Whole Life Times: Saving What We Value

November 2005 | Letters from Readers

Saving What We Value

I was provoked by your asking “what do you think” about rushing to save the lives of some but not others. First of all, it is hard, though interesting, to imagine Prada shoes, Armani suits and Ferragamo loafers stranded on roofs above muddy brown waters in Louisiana and Mississippi, or even anywhere. Not so hard to imagine is a butterfly trapped by a spider. Most of us, surely, would feel as yourself and wish to save it. But errant flies and ants we cannot, unhappily, dispose of. So again we are faced with the message that some lives have more value than others. Currently, as you will know, we are faced with wildfires here in the southland. As similar fires raged across the region in 2003, the wealthy in million-dollar homes were protected while many in mobile homes lost all they had, often being too poor to have the necessary insurance, unlike their wealthy “neighbors” who were saved. We live in an unenlightened world that does not see as the Buddha or Jesus saw, in which all life is equally valued because they could see the Spark of God within us all, not the superficial coating that surrounds us. Until we do so, we will continue to trap flies and ants, protect the rich and leave the “lesser beings” to go without, or even die.

—Paul Nugent, The Aetherius Society

Thanks for your coverage on the organic food industry. There’s more to the story that will interest your readers. According to the Organic Consumers Association, this week, “Large corporations are moving to lower organic standards allowing Bush appointees in the USDA National Organic Program to approve a broad list of synthetic ingredients and processing aids that would be allowed in organic production.” What this means, if the Bush administration has its way, virtually all food will qualify as “organic.” USDA bureaucrats and industry lobbyists (including Wal-Mart), not consumers, will gain control over organic foods and products to the detriment of public welfare. For more startling details, visit organicconsumers.org and voice an opinion before this gets voted on in congress real, real soon. Soon, like hurricane soon.

—Scott W. Webb, Nashville, TN

Thank you for the good article “Smells Can Make You Sick” (October). Certain smells, like in a public market—fresh raw fish or bakeries—do affect me terribly. Restaurant cooked-breakfast smells stay on me if I overspend time in such environments.

I’m on disability because of sickening smells because I have developed chronic general anxieties with suicidal depression and consulted psychologists and psychiatrists. I will bring photocopies of your article to my family doctor and specialists.

—Name withheld by request

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