ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor

Ranchers Deserve a Say

NEW MEXICO RANCHERS are working harder than ever these days and are suffering numerous wolf problems? in contrast to whatever a full-time activist does sitting behind a desk to undermine our work. …

Ranchers are overworked, overstressed and uncompensated for their damages and their extra stress. Unfortunately for ranchers, they have to sleep sometime and wolves kill in the dark. So, baby calves? their paychecks at the end of a long year? are freebies unwillingly donated by the ranchers.

Ranchers are literally paying the feed bill for the Mexican wolf program. It is appalling that the general public apparently wants wolves, yet does nothing to support the people who have lives built in the recovery range and are forced to live with the animals or leave. …

LAURA SCHNEBERGER
President, Gila Livestock Growers Association
Winston

This is the first whining I’ve heard from these stalwart stewards of the land. Interesting that they recognize public opinion is turning away from them. Wolves belong in the forest — cows don’t.

I’m all for compensating these ranchers twice the market value. mjh

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In Defense of the Wolf

I WOULD LIKE to speak out in defense of the wolf, which has been taken to task by the cattlemen. While this government has seen fit to lease ground in the national forests for the grazing of cattle, it does not imply that the government will protect the cattlemen from all risks.

The national forests were created for all of us to enjoy, not just a specific entity. Originally, the virgin forests contained the wolves and other wild creatures. Man introduced domestic cattle? thereby upsetting the natural balance.

In his 1960 “Wilderness Letter,” which was used in a 1964 bill to establish the National Wilderness Preservation System, Wallace Stegner wrote, “… Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction.”

Wildness reminds us what it means to be human? what we are connected to rather than what we are separated from. This is not about economics. This is about putting ourselves in accordance with nature, of consecrating these lands by remembering our relationship to them.

Who can say how much nature can be destroyed without consequence? Who can say what the human spirit will be crying out for a hundred years from now?

ROY BOAST
Albuquerque

ABQjournal: Lab Whistle-Blower Beaten By Adam Rankin, Journal Staff Writer

A Los Alamos National Laboratory whistle-blower scheduled to meet with a congressional investigator this week was severely beaten early Sunday by a group of men he says told him to keep his mouth shut.

Tommy Hook, a 23-year LANL employee, has a broken jaw, a herniated disc in his back, broken teeth, can barely talk and fades in and out of consciousness, said his wife, Susan. He was assaulted outside Cheeks, a strip club on Santa Fe’s Cerrillos Road.

“When they were beating him up, they were telling him he needed to keep his mouth shut,” she said. ” ‘If you know what is good for you, you will keep your mouth shut,’ ” she said the attackers told her husband.

Hook has filed for whistle-blower protection with the Department of Energy over what he says was retaliation for information he provided on alleged financial irregularities at LANL. He also has a lawsuit alleging retaliation pending against the University of California-run lab.

Thugs for Silence — you’re with us or you’re with the enemy. mjh

edited 6/21/05

Customer Data Lost, Citigroup Unit Says By Jonathan Krim

A unit of financial services giant Citigroup Inc. said yesterday that a box of computer tapes with account information for 3.9 million customers had been lost in shipment, exposing a vast new swath of Americans to the increased possibility of identity theft.

The announcement from CitiFinancial, a subsidiary that provides personal and home equity loans, pushes to more than 6 million the number of U.S. consumers whose personal data have been lost or stolen in just the past six months. The spate of breaches has included federal agencies, universities, banks and other financial institutions, data brokers and data-storage companies. …

Last month, a data storage company lost information on 600,000 current and former employees of Time Warner Inc. In February, Bank of America Corp. reported it had lost tapes containing data on 1.2 million federal employees, including some U.S. senators.

The breaches have thrown a spotlight on the active marketplace for personal data and prompted calls for congressional action to impose limits such as restricting the availability of Social Security numbers.