Gone to the dogs

The San Francisco SPCA wants to build an unnecessary for-profit hospital rather than doing the traditional things that generate donations and gifts of support – like the Cat Assistance Team, low-cost spay/neuter, and legal advocacy for off-leash recreation and other issues of "the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" ["Profits or Pets?," 7/02/03].

It's common knowledge among animal welfare advocates that the S.F./SPCA will offer little if any support to our efforts. Pets Unlimited is rapidly replacing the SPCA in San Francisco as the symbol of genuine caring about the welfare of pets.

The S.F./SPCA's bottom-lining board of directors needs to find its way back to the organization's mission and purpose. It's good for the soul – and the bottom line too.

Steve Cockrell
President, Citydogs

The price of GMOs

Thank you for the article "Let Them Eat GMOs" (7/02/03). I was raised on a 240-acre organic farm in Iowa, and am a strong supporter of small farms, organic as much as possible, and am strongly against GMOs. I have seen the farmland poisoned in Iowa by a lack of diversified farming, a lack of organic fertilizers, and the lack of plant rotation. Instead, I see land poisoned by chemical fertilizers and the water table polluted by insecticides. Three of my aunts have died of cancer. The correlation between the current farming methods and cancer will one day be proven.

Agribusiness is destroying our land. Last week my 93-year-old mother reported zero visibility in Ventura, Iowa, due to topsoil "blowing in the wind." I grew up in one of the most fertile agricultural areas in the world. Thanks to big-businesses such as Monsanto, we now have few to no small farms and we have land that is poisoned and quickly depleted of its rich soil.

The big-business corporations have taken control of the ag schools. They promote their products for profit, thus gaining profit for their corporations and depleting the farmland.

I hope that the European nations along with Brazil, China, Thailand, Mexico, and Africa hold firm on their bans of biotech foods.

Susan C. Ax

Hayward

Fat lies

William B. Grant, Ph.D., writes that I tried to minimize the effects of being overweight in my opinion piece "The Fear of Fat" (6/18/03). I've reread the piece and I'm having trouble seeing how. My piece was about the inaccurate use of statistics when public officials try to make policy.

The 300,000 [excess deaths per year due to obesity] number is, in fact, correct when it's used to talk about deaths from lack of exercise and bad eating habits. The use of the 300,000 number to promote the idea that people die from being fat is what caused my ire. There are thin people who sit on their couch and eat junk food. They are at risk. Why isn't anyone worried about them?

My intent in this piece was to ask my public officials to do some reading about the complexity of fat experience before they add to the ramp up of hostility toward my body type. I would ask Grant to do the same. Big Fat Lies, the book I referenced by Glenn Gaesser, Ph.D., is a good place to start.

Tish Parmeley

San Francisco

Loving the Beach Boys

Thank you Will York for a wonderful article on the Beach Boys, "Family Band" (7/02/03).

I love their surfing and car songs, which helped define a time and a place (and maybe a timeless place), but I think their best three are Sunflower, Pet Sounds, and Carl and the Passions: So Tough (in order of my preference).

This is the first time I have seen anything in writing on these "obscure" albums (except Pet Sounds of course), and I'm glad that this marvelous music can receive some of the praise that I believe is long overdue.

Butch Hutchings

San Francisco

No weak link

I have to take exception to your characterization of Dewey Martin as the weakest link in the Springfield ["This Is Nowhere, 7/02/03]. First of all, the biggest hit that the band had was "For What It's Worth," and the most distinctive thing about it was the bass drum. Martin may be a real prick, but he could at one time play his ass off.

Allen Chance

Los Angeles

For the record