I am glad that I have your article. I thought I was in a very small minority and had not heard of this "alienation" concept, but I live and know it well. I only hope and pray to see my son's beautiful sunshine face someday soon! I never thought this kind of suffering and injustice could happen to me.
Name withheld on request
Hunt for the Truth
Oh, deer: George Seldes said, "Right or wrong, the present writer holds to his belief that in a nation and in a world where the means of mass communication are honest and free, when they function for the general welfare instead of private profits, there will be progress, because nothing will stop the march of an informed people!" Now we have a problem between two alternative papers in Colorado, specifically, which has added the most to "the march of an informed people." You see, while Westword was running Eric Dexheimer's August 29 column titled "Scattershot Logic," northern Colorado's Rocky Mountain Bullhorn was running an article titled "Who's to Blame for Mad Deer?"
I have a request of Westword editor Patricia Calhoun! Here is the URL of the Bullhornarticle on the subject: www.rockymountainbullhorn.com/cover.html. She, of course, knows the URL of the article Westwordposted -- oddly enough in the Sports section instead of under Business, where it seems to belong, since it seems to be the total logic of Governor Bill Owens's agriculture department. Been out dating agricultural interests lately, Patty?
I hope Westword will post the two URLs so that readers can ascertain which independent rag has contributed better to "the march of an informed people" on this very important subject.
Donald L. Ferry
Denver
Shut your trap: I was visiting from Germany for a few days and happened on Eric Dexheimer's "Scattershot Logic." He is so right: Killing game farm animals has nothing to do with hunting. Anyone who claims that it does is either stupid or has an agenda and is using game farming as an argument against hunting.
I don't know about Colorado, but Germany, where I have been living and hunting for thirty years, has very specific rules how game animals that are kept in enclosures to be raised for food are dispatched into the next life. It is strictly forbidden to take them to a slaughterhouse or to even manhandle them in any way. If they have to be moved, they must first be sedated. The only legal way to kill them is by rifle in their normal habitat -- that is, the enclosure where they have lived all or most of their life. Anything else is considered unnecessary cruelty. The shooter is not a hunter; he takes the place of the butcher. That's all. However, the shooter also must have a hunting license, because he is killing animals that fall under the hunting laws. The lawmaker hasn't yet caught up with reality!
Opponents of hunting have a case when they campaign against hunting farms, where trophy animals are raised to be shot as if they are on a rifle range; that kind of hunting is an abomination and deserves to be criticized. I don't just mean bison, wapiti and various African species, but also pen-raised pheasants that have to be tickled in order to fly so that they can be shot.
Reinhard Schumann
via the Internet
