Paul Danish jumps the shark again [Re: “Putin and anti-fracking activism,” March 19]. And, he has now infected the Boulder Weekly with a stinking pile of trash from conspiracists like Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beacon. In addition, he has disparaged a whole community across this country who do not wish to see their land, water and air despoiled by fracking simply because the evil bogey man Vladimir Putin is also against U.S. fracking for geopolitical reasons. On the last point regarding geopolitical gamesmanship regarding energy, it is very complex, and there are players across the globe whom have their hand in manipulating energy supplies and prices for their own reasons. See this article http://oilprice.com/ Energy/Oil-Prices/Did-The-Saudis- And-The-US-Collude-In-Dropping- Oil-Prices.html for another point of view regarding this issue. What say about the Saudis Mr. Danish?
As is always the case, Mr. Danish starts his arguments with his own POV and then searches for information to support it. This is the failure of lazy narrow-minded ideologues. They don’t wish to engage complex issues with as many “facts” as possible. They find a nugget of information to support their theory and disregard anything that competes with it. Failure once again Mr. Danish.
David Segal/Lafayette
Dead bodies do not perpetuate a species.
In 2014 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) imposed “trophy hunting” import bans on Zimbabwe and Tanzania. This ban is in danger of being lifted by the U.S. The ban prevents the bodies of animals killed for trophies from being exported into the United States.
The ban is in danger of being lifted. Support for ending the ban is supported by Safari Club International, a strong pro-trophy hunting and lobbying organization that promotes hunting of endangered species. Elephant, rhinoceros and now giraffe populations are being heavily poached, and populations are fast dwindling.
Elephants in Zimbabwe and Tanzania are being especially hard hit by poaching and by taking baby elephants for zoos in China and Thailand. And though China has called for an ivory moratorium publicly, BBC News reports that ivory continues to go there. Zimbabwe and Tanzania lack sustainable management practices and law enforcement, which makes exploiting the animal populations to their economic advantage rather than actually managing them.
Elephant populations are especially suffering, and by upholding the ban, the U.S. will aid in their hopeful recovery and send a strong message to other African countries to stop unacceptable policies of poaching and hunting.
Time is critical. If you’re frustrated of hearing about elephant exploitation, please take a moment to send an email to [email protected] at the USFWS that says you support wild animals and the trophy ban. Do it today. The comment period ends April 1.
Trophies are dead. Bodies do not perpetuate a species.
Billie Gutgsell and Leland Rucker/ Boulder
Dead story should go deeper
I read the article [Re: “Ladies and gentlemen, not the Grateful Dead,” Stew’s Views, March 5] and share your frustration about the monetization of special events and concerts like this one. My first taste of this was when Phish came off their seven-year hiatus to return for a three-night stand at Hampton Coliseum. I tried like the masses to get tickets, only to see that the show was sold out it under 30 seconds, yet scores of tickets were readily available on StubHub and eBay for anywhere between five and ten times the face value. My friend went to all three nights with his wife for the low, low price of $3,500, stating that “you only live once.”
In the article, you took issue with the fact that thousands of tickets immediately became available on StubHub because Chicago Bears season ticket holders, who have first right of refusal on all ticketed events at the stadium, bought and then flipped the tickets for a massive profit. You then suggest that this had something to do with the choice of venue, and you finish the paragraph with the comment, “The party line that Soldier Field was chosen because it was the site of the last Grateful Dead concert on July 9, 1995 rings more hollow with every passing scalped ticket purchase.” So, what would be the motivation driving the decision of venue based on this one point? If Bears ticket holders are the ones who turned $119.50 into $3500, then what skin does Ticketmaster or StubHub have in this game, other than a nominal fee to process the secondary sale?
I’m not saying you’re wrong; rather, I am saying you might be right on a much larger scale than you allude to in the article. And, I just want to know if there is a bigger issue here. It could be fiction, but I had heard Ticketmaster and/or the StubHub people employ sweat shops of people in India to pound the public on-sale windows from call centers with stacks of credit card numbers to buy up as many tickets as possible “the right way” in the primary market. The show then sells out in minutes, yet thousands of tickets are almost immediately available on StubHub for as much as ten times the price. If TM or StubHub don’t own the tickets as this point, they stand only to make about 10-15 percent fee on the resale, instead of something more like 1,700 percent by marking up $199 tickets to $3,500.
It seems to me that the issue is way bigger than a record-setting money grab over a singular event, the Chicago Dead shows of 2015. Rather, it seems to be a systemic problem on a much larger scale. There are several articles out there about the $5 billion secondary market for tickets in this country and about the ongoing battles between TM and StubHub for market share, but are these behemoths really after a meager 10-15 percent grab on the secondary purchase while’ Joe Concertgoer’ clears $3-grand for a trip to Mexico?
Maybe someone should dig even deeper. After all, the same thing happened to me trying for Phish tickets at Hampton Coliseum years ago. To my knowledge, there are no football fans there with first right of refusal on concert tickets that will end up in the secondary market. Yet, the same thing still happened. And how do all those tickets end up online for resale so damned fast? The system these days seems to be built for it.
Mark H. Frederick/Waitsfield
Get the facts on coal
I read your article on coal plant construction in this week’s Boulder Weekly [Re: “Old King Coal is sick — but not yet dying,” Boulderganic, March 19]. I expected your statements regarding coal plants and usage were off my millions of coal tons.
I thought a little online research might shed light through the polluted air haze, and it didn’t take long.
Here is a recent summary of coal use in the world offered by the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/30/chinainstalled-a-record-number-of-solarpanels-in-2013-but-coal-is-still-winning/
Both India and China continue to add and use vast coal capacity, and the graphs show this succinctly. Yes, China is now dominant in solar and is adding capacity with solar, but this is a small percentage when put into proper context regarding coal and its resulting consequences.
Your article seems misleading and missing the larger concern regarding the growing world use of coal today and for the future.
Rob Moore/Boulder
Close the loop
If you read the opinions about the topic of curbside composting, now under consideration in Longmont, you might think it’s a battle over a permonth fee. That perspective is so narrow as to miss the big picture and the undeniable benefits completely.
The current system was inherited from our forefathers who set up a trash system based on linear thinking. You pick the trash up and drop it off at the landfill.
Our call for curbside composting is to take the broken circle and put it back together. Instead of ignoring nature’s system, go with it. Instead of burying the half of our trash that is organic in a landfill, make it into black gold. Instead of mindlessly accepting the concept of “away,” let’s admit that the standard system is short-sighted and buries our unsolved problems for our grandkids to figure out.
The benefits of curbside composting expand way beyond the trash bill. That’s why we are advocating for an integrated Sustainability and Climate Action Plan for Longmont. Let’s acknowledge the severe drought in California where much of our produce originates. Let’s look at how our waste stream can bolster our ability to become a burgeoning local foodshed. Let’s link it to it’s ability to provide thriving community gardens and communities, to reduce our healthcare costs, to counter childhood obesity and alleviate hunger.
As Dwight Eisenhower said, “If you cannot solve a problem, enlarge it.” Let’s stop arguing about the billing of an ill-designed trash system and get on with identifying broken systems and fixing them. The concept of “trash” itself is a new idea. It’s a bad idea. And it’s time to roll up our sleeves. Let’s start with curbside composting. It’s time to close the loop.
Joan Gregerson, Founder of Sustainable Revolution/Longmont
TPP is a step away from democracy
I’m a current CU undergraduate, and I am writing to you today to express my concern about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement between the United States and many other nations that will affect 720,000,000 people and 40 percent of the world’s economy. This extremely complex document has been drafted by corporations and government officials behind closed doors over the past four or five years. U.S. representatives have recently been allowed to read the document, but they are forced to read it without the assistance of their staff or lawyers who could help them decode its confusing legal jargon.
As if this isn’t concerning enough, the Obama administration is trying to convince Congress to adopt “Fast Track,” which aims to rush the TPP through Congress without public review or amending. I think that this bill unjustly validates the kind of secrecy in which the TPP was written. If it weren’t for Wikileaks, we would have no idea what the TPP entailed.
According to the information that has been leaked, the TPP allow for more job outsourcing, and it gives pharmaceutical companies stronger patents, which means that cheaper, generic drugs will be delayed if they are to be released at all. The TPP would also allow corporations to sue nations, states, or municipalities that make any law, which interferes with their profits. Obviously, these are questionable ideas, and they seem to serve corporate interests, and nothing else. We need to call Jared Polis at 303- 484-9596, and tell him to vote against Fast Track and the TPP. If Fast Track is passed, then we will be one step further away from democracy, and if the TPP is passed, then we will be one step closer towards a corporate state.
Andrew Bryson/Boulder
Polis wrong on TPP
What is it with Congressman Polis? At times he is a strong progressive voice on some very important issues. But when it comes to a most important issue affecting corporate control over our lives and protection of our jobs, communities and environment against corporate predation, he comes up woefully short.
I’m speaking of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an all-encompassing treaty involving a dozen Pacific Rim nations, with provisions to add more. For the past five years the Obama Administration has been negotiating the TPP in secret meetings attended by 600 corporate operatives but effectively closed to civil society and largely hidden from our elective representatives.
Leaked documents reveal TPP would enforce intensive competition between American workers and bastions of abusive low-wage sweatshop labor like Mexico, Malaysia and Vietnam. Protection of American jobs, our environment, food safety, consumer product quality and workplace standards would be subject to costly and undemocratic “state-investor tribunals” empowered to heavily fine governments that attempt to protect citizens, communities and environments from destructive corporate practices. Access to affordable drugs and use of the Internet would be highly restricted in order to protect corporate profits. Regulation of big banks that caused the crash of 2008 would be virtually eliminated. Promotion of American-made products would be illegal.
The Obama Administration, fearing public scrutiny would doom TPP to ignominious defeat, will soon ask Congress to pass a bill popularly known as “Fast Track,” now euphemistically dubbed “Trade Promotion Authority” (TPA). TPA is intended to bypass Congressional authority, forcing all-ornothing ratification of TPP with no amendments. Worst of all, TPA would void public debate; a prospect Wall Street backers, trans-national corporations and the 1 percent drool over.
So where is Jared Polis on this seminal issue? Sadly, the congressman is non-committal, apologetic of the President and seemingly indifferent to the prospect of unfettered profiteering by elites who stand to benefit from the pending corporate free-or-all. We must insist he stand up for democracy and the majority of his constituents. No more pussyfooting. No more waffling. Tell Mr. Polis to join 161 Democratic colleagues and oppose TPA. Email Jared now at polis.house.gov/contact/ or leave a message at 303-484-9596.
Ken Bonetti/Boulder
