Your article on using dogs to chase geese off properties (For Starters, Feb. 15) shows America’s typical answer to wildlife problems: quick fixes, not solutions. Solutions solve problems. Quick fixes help the bank account of the entrepreneur who invents them.
Chasing geese with dogs gets rid of them for only a brief period. Our conduct has been devastating to nature. We should stop building airports, golf courses, corporations, etc., on migratory bird flight paths or on top of areas where birds normally gather. Simple prevention. Corporations ought to leave some acreage in a natural state nearby to attract birds there and not on their manicured lawns.
With these alternative areas constructed, we could bring schoolchildren out to expose them to wildlife in a more natural setting, and teach them the importance of kindness and caring. Maybe a child taught thusly will one day reach across borders in the Middle East, Africa, Bosnia or even Brooklyn and realize that peace is possible, if all parties want it. Enough of pitting one creature against another as we humans do every day, with deadly results.
Buzz Alpert, Chicago
SMOKING GUNS
Rick Kogan’s short story titled “A Smoking Man” (For Starters, Feb. 15), about the plight of a smoking person in today’s anti-smoking social climate, almost brought tears to my eyes. Well, not really.
I recall all too vividly the days before we non-smokers finally got together and demanded a smoke-free environment. I recall callous smokers snickering as they blew smoke in my face when I tried to explain the devastating effect smoke had on my sinuses. I recall countless spoiled dinners because the inconsiderate person at the next table would light up and fill the room with noxious gaseous fumes.
Last but not least, I recall a fellow worker going out of his way to blow smoke my way daily, but somehow, almost magically, quitting cold turkey after being informed by his doctor that he would be dead within six months if he continued his nasty habit.
So you see, Mr. Kogan, there are two sides to this story; luckily, those with common sense have prevailed.
Al Carli, Chicago
Two years ago I was standing outside Drury Lane Theatre having a cigarette when a total stranger said to me: “You shouldn’t smoke.” I just looked at him in absolute astonishment that a stranger would have the nerve to make such a comment.
It stuck in my craw for two months until I finally came up with an appropriate response. Now when someone makes such a remark to me–whether stranger or acquaintance–I thank him or her for being so concerned about my health, but tell them there is something much more important to my health. Invariably, that evokes the question, “What is that?”
“Minding my own business.”
End of conversation.
Paul T. Greening, Bloomingdale
FORGET THE COMPARISONS
While I can appreciate the content of Adam Davidson’s Feb. 1 article, “Exiles,” concerning New York and Los Angeles transplants to Chicago, I find the spirit of the article insulting.
Anyone who knows anything knows that Chicago is a world-class city that neither has to prove some alleged superiority over New York or Los Angeles, nor accept a second-class status to either.
The sooner we lose our Third City inferiority complex, the better. We should simply accept ourselves as the great city that we are–without feeling the need to compare ourselves to others.
Richard Bellas, Joliet
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