Merger ironic 

(The acquisition of Flag Live! by Pulitzer is) ironic in light of Flag Live!'s publisher's admonition to me when I applied for a writing gig with that publication: If he ever saw my byline in Flare or the Daily Sun, I'd never work for him again. He bitterly resented Flare, which he thought was introduced just to put him out of business. And he said the Daily Sun had stolen a bunch of his writers. 

I guess he came around.

Gretchen, Flagstaff

Welcome to 1984

Welcome to 1984. 1984 is a no-longer-futuristic novel by visionary George Orwell. Orwell's story about a world in which a mysterious government attempts to brainwash ordinary people by controlling the media, comes to mind as the huge Pulitzer media corporation announces its takeover of Flag Live! and Mountain Living. This takeover comes just a few years after Pulitzer bought out the Arizona Daily Sun. 

The Arizona Daily Sun's Managing Editor, Randy Wilson, wrote in his Aug. 13 column:

"Newspapers occasionally make the news themselves and such was the case in Flagstaff this past week as the Arizona Daily Sun acquired Flagstaff Live! and Mountain Living magazines. From an editorial standpoint, I think the purchase is good for both parties as well as readers: It will give Steve Saville access to added resources for both his weekly and monthly publications; and it will help us at the Daily Sun continue to strengthen and add value to the daily newspaper."

If you read that paragraph and aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention. If you read that paragraph and don't immediately subscribe to Flagstaff Tea Party, don't give subscriptions to friends, don't take out an ad for your local business or just for support, then don't bother to thank me for the environmental work I do.

If you need to know more: Steve Saville, the publisher of Flag Live!, eliminated my Open Space column from Flag Live! a few years ago, stating my column's pro environmental stance, support-local-business advocacy and slow-growth opinions were too strong. "They shape the character of Flag Live!," he said - "Advertisers are complaining." I swear to his words. I was present when he said them. 

Randy Wilson has consistently refused, with one exception, my suggestions and guest columns for the Sun's editorial page. Wilson also said my views would be presented in the Sun via the regionally syndicated Writers on the Range column, to which I contribute regularly. But my Writers on the Range columns have never appeared in the Sun. It would be just fine for me to send letters to the editor, he said. 

Yes, this is personal. The political is personal. Freedom of the press is personal. For me, for you, living in a town with only one newspaper is to live with Big Brother's Big Corpo-voice telling us what to believe. What you read, what you think you know about an issue, will be Big Brother living in your brain. Think about the Sun's 1999 editorial supporting development of Dry Lake.

Think about the Sun's business-as-usual bafflement over the Barnes and Noble boycott, their lack of a hard-hitting environmental columnist, or a columnist who writes for and about dissent. And, Flag Live! ? There's nothing to think about. I write for Flagstaff Tea Party because I believe the words of Thomas Paine, a writer and publisher who shaped much of the thinking of this country's original constitutional architects: "We have it in our power to begin the world again." 

Join me in a new beginning. Subscribe to Flagstaff Tea Party. Take out an ad, for your business, for support. Action is the only thanks that counts.

Mary Sojourner
Flagstaff

Wal-Mart using forced labor?

A story from the Reuters news wire that appeared in many newspapers on or about July 18 contained this unsettling information: "A union seeking to represent workers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Tuesday that the world's largest retailer is selling goods made by forced labor in Myanmar, despite a claim that it would no longer do so. ... Trade unions have estimated that more than 800,000 people in Myanmar are conscripted with little or no pay as army porters or workers in construction and agriculture and live in slave-like conditions."

I believe that participation of a company (Wal-Mart) in what appears to amount to a slave trade should be a consideration in whether we let them do business in our city in the first place. And we should definitely not allow them to expand any of their operations.

I request that the City Council investigate the allegations in the Reuters article in preparation for their decision on the Flagstaff Mall expansion.

"Uncle" Don B. Fanning
Flagstaff

Don't judge people by what they have

I was reading the first issue of Flagstaff Tea Party and was about to write a check for a year's subscription when I realized that darned if I'm not one of those Lexus-driving scumbags whom Mary Sojourner detests ("Arizona's Biggest Canyon Divides Rich and Poor"). 

It got me to thinking that perhaps it would be useful if your "Board Member Extraordinaire" would publish a list of appropriate vehicles for Tea Party readers. 

Surely my previous car, an '86 Corolla with 186,000 miles, would get a passing grade. So, too, would my spouse's vehicle, a '90 Toyota pickup with a dented fender. But how do you rate all those other pickups? You got your diesels, your dualies, your crew-cabs, your crew-cab dualie-diesels. You've even got your crew-cab dualie-diesels hauling horse trailers or jet-ski trailers. 

Please, Mary, simplify life for us and give us a few pointers about how to judge people by what they have, rather than by what they do. Tell us where you draw the line. Personally, I draw it at Humvees.

Graham Tewksbury
Flagstaff

Mary Sojourner's reply:
Dear Graham: Thanks for the clarification. I'm sorry I judged you as the owner of a $33,000 - $60,000 vehicle that gets 19 mpg.

Tobacco smoke possible cause of breast cancer

Breast cancer is the leading cause of death for women between the ages of 35 and 55. I recently completed reviewing the findings of a ground-breaking study that added to the growing body of evidence suggesting environmental tobacco smoke increases the risk of breast cancer. This research was released recently in Canada. I presented a summary of this research at a news conference for Smoke-Free Environment Day on April 5, 2000 at the Coconino County Health Department. The event was sponsored by the Citizens Against Substance Abuse and Coconino County Health Department. 

The research, conducted at Canada's Laboratory Centre for Disease Control, was published on Mar. 15, 2000 in the Cancer Causes and Control Journal. The Canadian Cancer Society says the study is the largest international study on this issue that has ever been published. 

According to cancer researchers breast cancer sometimes takes as long as 20 years for a cancerous breast tumor to grow to a size that is detectable. If a woman is diagnosed in her 30s, the tumor may have started to develop in her teens. 

Some earlier international studies were done in the 1980s but they failed to ask about passive smoking. Since passive smoking is also a risk factor the previous studies may have been seriously flawed. 

Breast cancer rates have risen for the past 30 years parallel to the rise of lung cancer in women. Researchers have speculated that the escalating rates may have followed women's mass entrance into the workplace where they were exposed to passive smoke. 

The need for protecting everyone from the harmful and cancer-causing effects of tobacco smoke should be of concern to everyone. Children, men and women, smokers and non-smokers alike should be protected from this deadly environmental hazard - especially in high altitudes. In Flagstaff, elevation depletes our oxygen by 20 percent causing us to breathe more pollutants deeper into our lungs. As a result, environmental tobacco smoke can cause cancer, heart disease and birth defects more quickly here than at lower elevations. 

Prevention is worth a pound of chemotherapy. The cessation of breathing tobacco smoke helps the body's natural defenses to clean out toxins and carcinogens. Breathing clean air and maintaining a healthy lifestyle helps us to heal and increases the strength of our immune systems. A healthy lifestyle is especially important if we have a history of tobacco smoke exposure.

Bernice Carver
Flagstaff