Letters the week of 2/16/06

Women helping women

(Re: "Feminism's new face," cover story, Feb. 9.) Thank you for writing this article! It's good to know that people in the media are trying to dispel the negative associations tagged on to "feminism." Thank you for giving a voice to women's organizations whose work may exist outside of traditional women's aid organizations, but who are certainly trying to make a difference in the lives of women from various backgrounds and experiences.

Korri Roach/via Internet

Scoring on sex

(Re: "The heart of sex," Hygeia, Feb. 9.) Thanks so much for that article on sex coaching. It was very informative and life-enhancing, a real service to the community.

Daniel Murphy/via Internet

Fake heroism

(Re: "Assassin or con man?" cover story, Feb. 2.) Thank you for your editorial revealing the truth about David Race Bannon. I was interested in unmasking his identity a while ago after having worked with him at a Charlotte-based company called Information Architects back in 2000-2001. Race (as he preferred to be called) was hired as a director of training. I remember how odd it was when he was giving a seminar in New Jersey and he chose to fill the whiteboard with cartoon characters that he drew to somehow deliver a message about a Java software program. He liked to let people think that he taught Java at Wake Forest University when it appeared from the school's website that he taught Computers 101 (or the like) to folks at Wake Technical College. (Big difference!) He liked to flaunt his appearances on the History Channel, though his contributions to some martial arts programs hardly helped his reputation in software. (Nor did his alleged dissertation on some martial arts history from the University of Seoul.) Oh, and he never walked with a cane, then.

Things didn't end well for Race at Information Architects, and he followed it up with a wacky book. I wrote an e-mail to the press officers at Interpol, and they wrote back he was a nobody (I probably still have that reply). I wrote the first review of his book in Amazon.com, suggesting he was a fake. But I made no headway.

Thank you so much for finding and exposing the truth in all this! In a way, I resent him because he faked heroism by pretending to help kids who really need help. And what a shame, because he was able to bring so much attention to children who need it—too bad he didn't do it with some integrity and build some program to help them going forward, rather than just using them as the backdrop of a grand lie.

Steve McDonald/West Hartford, Conn.

Betrayal and forgiveness

(Re: "Betrayal, forgiveness and authenticity," Self Healing, Feb. 9.) I am reminded of the fact that we all are essentially guided by what one might call Primary Intelligence. P.I. does not involve itself in right or wrong or even judgement; rather, it only decides which move to make. Jesus supposedly said, "I have no goals. My yes is yes, and my no means no." In other words "presence" is where it's at. And that forgiveness essentially means the forgiveness of oneself for judging another.

David Krest/Lafayette

More choices, more dilemmas

Boulder's new Home Depot gives us more consumer choices along with opportunities to reflect on the consequences of our purchasing decisions. In becoming the No. 2 retailer behind Wal-Mart, Home Depot established one of the nation's worst customer-safety records. Rather than adequately investing in measures to stop accidental deaths and injuries, it invested in blaming victims and vendors. When that failed, it made confidential settlements. Aware of its poor safety records, former General Electric executive and current Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli told a 2004 White House economic conference, "What you have today is business on one side, and you've got the trial lawyers on the other side... You've got deep pockets colliding with shallow principles.''

Home Depot has close ties to the Bush administration. Its executive vice president served as George W. Bush's deputy energy secretary for just 10 months before joining Home Depot. Karen Knutson, wife of Home Depot's top in-house lobbyist (and a lobbyist herself), was a top aid to Vice President Dick Cheney. She was deputy director for the National Energy Policy Development Group—Cheney's secret energy task force. CEO Nardelli has made multiple visits to the White House and served as a major fundraiser in Bush's 2004 campaign.

Home Depot lobbied for, and received, tariff relief on imported fans. In three years it stands to gain $44 million through this tariff relief —the same amount the U.S. Treasury will lose.

How should we make our judgments? Where does our individual responsibility begin and end? Mahatma Gandhi said, "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a responsibility as co-operation with good." Individuals can make differences. Consider this: After more than a year of protests led by Rainforest Action Network, and following 11-percent shareholder support, Home Depot announced it would no longer sell wood from endangered areas.

Steve Whitehead/Boulder

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