Re: Fw: Stephen Lyons' essay

[Don Coombs <mushroom@moscow.com>]

Several people have asked if I were the person referred to
in Stephen's essay, when he said: "A retired professor -- a
Stanford alumnus -- barked out his concerns on an Internet
chat line about how Californians needed to control 'their
breeding'."

I do indeed have the honor of being that person. But my
comments didn't refer to just Californians, and I always
thought I was more a biter than a barker.

Here is my entire posting to vision 2020, starting out with
a quote of the message I was responding to:

 Priscilla Salant wrote:
> 
> This morning's Daily News carried an article about the new
> census figures for Latah and Whitman County.  Its headline
> read "Growth without Change."  I wasn't sure how the reporters came up with that particular theme.

Response from Don Coombs:
I think you do that without bothering to think. I'd blame an
editor more than the reporters.

And I liked the last paragraph in the story, a quote:
"If you don't grow you're going to stagnate and die, but
I'd like to see us stay about the same."

That made me wonder how many people in California --
where the lights actually do get turned off now and then --
are happy that they're "not stagnating." People in
California and elsewhere need to get their breeding under
control.

Don Coombs

That was my posting months ago to Vision 2020. My posting
today features the observation that there is a difference
between saying 
"people in California" and "people in California and
elsewhere." Stephen Lyons, who certainly knows better, took
my remarks out of context, probably because they weren't
snappy otherwise.

So to Stephen, who is an excellent writer but perhaps
off-base in his observations about growth in the West, I say
"Bark" and "Arf," but never "Meow."

D.C.