Spending the Pot Tax Bounty
To the editor:
The pot shop owners have been granted a license to coin money from the town, which they have clearly done very handsomely. Can some of the tax bounty be used to lighten the load of the professional fishermen whose pier fees have drastically escalated?
Which is more important to the fiber of the community?
Ellyn Weiss
Truro and Washington, D.C.
Zero Tolerance
To the editor:
I like reading the Provincetown Independent and appreciate the value of a local newspaper.
Therefore, I was really dismayed by the three factual errors noted in the corrections in the Feb. 18 issue, in addition to the error in the crossword.
The corrections are obviously necessary, but factual errors in newspapers are not acceptable, especially now. Granted, occasionally one might slip in and be corrected, but three in a short time frame seems excessive.
I would have felt a little better had the notes been followed up with “We have put new mechanisms in place to verify our articles and print edition before publication.”
Deborah Mattingly
Lexington and Wellfleet
Each issue of the Independent contains a great many factual statements. The mechanisms for verifying them include online and telephone fact-checking and cross-checking with multiple sources by reporters, querying and additional research by editors, and proofreading. All these are at the heart of our work, as is worry about the potential failure of those efforts. We make mistakes, and when we learn of them, we correct the record. —Editor
Lichen Voices
To the editor:
Thank you for printing such a marvelous tribute to lichens (“Lichens: A Love Story,” Feb. 25, page A18). In it, Kai Potter encourages us to take note of these ubiquitous and remarkable organisms.
It called to mind one of my favorite passages from Opal Whiteley’s The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart, which Whiteley said was her diary, originally written in crayon on loose scraps of paper when she was a six-year-old child growing up in the lumber camps of Oregon circa 1900. I heard it performed at First Encounter Coffeehouse in Eastham several years ago. It’s one of my favorite pieces of nature writing.
As I did walk along
I saw many grey rocks.
Some had grey and green patches on them.
Some patches had ruffles
all around their edges.
They are lichens.
My Angel Father did say so.
Lichen folk talk in grey tones.
I hear their voices more in December
than I do in June-time.
Angel Father did show me the way
to listen to lichen voices.
Most grownups don’t hear them at all.
They walk right by — in a hurry sometimes.
And all the little lichen folks
are saying things.
I put my ear close to the rocks to listen.
They tell about the gladness
of the winter day.
—Opal Whiteley (1920)
Mark Gabriele
Wellfleet
Unusual Birds
To the editor:
I like to check out the bird sightings reported in each week’s Independent. Not that I’m a “birder,” but because I enjoy watching the activity and the variety at my own feeder, and I’m curious to hear what others may have seen.
A few weeks ago, I called the Audubon to report an unusual visitor at our feeder, a reporting process suggested in the weekly column. Our guest was a Dark-Eyed Junco, whose identity was confirmed in a few of the several books we have at home.
My report never made it to the Independent, which I suspect was because I’m not one of the Audubon’s regular “experts,” and the staff there just didn’t believe me.
On several occasions I have seen notes in the bird report stating that Truro had contributed nothing that week. Perhaps, if the Audubon were a bit more receptive to regular people, we would see more complete reporting.
Chuck Leigh
Truro and Provincetown
Mark Faherty of the Wellfleet Audubon sanctuary responds that “the weekly sightings are of unusual birds, not common birds.” Juncos are common. But calls from non-experts are welcome. Audubon’s Jenette Kerr adds that bird enthusiasts should “sign up for one of the great online birding programs Mass Audubon’s been offering all year.” —Editor