Another Farmers’ Market
Thank you for the recent article, “Are you Paying for Organic Gourmet Chic?” in which Margaret Christie and Stephanie Kraft explain the operational and economic differences between large-scale growing for supermarkets and small farming for local farmers’ markets. The issues are not easy to understand from outside, yet matter a great deal to our well-being, as individuals and as community.
However, I was disappointed to note on the accompanying list of Farmers’ Markets that South Hadley Farmers’ Market was omitted. We do accept WIC, Senior Coupons and EBT/SNAP. All administration is done by volunteers from the community so that we keep participation costs low for vendors. We will be looking for additional volunteers next year.
Ann Pemberton
South Hadley
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Smaller Role for Wall Street
Reigning in Wall Street is very important [“Storming the Gates,” October 20, 2011]. Having the economy based on an illogical, emotional model wherein a rumor can cause huge financial loss or gain within minutes of being uttered is ridiculous.
Having an investment vehicle like derivatives that even many highly educated “experts” don’t really understand is even more ridiculous, especially when it has already caused havoc (bankruptcy in Orange County—one of the most affluent areas in Southern California). Giving up longterm stability for short-term gain that only benefits a few is bad business and a bad idea for the future of this country. The stock market should play a very small role in the overall economy of this country.
Congress and the Senate need to remember the trillions of dollars they direct are provided by the blue-collar workers who make up the middle class. Without those blue-collar workers actually working, paying taxes and spending money, the engine that is the American economy stops dead in its tracks. The top of the pyramid will collapse upon itself without the broad base of the bottom of the pyramid.
Lori Anthony
via Internet
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Cornell West Not “Bottom-Feeder”
I think Princeton University would be surprised to hear Andrew Potter call it “the bottom,” as he did when he labelled one of its faculty, Professor Cornell West, a “pop-cultural bottom feeder” [“Occupy Wall Street Has a Point,” October 20, 2011]. Prof. West is not only a professor at Princeton but a revered civil rights advocate and outspoken defender of the people. Despite his actually being at the “top of the feeding chain,” he hasn’t lost his roots to black American culture; perhaps Mr. Potter is showing a bit of racism in his slur on this distinguished professor?
Diane Crowe
via Internet
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Death of Animals Tragic
I was deeply saddened by the needless massacre of 47 animals abandoned in Zanesville, Ohio.
Yet these precious lives represent only a fraction of the 300 cows, pigs, and other innocent sentient animals butchered for our dinner table every second of every minute of every hour of every day. That’s 10 billion animals per year.
Unlike those in Zanesville, animals raised for food have no life before death. From birth they are caged and crowded, deprived and drugged, manhandled and mutilated.
Undercover investigations have shown male baby chicks suffocated in plastic garbage bags or ground to death. The females are crammed for life in tiny wire-mesh cages that tear out their feathers.
Pregnant sows are caged for years, unable to turn around.
At the slaughterhouse, animals may be dismembered, skinned, scalded and drowned while fully conscious. Nearly 10 percent die of injuries and diseases.
For folks who share my sadness at the Zanesville massacre, a vegan diet offers the only effective path to a guilt-free conscience. There’s no extra charge for the associated health and environmental benefits.
Eddie Buster
Easthampton
