Letters to the Editor (2) - June 07 2006

FOSSIL FEARS

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Kudos to John Sugg for bringing such an important issue to a city that is wholly car dependent (Metro Man, “The day after peak oil,” June 1). But peak oil will reach much, much further into our lives than what we’ll pay at the pump.

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The modern agricultural system is now hopelessly dependent on fossil fuel inputs to make pesticides and fertilizers and to transport this food across vast distances. Without constant supplies of cheap oil, our food production and distribution networks would cease to function.

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-- Neil Felts, Atlanta

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Just read your article, and it’s the best piece you’ve written in some time.

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I’m a registered Republican, but it’s clear that my folks are missing the boat here. Well done.

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-- Troy Garrett, Atlanta

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I enjoyed your story on peak oil. It’s kind of funny, but in a way these new urban shopping centers designed for work and play are ways to combat peak oil, although many intown Atlantans tend to look at them suspiciously. I’m thinking of places like Edgewood Retail District and Atlantic Station.

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I remember growing up in Grant Park where my grandmother had chickens and pigs in the back yard. I remember thinking that was funny, but it’s starting to look like a good idea for me, too.

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-- Reco Davis, Decatur

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HARD RIGHT

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I read your cover story (“Armageddon for the religious right?” May 25), and I can only conclude that logic was not a course you ever took. I know that it is not required for journalism majors, but one would think that critical analysis (rather than emotional rhetoric) would govern what is written. Of course, this was in Creative Loafing and “loafing” seems to have multiple applications.

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So many problems with your article could be cited, as well as those of the intellectual lightweights that were present at the Clark forum. But just to highlight perhaps the most obvious: the hypocrisy of the left on this issue so clearly articulated by what you wrote.

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The left pushes its own agenda with all of the fervor of a modern Third Reich. You accuse the Christian right of being narrow, poor-hating, bigoted and homophobic when you are just — if not more — as guilty. In my experience, the most intolerant, bigoted, narrow group of people I have ever encountered are the left wing fundamentalists who support academic freedom so long as it supports their agenda. Since their intellectual arsenal is made up of arguments with all the power of a firecracker, they resort to screaming down and insulting those with whom they disagree; kind of like the perpetual sneer manifest in your article. Epithets and emotional shrieking, rather than arguments, are what dominate the majority of the left’s attempts to be heard. They can’t win the structured debates, and so they threaten, yell, scream, and blog their way into public discourse ... or free newspapers.

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To be sure, there are some Christian conservatives who have bought into some bad ideas in which the left (to some degree) are closer to being right from the vantage point of Biblical interpretation. I find myself at odds with much of the modern Christian leadership. I am glad that there are many who are tired of excusing, for example, poor treatment of the Earth. But the left does not want to begin its thinking with Biblical revelation for that would almost certainly conflict with their secular narcissistic worldview. Rather, they hijack a few texts out of context, and manipulate them to say what they want (e.g., the notion that Jesus was an illegal immigrant). But the arguments usually whither up upon closer scrutiny. I know — I’ve experienced it directly.

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Will you publish this letter? I doubt it. But if your article represents the best-of-the-best thinking on this issue, I won’t need any Tylenol PM to get me to sleep.

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-- The Rev. Marty Fields, Laurel, Miss.

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Editor’s note: Fields is the son of Georgia Christian Coalition leader Sadie Fields, who was mentioned in the story.

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The War on Errorism

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Jon Payne shot the photo of DJ Larmarrous in the May 25 Profile in Fallout, as well as the photo of Terence Jackson in that edition’s 3Qs in Arts. We regret the errors.