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But There's Hope

The Feb. 5 letter to the editor from Errol Horner ["Not in the Best Interests"] addressed a frighteningly negative trend in today's culture: big business and big government with no real buffer in between, a social and economic dichotomy that will harm everyone if allowed to continue.

The evidence is clear: ever more property is bulldozed for vast parking lots and huge corporate warehouses offering all manner of stuff. "One-Stop Shopping," the billboards declare! It's not difficult to perceive mutually beneficial regulations fashioned between corporations and influential power brokers in all levels of government. Short-term gains in town taxes sweeten the pie, and big box stores slip in as they did on the Saybrook-Westbrook town line, where a tract of woodland on the corner of an I-95 exit and Route 1 was decimated of all vegetation and wildlife in less than half a day. Tiny creatures suddenly appeared on the lawns of houses by the shore. Front yards along roads leading into the new plaza were snuffed back by right of eminent domain to create another lane. The existing plaza across Route 1 now has unforeseen competition.

Small businesses struggle to compete. Gone is individuality, specialty, and the unique. But there's hope: Daring folk, disillusioned with the corporate life, are putting their particular skills on the line and starting small firms. The younger generations especially are pursuing their passions as self-employed individuals.

Some folks are raising a few chickens, whose free-range lifestyle yields quality eggs-far better than transparent-shelled eggs from hens fed all manner of chemicals while locked up for their short, productive lives in factories under 24/7 lights, then doomed a fast ride in cages aboard tractor trailers on the way to slaughterhouses. Who hasn't seen them with their heads poking out and feathers flying in the wind?

Carl NilssonChester