Letters the week of 10/17/02

Xenophobic 31

I am so glad that the Boulder Weekly had the courage to put the Amendment 31 issue on their front cover ("Forced to speak English," Oct. 10). More than any other issue on the Nov. 5 ballot, the struggle against "31" is a struggle against uninformed democracy. With brilliant but Machiavellian language, Unz has cleverly played to the heart of common "Anglo" xenophobia. He has offered up a panacea to the semi-conscious fears of "Whites" dreading overthrow of their linguistic way of life by "Multitudes from South of the Border."

The handful of supporters of this thing-who have actually read it, let alone fully understand it-are few. The number of folks who think they know it are many. This may be why, out of the hundreds of people that I have personally talked to about "31," the few who actually were firmly in support of it refuse to discuss it. I have met one proponent (a CU professor) who would stay to discuss his reasoning in any detail.

The one reason that opposition grows against this travesty of misinformation is simply this: People are finally starting to learn what it actually says! I only pray we are not too late.

Brian Herzfeld/Louisville

Doomsday Machine?

About the Doc Strange screening in the midst of all this war talk: Mr. Medved might be interested to hear that the audience found the Strangelovers to be far less "suicidal" than he remembers ("Strange days," Buzz, Oct. 10).

While General Ripper blows his own head off, the status-quo of U.S. pentagon-driven policies remains intact: "We can preserve a nucleus of human specimens," Strangelove foretells, "and naturally our leaders and top military minds would have to be selected..." for the prodigious mineshaft breeding program where the global radiation wouldn't penetrate. "Our GNP could be restored in a matter of 20 years..."

Following Mr. Medved's line of inquiry, I asked the audience what Bush was, if not "homicidal"-unsure of the exact term for a leader who sends an entire society to war (and possibly death or Doomsday) against its better judgment. A woman approached the mike and gave a definitive answer: "That's fascism."

Nile Southern/Boulder

Teaching altruism

In response to Rob Sheely's "High School Heat" dreamscape essay: Anyone armed, by default, cannot be a teacher (People's Republic, Oct. 3). I've been teaching for 15 years in some of Colorado's toughest schools, and I've learned what it means to be an effective teacher. You must be respected for being honorable-this means you don't demand respect, you get it because of your nature. If you demand respect, you get the opposite. You must give up everything egotistical and approach complete altruism. You must unconditionally love all of your students. Finally you must never endanger your students and be fully willing to die protecting them. Being armed might be an option if we were in a war zone under invasion, but being intimidating or threatening negates any effectiveness you might otherwise have as a teacher.

Dave Crowder/Boulder

Media disconnect

In Case You Missed It recently touted a poll in which some 50 percent of Americans were reported to have responded that "the First Amendment goes too far in protecting freedom of speech and, especially, freedom of the press" ("Too much freedom," Sept. 26). Some 40 percent said "newspapers should not be allowed to freely criticize the U.S. military." Additionally, "four in 10 said they would limit the academic freedom of professors and bar them from criticizing both the government and the military." These items were highlighted as "scary."

I think the above-mentioned poll actually brings to light the level of disconnect between the media and the general population. The public does not generally disagree with free speech, as much as it objects to the expansion of the definition of free speech to include actions that otherwise would be categorized as terroristic or antisocial. This pushing of the limits of free speech is what really matters because so many groups escalate beyond traditional freedom of speech to actions that qualify more as forcing their opinions on others when their original ideas were not warmly received.

As far as criticism of the military goes, I think this reflects the difference of opinion between the overly left-leaning media and university types who are dead set against any military action in Iraq and the 65 percent of Americans who are in favor of ousting Saddam Hussein. The average American is not necessarily the fool that the intellectual left likes to portray them as, and is somewhat resentful of the "spun" version of news that they are in constant receipt of. Pushed further, I think most of the respondents would have admitted that they didn't really want to censor military reporting, but just wished that the reporting was a little more responsible and a little less defeatist and anti-American.

When it comes to the university professors, "academic freedom" means liberal political activism and regular people now understand that. The system has become so politically correct that the teaching of traditional western values has been edged out in favor of New Age propaganda. The politicization of education coupled with the dominance of a single political philosophy (liberalism) has led to a situation in which America increasingly comes under attack (by professors) for every ill suffered in the world.

Again, a certain level of pragmatism is reflected in the polling. The real message is "get back to traditional instruction and preparing students to be productive participants in American life."

Kevin B. Kelley/Boulder

Flawed GMOs

(RE: "Eating Science," cover story, Sept. 26.) Like many new scientific discoveries, the science of genetically modifying foods arrives as a Promethian gift; it is up to us to use it in a responsible manner. So, scientists have developed a genetically modified rice that has a better nutritional profile than other, old-fashioned, nature-put-them-here varieties of rice. The wonderful news is that we may be able to feed the starving populations of the world with this new rice, and deliver needed vitamin A to them at the same time.

But other genetically modified foods have turned up on the "liability" side of the ledger. Ron Bain paraphrases Ronald Bailey as saying that "it's impossible for the genes in genetically engineered foods to harm humans." True-sort of. The DNA itself can not hurt you, but other aspects arising from the inclusion of those DNA can. In one now-famous incident, a brazil nut gene was spliced into soybeans in order to create a soybean with an improved protein content. The unfortunate consequence of this experiment was that the newly-created super soybean also carried whatever aspect of the brazil nut it is that makes some people allergic to it.

To their credit, Pioneer Hi-Bred International tested the new soybean and found that people were now experiencing allergic reactions to a food which they previously had known as safe. The product was discontinued. The BT gene (from bacillus thuringensis) has been spliced into corn and other commercial crops as a built-in insecticide. This is great-except that we are now accidentally killing butterflies that ingest the pollen from this corn. The problem, as is often the case with a new technology, is that unforeseen and unintended consequences often arise.

These sorts of things can happen with traditionally bred strains, too, but at a much slower pace, and with traditional breeding methods you can't cross a jellyfish with a potato (this has been done). With the rapid development of genetically modified foods we are trusting our health and the health of our environment, not only to Big Ag, but to human arrogance (can't wait to see what happens with the glow-in-the-dark potato). So, gazing in to your crystal ball, Ron Bain, are we really going to be OK?

D. Read Spear/Boulder

I read with interest your article about GMO's or bioengineered foods. I found myself upset by some of the untruths told by Ron Bailey. There are many documented cases of allergic and/or harmful reactions to GMO foods.

Remember the Starlink corn fiasco of 2000, in which nationwide corn supplies where found to be contaminated by Starlink corn, a bioengineered corn which the FDA had earlier ruled unfit for human consumption? Well, after the scandal unfolded the FDA took testimony from hundreds of people who presented severe allergic reactions to Starlink corn. By the way, if GMO foods are harmless, why would the FDA rule Starlink corn unfit for human consumption?

Today one can make a reasonably valid argument that GMO foods do not appear to be severely harmful or fatal to humans. Personally I'm immediately aware when I've consumed GMO foods. GMO corn and soybean foods cause a moderate to severe allergic reaction every time I eat them. Any food prepared with GMO soybean oil causes the worst symptoms. If I quickly downed a couple of six-packs of the GMO malt liquor drink "Sublime," I would have an allergic reaction so severe I would require hospitalization.

Americans are a docile and ignorant bunch who stand as evidence that well-conceived and executed propaganda campaigns can be very successful. It's no surprise there's been no great hue and cry about GMO foods. After all, what you don't know can't hurt you.

Anybody remember the Nuremburg trials of Nazi leaders after WWII? That's when the U.S. and other nations agreed among other things that citizens would never again be subjected to medical experiments without their full knowledge and consent. That GMO foods are not presently required to be labeled is nothing less than outrageous. The truth is modern bioengineers have absolutely no idea what the consequences of their haphazard gene splicings will be.

The world's food supply is plentiful, cheap and healthy. Why mess with it? A larger concern is what will be forced upon us in the near future. How about GMO fish, and meat from cloned chickens, pigs and cattle? Will you or your unborn child become one of the anonymous victims of those bioengineered foods that we will eventually discover cause Multiple Sclerosis, auto-immune arthritis, defective heart valves, or some new and horrible disease? Are you a fan of environmental pollutants such as carcinogenic chemicals in our rivers or the automobile exhaust we breathe?

Now picture a vast new domain of pollution, that is, the genetic pollution of plant and animal life on earth. This is a pollution that can never be cleaned up or removed, any bad mistakes will be with us forever. This is worse than radioactive waste. This is the direction the insane crooks who run our world our forcibly taking us. How many Frankensalmons escaping into the Atlantic will it take to wreak eventual havoc on marine ecosystems? This is a blindfolded technology sure to have unanticipated and pernicious consequences.

Darius Victor/Boulder

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