Trail Mess To the Editor, Regarding "Wild Sting" (The Skinny, Tucson Weekly, May 22): Please allow me to clarify the status of user fees for State Trust land. Yes, there is a $15 annual fee for non-consumptive (i.e. non-hunting) users of state land, but the situation is infinitely fairer than it was as recently as two years ago, when the only way to obtain legal access was to buy a Special Use Permit at a cost of $40 for three days. I became aware of state-land access fees when a friend and I were politely told to leave an area north of Tucson by a rancher who said we would be welcome after obtaining the proper permit. I made inquiry of the State Land Department, which advised me of the $40 permit fee. I offered the opinion that this was excessive for someone who only wanted to hike and take a few photographs. I then offered to buy a resident hunting license (at the time $18 for one year) and was told this provided legal access only if you were actively hunting. I contacted state Sen. Ann Day, who agreed with me that the existing fees blatantly discriminated against non-hunters. She introduced successful legislation that established the current fee structure. I'll leave the philosophizing over the "fairness" of user fees for state trust land to others, but it should be noted that the State Land Department has a legal mandate to manage trust lands to produce maximum revenue for public schools. I do not object to paying a reasonable, non-discriminatory fee for access to many thousands of acres of public land, and consider it a small contribution to our chronically underfunded public schools. State land access permits may be obtained by writing to: State Land Department, 1616 W. Adams, Phoenix, AZ 85007. --William C. Thornton Beef With Smith To the Editor, I consider myself a fan of Jeff Smith and appreciate his humor and intelligence. But I was disappointed and surprised when I read "Meaty Memories" (Tucson Weekly, June 5). It was perhaps the most offensive and misinformed piece you have printed in all the years I've read the Tucson Weekly. The article abounds with evidence of Smith's lack of knowledge about vegetarianism. While Smith argues that every vegetarian he knows is "pale and wan and skinny and weak," I would like to mention that each year 1.5 million Americans are crippled or killed by heart disease, cancer, stroke, obesity and other chronic killer diseases that have been directly linked to excessive consumption of meat by every expert panel studying the relationship between diet and health. Studies show that the risk factor for cancer or heart disease for meat eaters is two to three times that for vegetarians. Meat contains 14 times more pesticides than plant foods. Dave Scott, the only man to win the Ironman Triathlon more than twice (he won six times), is a vegetarian, as have been many other well-known athletes, including Hank Aaron and Robert Parish. It has been proven in study after study that those who eliminate animal products from their diets will live an average of 13-and-a-half years longer. It is apparent that Smith was uninformed--or just not listening--when a friend tried to tell him, about the unquestionable health benefits of a vegetarian diet. Smith's "real people eat meat" is absurd: Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, St. Francis, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and George Bernard Shaw--among others--were all vegetarians. If Smith meant that humans are designed to eat meat, he is mistaken. Unlike carnivorous animals, we have a small mouth, more chewing than tearing teeth, a large stomach, a long small intestine and a puckered colon. These features are grossly unsuited for a meat diet. Then there's the environmental and social impact of meat eating. It takes enough fossil fuel to drive a car 20 miles and enough water for 17 showers to produce one hamburger patty. Livestock currently graze on half the Earth's land mass. One acre of pasture produces 165 pounds of beef; it could instead produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes and feed far more people. Smith's comment that ethical concerns of meat-eating are "faddish bullshit" is offensive to those who cannot agree with the mass murder--at the rate of 92 million per week--of creatures who feel pain just as we do. It is obvious Smith has no respect for the views and lifestyles of those who are doing their part to help animals, people and the earth. Smith's remarks about the connections between men, women, and meat are so preposterous, offensive, and sexist--I hope he was joking. If he wasn't joking, the comments are so ridiculous they don't warrant a reply. I ask that in the future Jeff Smith refrain from spouting such ignorant, sexist, uneducated and misinformed opinions. You may keep more readers that way. --Alexis Martin To the Editor, Regarding Jeff Smith's "Meaty Memories" (Tucson Weekly, June 5): Jeff does a magnificent job of displaying his ignorance of the "ethical, political, sociocultural component of vegetarianism." However, the sad fact is that he does not need to understand it, he need only accept it. Based on his attitude, he might also have trouble understanding the underlying components of someone else's racial, cultural, sexual or religious differences; does he also choose to condemn them based on his own lack of knowledge? Smith's idea of "real men" and "real women" is not so different from the Klan's idea of "real Americans," or Hitler's idea of "real Germans"; it is an ideology which is founded in ignorance and fear. Perhaps someday he will come to the glorious conclusion that he need not understand people's differences in order to accept them. --Brenden Kearney If The Shoe Fits To the Editor, Jim Hightower's "Just Screw It" (Tucson Weekly, May 29) was a great piece. Nike and its greedy CEO Phil Knight have forced some 40,000 Indonesian workers into slavery, toiling for starvation wages ($1.60 a day--about 16 cents an hour for the 10-hour days these employees are made to work). The shoes they produce sell for $180 a pair in U.S. stores to provide excess profit for Knight and to fund the outrageous sponsorship deals he made with Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Jerry Rice running into well over $100 million. Of course, these spoiled athletes never had a second thought about accepting the money. They probably didn't even realize they were condoning slavery which their own ancestors probably suffered years ago. It all gets down to whose ox is gored in this greedy society. And it did not occur to these racial athletes that by accepting these deals made possible by slave labor that they were being disloyal to the cause of civil rights for which so much blood has been shed in the past. But one thing is certain, if this kind of blatant greed continues, someday the downtrodden will rise and overthrow their tormentors and that, my friends, is the real tragedy of this whole farce. Congrats to Jim Hightower for bringing this abuse to our attention. --Ray Bailey Views Of The Weird To the Editor, Regarding recent letters to the editors ("Gay Parade," Tucson Weekly, May 29): Why is everyone so hard on Danehy? He's no bigot. He's perfectly willing to tolerate homosexuality-- as long as he doesn't have to hear about it, see any, think about it, learn anything about it or know that it exists. What is this "embracing" business? Does he really think anybody is asking him to be gay? Some people are weird, but none of the gay people I know are that weird. --Joanna Russ We Want Letters! Thrilled by our brilliant insights? Sick of our mean-spirited attacks? Need to make something perfectly clear? Write: tucsonweekly@tucsonweekly.com

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