I am a concerned 6th-grade student at Live Oak Charter School in Petaluma, California, and I stand with the children and future generations of Earth. There is a problem that we need to fix and its name is climate change.
Climate change happens when we disturb the natural carbon cycle by taking fossil fuels from the earth and burning them. By doing that we release greenhouse gases, including CO into the air, causing more extreme temperatures, especially heat. This heat makes glaciers melt, causing flooding and water level changes. It also causes more ocean acidity, killing coral and fish. Climate change is disturbing many natural cycles and it could seriously damage the future. However, we can still fix this.
You can help us stop climate change by using compostable and reusable packaging and riding a bike or using public transport more than using a car. You can help even more by voting for The Green New Deal. Thank you.
Petaluma
Feel the Burns
I am responding to E.G. Singer’s piece about Ken Burns’ documentary on Country Music (Open Mic, Oct. 2). Mostly, I thought it was a fantastic retelling of American history through cultural and social contexts, but have two critiques of it.
The first is that in light of our current national discourse on race, I believe Burns should have devoted more time to the appropriation of black musical songs, style, and lyrics. He gave some credit to various early black musicians, including Louis Armstrong and Deford Baily. He also included the important efforts of Alan Lomax and A.P. Carter to catalog the rural traditional music originating with freed slaves. But he did not bring to consciousness how white musicians like Elvis Presley, the Carter Family, and others financially benefited from original black music without sharing a dime with the artists who provided the prototype and inspiration for their music.
The other critique is a matter of personal musical preference. Burns did an excellent job of detailing the origins of bluegrass and Bill Monroe’s influence on it, but he failed to highlight the directions bluegrass has traveled with Bill’s “children,” such as “New Grass” musicians Johnnie Hartford, Sam Bush, Tony Rice, David Grisman, and Tim O’Brien. I wish he had added a contemporary component to the ark of the story.
Willits, CA
Dark Stars
Long before Dan O’Bannon wrote Alien, (“Don’t Scream,” Oct. 9) he and I spent years in deep space aboard the scout ship Dark Star (John Carpenter’s 1974 debut feature film). When Dan watched a screening of a handful of movie goers staring blankly at the screen, he stormed out and said, “F’em! If I can’t make them laugh, I’ll scare the shit out of them.” Well done, Dan. Well done.
Rohnert Park
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Trailer Park Farce
Way to go Santa Rosa… Two years on and you still can’t get your act together to make something happen here (“Trailer Park Blues,” Oct. 2). What was that about simplifying and expediting the rebuild process? Shameful.
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