Just prodding

Letter from Slim Wolfe

Colorado Central - October 2005 - Colorado Central Magazine - No. 140 - Page 23
Copyright © 2005 by Slim Wolfe and Central Colorado Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
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Editors:

I love Boy Wonder on his rocking horse in South-Ark Funnies. And I've got a name for the horse: "Friend of the Devil."

In your replay to a previous letter in this space you doubt that our region can sustain much more sustainability, and think we ought to be glad most Americans would rather live in towns.

Let's face it, most people, rich or poor, including myself, would find a new location if they could afford it. Most of those 290 million are just plain stuck - one way or another. But enough of them are finding ways to move into our neighborhood anyway, and in the long run their needs will be more destructive (as you have long asserted in your editorials) than the needs of the self-sufficient.

Come on now, you don't think we have enough room for solar panels and chicken coops? But you do think we can sustain the present trend of modulars, battered trailers, and trophy homes requiring long power lines and extensive excavation?

You don't think we can supply our own building logs but you do think we ought to continue to depend on losing jobs to out-of-state production and transportation? Central Colorado doesn't exist in a vacuum. You yourself have editorialized that growth is inevitable and we ought to make intelligent plans, and now you're ready to discourage the most intelligent of plans? Seems fearful, inconsistent, nimbyistic, negative - for someone who, six pages later in the editorial, accuses us all of being depressingly negative.

[Cartoon with Slim Wolfe's letter]

Nobody, certainly not you or me, is talking about a major land rush fueled by promises that "You'' be able to grow all your own wheat on the balmy slopes of Mt. Elbert." But every one can do something to reduce dependence on extra-regional items, because the planet as a whole is every bit as fragile and stressed as Central Colorado, and some more local load-bearing is critical at this time. It's great that people like you have reduced their gas consumption, but you still depend on utilities, corporate food supplies, and others who make you pay for their consumption and waste.

I did enjoy the start of your editorial which was critical of analysts who insist on faming or spinning all the issues. Ironically, you went on to frame Americans as this, Republicans as that, and Democrats as something else.

Though I don't flip through People magazine or watch Fox news, I assure you that I'm not a Democrat, nor a snob. There is no point in filling up on Wonder Bread when whole grain is available.

Logical politicking? Who are you trying to kid with that conundrum? Prophets of doom? Were the people who told us that hurricanes have got 50% stronger in the past 30 years - and that the New Orleans levees were in jeopardy - what you would call prophets of doom?

Lastly, may I correct your contention that I am contemptuous of the working poor and urbanites? Maybe other readers as well got that erroneous impression. I just want to prod people of all stripes to learn to see past the frames that they have been given, and take those first steps, whatever they are, to quit feeding the corporate wolves and bears. People are banding together in eco-towns and -villages from Ithaca to India to Crestone, Colorado. Save your high-tech camera for an essay on Chokecherry Farm, by the way.

Up in Crestone there are a couple of young folks who can show you how to mix up horse-farming, food production, solar energy, and fry-oil distillation on a five-acre parcel, and still have time for community service and the good things in life. Don't knock it till you've seen it!

 Slim Wolfe
 Villa Grove

P.S.: I think Christo and Jeanne-Claude are short-sheeting us in the name of notoriety. Fling a wad of cash around and tell us if we don't like it it's because we don't get it? We've already got Texans who do that! Please, can we have the whole enchilada? How about three Spanish galleons, a mile apart and fully rigged? Jobs for foresters, woodcrafters, sail-makers, and a potential industry for a petrol-free future, sail-cycles. Come to think of it, doesn't galleon mean "big chicken"? Imagine roller-skated commuter-chickens sailing over Poncha Pass! What a scoop for KHEN!

Yes, I am contemptuous: of a nation that predicated itself on freedom of choice and makes the dumbest choices, the laziest choices; persistently charismatic salesmen like Christo (and our politicians, taste-makers, opinion-makers, and all the rest) will continue to fame us and dumb us down as long as we're content to follow like sheep.

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