Letters From Our Readers

Leash your dogs

To the Editor:

I kindly ask anyone living or walking their dogs, in the western hills area or in general nature areas, around our valley. Please keep your wonderful pets, on leashes.

I’ve watched a dog chase a mother dear (molly), separating her fawn, from her, in my neighborhood a couple years back. A few weeks later the fawn, was found, passed away. The sound of a fawn, without it’s mother is a natural thing when being weaned, but if possibly, its unnatural, caused by mankind, it’s very hard to hear.

So without understanding, the consequences of no leash… just want to make others aware of something, many are not aware of, until it’s too late. There is consequences to wild animals and to other people…with loose dogs. Not all dogs, like other dogs…just like some people don’t like other people. Sometimes animals have bad days, just like people. Everyone should try to obey the leash laws. For safety. And to keep the deer population, which is dwindling, as robust, as it can be.

Thank you, to those that use leashes.

— Catherine Lair, Ukiah

Black boxes of tech monopolies

EDITOR: Raw materials are sent across the ocean, worked, and returned as finished goods, at a lower price despite multiples of energy use. It’s called wage arbitrage.

And the same people complaining about climate change are demanding ever more money printing, MMT, to chase evercheaper labor willing to accept it in desperation. That’s called depravity.

Globalization running on automatic through the black boxes of tech monopolies is the problem. Lies, damn lies, and expert systems; Congress gave up its responsibilities decades ago. It’s of little wonder that Trump could take the helm; he’s a real estate guy.

Keep subsidizing Amazon and voting for bad or worse, or produce at home and let greed destroy itself. Threatening citizens with mob rule to pry Trump out of office isn’t going to change anything.

When the landlord and the employer are the same entity, the economy can only short out. How is this fintech bailout working for you?

— Kevin Earick, Mendocino

Flavored tobacco is not good for anyone’s health

EDITOR: Flavored tobacco products lure use, especially by youth, while the nicotine addiction creates life-long users for many or most.

According to a 2014 survey, 81 percent of current youth e-cigarette users cited the availability of appealing flavors as the primary reason for use. More than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States are from nicotine. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day!

Tobacco use is the single largest preventable cause of disease and death in the U.S. Marketing nicotine with flavors is a critical element in getting people hooked and results in a huge industry payoff.

$9.06 billion/year is spent on advertising and promotion of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco combined—about $25 million every day, more than $1 million every hour. And the payoff? Global tobacco sales (2018) are worth approximately $814 billion US, a tidy return.

Costs for smoking-related illness in the U.S. exceeds $300 billion each year, with $156 billion in lost productivity, including $5.6 billion in lost productivity due to secondhand smoke exposure.

Promoting flavored tobacco may be good for business, but not for people or society, especially our youth.

— Peter Aronson, Eureka