In reference to your article on Freud ["Freud, Hitler, Moses & America," October 30, 2007]: Anybody’d have to be crazy to put any stock in Freud. He began his career psychoanalysing attractive young women whose fathers had abused them and when he found out such revelations did not resonate in polite society, he toned them down with his theory of "suppression." Then, playing upon his success as a pseudo-non(fiction) fiction? writer, he went on to explore other human issues and write many other books which no doubt also all fuse fact with fiction. A better writer for either fiction or nonfiction is D.H. Lawrence. Or the more modern Vladimir Nabokov, who once said something to the effect of, "I don’t like the idea of a gentleman from Vienna with an umbrella pointing his dreams at me."
Larry Buntin
Sandston
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Reality "Jeopardy"
This letter is in response to the cover article of your November 6 issue ["All you can’t eat"]. The writer, Jayson Whitehead, did a remarkable job of presenting the opportunity/crisis in the local food system, as it is playing out today in the Central Virginia area.
It was very helpful to have a history to show how we got here. Those of us who may want to gather more understanding of the history of our food supply can find much detail in archived issues of Acres USA on their website.
Jayson’s mention of the "No Farms No Food" bumper sticker condenses the entire issue of our food supply into four little words.
My husband grew up on a family farm in rural Iowa. None of those local farms remain. They have been replaced by megafarms. The people who lived in his small hometown have moved away. It is almost a ghost town now.
During the many years he worked in supermarket produce departments, he often stopped customers and asked them this simple question: "Where does this food come from?" The most popular reply was, "From the grocery store."
Do you know where your food comes from?
Delora Gillman
Charlottesville
Cannabis in us
Thanks very much for your article, "Marijuana As First Amendment Right" [Courts & Crime News, November 6, 2007], by J. Tobias Beard.
With an estimated 300 million cannabis consumers around the globe, this is no small issue. And considering the absolute farcical fabrications underlying the much maligned plant’s prohibition, the case of Carl Olsen touches on much more than religion.
In consideration of cannabis’ place as an important agricultural, medicinal, industrial, spiritual and nutritional commodity around the globe for thousands of years, pot’s prohibition is laughable in the face of reality. As a medicine its use is ancient. As a religious sacrament it has for millenia touched many religions in many regions of the globe.
Napoleon’s attack on Russia was over hemp. Hemp/cannabis is a proven (and highly nutritious) food source, a valuable fabric, a quality building material, an effective medicine for many conditions (including quite possibly as a treatment against cancer) and a plant that has such an ancient association with humanity that we carry receptors for it in our bodies at a cellular level.
The real debate is not about the validity of Olsen’s (or anyone else’s) religious use but rather about the lies that form the corrupted foundation for all laws against cannabis. Laws based on lies have no relationship with justice. Without justice, our legal system is a fraud.
Allan Erickson,
Drug Policy Forum of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon