An Idea on How to Fight Credit Card Offers
The Tom Tomorrow cartoon in your March 17 issue noted that the recently passed bankruptcy bill was quite favorable to the credit card industry.If you're like me, you receive a deluge of unwanted credit card offers. Here's what I do with them:
Take the application form. Scribble all over it, then write, "Remove me from your list!" at the top. Put the form, the letter that came with it and the envelope in which the offer was mailed into the postage-paid envelope. Then send it right back to the credit card company.
This little act of "aggressive unmarketing" is fast, easy and fun. And it costs the credit card companies money. Imagine that!
If a few hundred thousand Americans started doing this, I think the credit card companies would find another way to promote their offerings.
Martha Retallick
We Officially End the Creation/Evolution Mailbag Debate With ... This
I'm a big Rupert Sheldrake fan. Most scientists are not. Basically, Sheldrake posits that if life as we know it were left to chance, then it never would have happened. But he doesn't subscribe to Christianity's narrow-minded take, either.My take: Assuming wormholes exist, 6,000 years ago, this 4.5 billion-year-old planet got sucked into a wormhole, and the speed of it altered the entire planet. It may have been at this time when continental plates got pushed and shoved around enough to wipe out lots of life.
What do I know? Not much. But to cling to prejudiced beliefs for no other reason than to self-justify one's narrow-mindedness is boring. It's far more entertaining and enjoyable to have an open mind that there is still mystery about life on this planet. Science does a halfway decent job of uncovering those mysteries. The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature by Rupert Sheldrake is an enlightening read. There's a lot science hasn't told us, simply because it hasn't figured it out. Most likely, it never will.
Peter Bockenthien
'Debtor's Prison' Was a Breath of Fresh Air
I find the Weekly a breath of fresh journalistic air that Tucson needs. The latest example is the strange tale of the Mexican man in an American jail in Nogales ("Debtor's Prison," March 24). I couldn't put it down. Not only is the story fascinating, but the writing is of a quality that it's the sort of tale you see spun from time to time in The New Yorker.I have a feeling that the protagonist, Señor Osete, has more secrets to tell us. Now if only Señora Osete would give Keith Rosenblum the time of day. You come away from the piece with the giant question about what is really going on. And it really seems cruel to keep someone in jail just to get them to cough up some information, and yet Osete tells us he's told all he knows. I don't think so, but all I know is I want to know more. Keep up the good work.
Dick Mayers
I Am Open to Both Men and Women, So Deal!
Well, Paula Klein ("This L Does Not Want to Be Grouped With the Gs, Bs and Ts," Mailbag, Feb. 24), I am sick of all the people who are too stupid to see just how interconnected we all are as human beings, let alone as Americans. If I hear one more whiner cry, "I'm not like that!" I think I'll puke.I'm sick of spoiled, myopic people who lack the wit and wherewithal to grasp the basic truth that we're all in this together. Intolerant fundamentalists of all stripes are so goddamned busy excluding and persecuting that they can't see or feel the consequences of their actions. In the interest of promoting good gastric health, let me point some things out to you and all other similarly rigid thinkers (this includes you, Jim Ru, "It's Raining ... Homosexual Commentary!" Mailbag, March 24).
Fuck you all, and grow up. I'm a dick-sucking, cunt-lapping queer with enough self determination and conviction to get in the face of assholes like you with your petty little cubbyholes every time your intolerant judgmental hypocritical words and deeds pop up like the lesions and boils that they are. Allow me to prick your bubble, and if you won't, I'll do it anyway. I'm a human being blessed with the capacity to love, lust and empathize with those I am drawn to, regardless of the gender prisons they have been forced into by whiners alike. I get labeled with the constraint of BISEXUAL in our world. I am not confused; I am not closeted; I am not in transition, nor am I a fence sitter (except when it feels good). I am not greedy, yet I know what I want, and that is to not to have to make a choice limited to either or. In fact, I don't think I fit any of the many myths and lies so many in society seem to have about bisexuals. It is a consequence of my consciously choosing to exercise my liberty, something all humans have except that some of us don't really think or feel that.
I'm particularly disappointed in people who know the price of oppression, yet are quite comfortable cutting, scaring, and bruising all those that don't fit into the cookie-cutter forms that they have been ramming others into, or worse yet, have made by themselves for themselves.
I, too, am sick and tired of all those goddamned people that don't fit into my neat little torture boxes that society has given me! Get out of the way or I'll barf on you.
Yours in solidarity even though you don't seem to want it ...
Steve Holmes
When It Comes to Mainstream Movie Drivel, Who Cares?
The Weekly movie section, reviewing Ice Princess? The Ring Two? Huh? Who cares? Why not just have the music section review the latest albums by Britney Spears and N'Sync while we're at it?If the Weekly is going to review lame Disney movies, then perhaps the rest of the paper should quit reporting on independent and Southwest stuff. Yawn on the movies section. It's as bland as reading reviews on MSN now. Good job of selling out and wasting space, guys!
Jeremy L. Tesha
There's Another Greyhound Rescue Group to Know About
On behalf of retired racing greyhounds everywhere, I would like to thank April Lacey for her insightful article, "Dog Days of Retirement" (Currents, March 17). I would also like to alert readers that there is another local greyhound rescue group, Arizona Greyhound Rescue.Unlike the Greyhound Adoption League, Arizona Greyhound Rescue receives no funds from any race track. Our adoption fee of $175 does not cover all our expenses per dog, so we are constantly in fundraising mode.
In 2004, our vet fees alone cost more than $25,000, which included generous discounts. Given the choice between euthanizing a dog with a broken leg or fixing it, we always choose the latter. These dogs go on to enjoy life to the fullest.
We are an all volunteer, nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation and believe that every greyhound deserves a loving, permanent and responsible home. Although greyhounds may look fierce because they race with muzzles on, they are indeed sensitive couch potatoes that just need an opportunity to adjust and thrive in their new and better way of life.
Mary Freeman
Arizona Greyhound Rescue
