Enjoyed February’s Personal Articles

Kate Storm’s article, “Finding the Good Life,” and Linda Braun’s “A Beginner’s First Steps on the Path of Self-Love” (February 2008) were both powerful pieces of self-reflective writing. I felt I was offered a very revealing peek into two very personal and inspiring journals.

Both women grappled with a question that we should all ask ourselves from time to time: Just what is our purpose in life? To be happy? To be of service to others? To make as much money as possible? To maximize enjoyment in our lives by focusing love and affection on ourselves? It’s interesting that two women are doing the speaking here, whereas the men in this particular issue deal more with “stuff” and politics. Is this somewhat a gender thing, I wonder?

This notion of taking time to go within and ask “What do I really want?” or “What do I really need to feel whole or healed?” can indeed be scary business. As a midlife male, I’m quite conscious of my cultural conditioning that mandates that I fulfill my duty of 30 or 40 years of professional life to serve as a productive member of society, “bringing home the bacon,” keeping house and family together, paying the mortgage, and cranking out product, whatever that may be.

Of secondary importance, or maybe of no importance at all (according to society), is yielding to that still, small voice within that calls out in the rare quiet moments, “Hey, Charlie, just quit doing all this stuff, sell the house, find a cottage on a lake or near the ocean, buy a small sailboat, and escape to water, trees, beaches or wilderness. Make time to play music again and explore just what’s down there deep.”

You’d think after 60+ years of living this should have already been accomplished. But, for various seemingly logical reasons, I’ve never felt this was possible financially or personally. Certainly, if I’m honest with myself, fear and guilt do play a strong role here. My sense of responsibility to family and business and the urgent environmental and political crises in the world keeps calling me back to help keep the ship of state afloat.

So, I grapple with a dilemma: I know I can make a significant difference in the world with what I do on a daily basis, and that feels really good. On the other hand, I wonder what life would be like if I just packed up, let go of my work world, and instead focused on directing love and affection toward myself and those perennially postponed pleasures of life. I guess I won’t know until I try.

— Charles Bensinger, Eldorado

Grateful Haunting

Linda Braun’s piece in the February issue (“A Beginner’s First Steps on the Path of Self-Love”) has stayed with me and my psyche for weeks — a kind of haunting — and I am very grateful. In general, our society has this self-love notion a little screwed up. I, like many others, have thought of self-love as self-centered and talking openly about it, close to verboten. Linda Braun’s essay took some of the veils away and clarified what authentic self-love is . . . a centering into a knowing of the One within us as well as all around us, the multiplicity and the Oneness. The slowing down and stillness Linda achieved were necessary to express in such beautiful clarity how to proceed in this difficult life with grace and openness. This stands as a testimony for me that, indeed, self-love is unconditional love for and of all. Thank you, Linda.

— Debra Link, Eldorado

Welcoming New sun monthly Publishers

I am writing to appreciate the last 11 years of the Sun and to wish you good luck in shepherding this treasure of a publication into its challenging and bright future. My partner and I moved to Eldorado in 1997 and were delighted to find the [then] El Dorado Sun in our mailbox tube every month. Under the able artistic and creative leadership of Linda Braun and Gershon Siegel, the Sun was simply the best publication in Santa Fe, never shrinking from controversy, squarely positioned on the progressive and ethical side of every issue, welcoming controversy while seeking to bring folks together. I thank Linda and Gershon for their years of service and wish them well on their path. As the new editors you have some big shoes to fill, and there is a large and engaged community of readers out there waiting to see what you will bring to the table. Again, good luck and welcome to the neighborhood.

— Judith Masur, Santa Fe

How Will Sun Monthly Change?

Change is inevitable. But with change comes stress. Knowing that Sun Monthly has been sold raises many questions about its future. We have come to know what to expect from the previous publishers. Now we wait. We learn. We watch. The Sun Monthly venue has been an important one to this community. In these political times what will we see from the new owners? Who are they? How will they respond to us? We to them? I hope that we will see a continuation of a venue open to the many diverse voices among us. I personally want to thank Gershon Siegel and Linda Braun and everyone else who brought us Sun Monthly. I know how hard they worked to put the paper out each month. To the new owners, welcome, and let us all help you when you need it. You have bought an important piece of the community.

— Jane Davis, Santa Fe

Don’t Neglect Eldorado

It is with a bit of sadness that we hear of the departure of Linda Braun and Gershon Siegel from ownership of Sun Monthly (formerly El Dorado Sun). We wish them the best in their future endeavors. They and their paper have been a vital part of our community for many years. As many of you know, the present Sun Monthly is an “adult child” of the original “parent” community newspaper that started out in Eldorado in 1982. I have fond memories of my two old monthly columns, “Water and You” and the “County Beat.” For about four years, my work with Linda and Gershon was a labor of love in getting the columns ready for the publishing deadline each month. We worked well together.

I just hope that the new publishers will also become a vital part of the community, as Linda and Gershon have been. Perhaps now that the New Mexican no longer runs the Eldorado Wednesday supplement, the new Sun publishers can see their way to add a page or two devoted to Eldorado community news.

— Don Dayton, Eldorado

An Inside View of the Sun

For 10 years, exactly, it has been my pleasure to be something of “an insider” to the unfolding process that is Sun Monthly. It was then that I met Gershon Siegel, who would come to meetings of the men’s group we were both part of (yes, Gershon, I still go to “that group”) clutching a stack of the latest issue of El Dorado Sun (as it was called then) in its new, much-larger format. I saw his passion for the paper grow and change, read his editorials with a friend’s special knowledge, got to know his family, saw him through “them changes,” and remained amazed at how gracefully he participated in an editorial board consisting of himself and, eventually, his two ex-wives! He, and they, have made Sun Monthly what it is, taking it from a very local newsletter to a truly regional celebration of politics, lifestyle, philosophy and, certainly, real estate. So while I congratulate the new owners and wish them well, it is with some regret that I note the passing of a torch that has burned so brightly this past decade. The question remains, Gershon: What the heck will you do now?

— David Leach, Eldorado

Thanks to Sun Monthly from SF Alliance

The Santa Fe Alliance board of directors and I personally would like to thank Gershon Siegel for his support of the Alliance and for his volunteer time on our board of directors from 2006 to 2008. Sun Monthly and the wonderful staff have been strong supporters of the Alliance since our founding, with Gershon’s valuable input from the very early days when the Alliance was just a glimmer in many community members’ eyes to articles in support of our mission and work to promote our locally owned, independent businesses. We are proud to have formed a partnership with the new owners and look forward to a long relationship. We welcome the new owners to our community and congratulate on them choosing such an important local independent media outlet. Thank you, Sun Monthly, for all you have been and all you will be!

— Vicki Pozzebon, executive director, SF Alliance

Sun readers should get involved

First, I’d like to thank Linda Braun and Gershon Siegel for the great job they’ve done bringing our community such an informative and provocative journal as Sun Monthly for the last 12 years. I not only really liked reading the Sun, but also very much enjoyed working with them as an occasional contributor.

Second, on a totally different topic, I want to encourage all Sun readers to get involved in this critically important election year. Anyone who’s read my articles in the Sun knows how much I believe that our country is in dire straits, both economically and politically. As much as we might like to believe that Senator Obama or Senator Clinton will win the election and turn the country around, the chances of that happening are nil without each of us making it a priority in our lives to see that it actually comes to pass. Senator McCain is no pushover. Moreover, neither Obama nor Clinton is the truly progressive politician that many of us had hoped would be the next president. Therefore, whichever one wins the Democratic nomination, we’ve got to do whatever we can to get him/her elected and then hold his/her feet to the fire. If America is ever to become the just, free and peaceful country we want it to be, it is up to us, the people, to make it happen.

— Bruce Berlin, Santa Fe

Evolve or Dissolve

Deep bows to you, Linda Braun and Gershon Siegel, for your stellar contributions over the years. Each month you reminded us through the written word to be attentive, passionate and creative in life. Each month the message seemed to be reminding us we had a choice: “evolve or dissolve.” And what an evolution it has been!

I send you both off in celebration with “Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!”

With two hands clapping and an Irish grin.

— Ann Marie McKelvey, Eldorado

reading the sun was a confirmation

I have been an avid reader of your publication for the few years I have lived here and have absolutely loved those many interesting and informative articles! Thank you so much for the many years of your dedicated and wonderful service. Even though I have read with regret about the sale of your paper and we’ll miss you, I know that you must be excited to be able to follow a new exciting path of your life’s journey.

Hopefully the new owners plan to continue in your great tradition. Somehow, I believe, they will, since they were somehow divinely guided in this whole venture, right?

I also want to take this opportunity to share with you how El Dorado Sun was a key factor over four years ago when I decided to move into this community. You see, I had walked into Coldwell Banker at that time and just wanted to casually check out whether Eldorado might be suitable for our retirement. Well, lo and behold, who stared at me but George W. from the cover page of your paper, with the appropriate caption “Touched . . . by God?” Reading this and the whole paper from cover to cover was confirmation for me that this is truly the community of like-minded people where we would like to live. So, thank you again!

We wish all of you many blessings and continued success!

— Marlies Lersch, Eldorado

forest service multiple-use policy obsolete

Leo Hubbard’s February article, “Reining In OHV Abuse: Approaching the Moment of Truth,” details quite accurately the experience many of us have had in dealing with the Forest Service over the proposed Travel Management Rule. If we had to choose one word to describe the bureaucracy’s attitude toward the public in this matter, it would be “inconsistent.” Although there are rank-and-file individuals who seem to truly care about our forests and public participation in their management, senior officials would obviously prefer that we simply go away. They promise a lot but, in the end, deliver very little; and with President Bush predictably proposing egregious cuts to the Forest Service budget, their effusive words will surely ring even more hollow.

The evolution of motorized technology has made the Forest Service’s guiding principle, the “multiple-use policy,” as it is currently formulated, completely obsolete — and officials are in complete denial about this. They seem chronically incapable of understanding the threat this technology represents and of protecting the irreplaceable national heritage of our public lands from its disastrous consequences.

As nature writer Rick Bass puts it, “This isn’t, or shouldn’t be, rocket science; roads are for vehicles, while the woods are for peace and quiet and solitude. I’m not aware of any management plans to house grizzly bears — or, for that matter, nuthatches and warblers — on Interstate 5 in Los Angeles. By the same token, we should keep the roads and vehicles out of the last of our wild backcountry.” So we have been given no choice but to go higher up the food chain — and in this we are making real progress. Perhaps our most significant accomplishment to date has been getting the 2008 New Mexico Legislature to approve a comprehensive study on the true economic impact of motorized recreation.

In addition, Senator Jeff Bingaman is in the process of scheduling congressional hearings on the Travel Management Rule. If the American people choose, through democratic process, to turn our forests over to the machines, then so be it. But right now, their future is being decided by powerful private interests hiding behind so-called pro-recreation advocacy groups and the less than 5 percent of forest users who actually participate in motorized recreation.

We sincerely encourage Senator Bingaman to see to it that these hearings begin the process of restoring democracy to the management of our public lands and that they become a platform for the discussion that we believe really needs to be held: Do Americans want our public lands to become just another amusement park, or do we want them to be a respite, for animals and humans alike, from the seemingly relentless assaults of techno-culture?

— Tom Brady and Dee Blanco, Cañada de los Alamos

More on OHV debate

I read with intense interest your February article by Leo Hubbard on OHV abuse (“Reining In OHV Abuse: Aproaching the Moment of Truth”). It is interesting to note that here on the other side of the country (Massachusetts) in a much more densely populated and more urban environment, we, too, find ourselves being deluged by exactly the same problems with OHV riders. The main difference is that our process has involved state government rather than the U.S. Forest Service. Most other facts, however, are nearly identical. We, too, have been the victims of bullying by a small, discordant band of rogue riders who answer to no one. Legal tactics have failed — oftentimes, the police are unable to catch the offenders. Most local forces are not equipped to get out on the trails. And, more often than not, it is these same local police who have two or three OHVs sitting in their own backyard.

In order to tackle this problem, numerous environmentally oriented groups banded together and placed several representatives on the study group organized by the state. We infused information from many sources around the country, and we brought science to bear on the problems. It strikes me that the water problems that Massachusetts now faces pale in comparison to those of New Mexico. It is hard to fathom that the U.S. Forest Service seems to be placing the environment well behind the concerns of a very vocal few who have neither the desire nor the concern for learning why their actions are detrimental to all of us.

The key areas that we focused on included much stricter licensing and registration requirements, which will make it considerably easier to identify violators. With this goes increasing fines and potential forfeiture of machines by repeat offenders. The study group also determined that it was necessary to restrict the usage of these machines by teens and preteens, and that training was absolutely necessary. Most importantly, we focused on making many of these changes in the motor-vehicle laws. We determined that treating OHVs as regular motor vehicles was the best way to register them, to track them and to get them off the trails when they fail to obey the rules.

I applaud the work of those who got involved in this issue in New Mexico. OHVs are one of the most deleterious pastimes to come about in the oil age. It is unfortunate that it takes the sane minds of many to offset the “road warrior” mindset of just a few.

— Robert A. Levite, Esq., Boston, MA

DRILLING THE GALISTEO BASIN

Tecton remains a frightening entity even though we may have 12 months to build a case supporting nondrilling. I’ve come to the conclusion that “big oil” can reign supreme just because they are “big oil” or, on the other hand, because I have little faith in our elected representatives. The question remains: Even if no ecological harm will occur, would we still want hundreds of those pumps going night and day in our backyard?

— Herb Schon, Eldorado

Champion of Ranked Choice Voting

It’s not just the Santa Fe City Council that city residents will be voting on this March 4. There are seven city charter amendments and a bond question on the ballot also. One of those charter amendments is Ranked Choice Voting, or RCV. What I like about RCV is that when three or more candidates are in a race, it removes the spoiler aspect from the election by giving every candidate an even shot in the race and allows you to vote for the most qualified person in the race and not necessarily a front-runner. Another positive aspect of RCV is that the candidate that ultimately gets elected enters the job with over 50 percent of the vote. That’s democracy at work. I believe this will increase voter turnout and encourage positive campaigning by candidates. It’s really not any more difficult, either: you just rank the candidates in the order of your preference — 1, 2, 3. It’s that easy.

— Carl Hansen, Madrid

IS OUR WATER SAFE?

The Buckman Direct Diversion Project (BDD) plans to divert Rio Grande water directly downriver from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) waste into Santa Fe’s municipal drinking-water system. Contaminants that may need to be filtered out of our drinking water once the diversion begins may include americium-241, neptunium-237, plutonium-238, -239 and -240, cesium-137, strontium-90, tritium, selenium, hexavalent chromium, PCB and percholate. The BDD board says that it can filter and dilute this potential synergistic mix of radioactive chemicals back into our drinking water at current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safety standards. Does that seem safe to you?

Current drinking-water safety standards are set for a 154-pound male. Safety standards need to also protect pregnant women, fetuses, infants and children from radioactive waste discharged from LANL. This discharge migrates into our aquifers, river and future drinking-water source! Actions must be taken to protect our future generations since reproductive organs of a fetus are vulnerable to toxins in the womb. Ask the BDD board and the governor (476-2200) to develop water standards that protect us all from LANL contaminants.

In 2007, the Department of Energy found contamination of plutonium in a slough upriver from the BDD construction site. LANL was asked to research the contamination site, but faulty methods were used so the BDD board is doing its own research. That research has not been completed or disclosed, yet designs are moving ahead that also may include creating large settling ponds near this area. The impact of these ponds on aquifers below and the rate of contamination plumes seeping into the Buckman wells from this toxic site are still not researched. How radioactive contaminants will be separated within the water-treatment facilities, stored and then transported to where and by what means has not yet been made public. So much is unknown, yet plans keep moving ahead as if all will be fine and taken care of. I ask, by whom? Who is really protecting our living waters? It has to be all of us now.

Here is where to get proactive! BDD plans include permit number NM 03848, which may allow silt to be dumped back into the river, concentrated with contaminants and plutonium colloids. To express your concerns about permit safety and research still needed, contact the EPA at smith.diane@epa.gov or (214) 665-2145 by March 12.

Contact BDD manager Rick Carpenter at 955-4206 or rrcarpenter@ci.santafe.nm.us. Ask to be placed on the contact list and to be notified about all public meetings. We need the truth. Please come protect our living waters. Redirect BDD water-safety plans. The BDD board meets March 6 at 4 p.m. in the Santa Fe County Commission Chambers, 102 Grant Street.

Envisioning clear, clean, flowing water for mothers and babies and generations yet to come,

— Elana Sue St. Pierre, Santa Fe

Wolf Recovery Equals Wolf Extermination

I have been concerned for quite a while that the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program has become de facto the “Wolf Extermination Program.” The most recent population survey seems to support that idea, with only half the number of wolves (50) in the wild that we were supposed to have by now, 10 years into the program.

Killing and removing endangered wolves can no longer be the primary tools for addressing conflict with livestock in the recovery area. Defenders of Wildlife has a cost-share program to implement proven solutions to wolf-livestock conflicts, including range riders (herders), guard dogs and fencing, in addition to paying for livestock killed by wolves. Another idea that needs to be considered is purchasing the federal grazing leases from ranchers in the area willing to sell them and taking the livestock off in order to reduce the “temptation.”

It is time to demonstrate a real desire to rescue the Mexican gray wolf from extinction by making revisions to the Recovery Program, including deleting the so-called “three strikes” rule (SOP 13), which allows wolves to be killed or captured.

If you agree with these ideas and want to find out how you can help save a place for wolves in the Southwest, contact Lisa Hummon at Defenders of Wildlife, lhummon@defenders.org.

Evalyn Bemis, Santa Fe

A FOOT IN EACH CAMP

I’m not sure if we northern New Mexicans fully appreciate the political advantage we have enjoyed over the past decades by having one senior Democratic senator and one senior Republican senator, both on the Senate Energy Committee. Control of the federal government runs in cycles. Sometimes the Democrats are in the majority, and other times the Republicans are. Whichever party is in control, New Mexico has come out ahead because leadership of this key Senate committee has rotated between two New Mexicans. This is very important to us because I once read that federal spending on New Mexico’s national laboratories, military installations and so on amounted to 25 percent of the state’s economy. Now that Senator Pete Domenici is retiring, it is important for us to maintain one foot in each camp. As much as I am surprised to find myself, a lifelong Democrat, saying this, and even though I disagree with her on many issues, it is important for the economy of our state that we replace Pete Domenici with another Republican (who is no relation to me), Heather Wilson.

— Charlie Wilson, Eldorado