Thanks for the article on the new Yankee stadium (“Dropping the Ball,” feature, May/June 2009). It’s disappointing how they put up this billion-dollar facility without much regard for the neighborhood parks they built over. There are probably a lot of kids who don’t have any place to throw around a baseball or climb trees anymore, and most likely cannot afford to attend games at Yankee stadium. One of the great things about professional sports teams is how a community rallies around them; the Yankees should have given more thought to preserving the community they call home.
Jill Winter
Tierra Verde, FL

POP(ULATION) QUIZ

Even though it’s a good start by doing little things as responsible citizens to help the environment and the planet, I believe all will be cancelled out due to our population growth. Our population is increasing due to birth (2008 had the largest increase in population in this country due to the high number of childbirth since War World II) and also due to immigration (legal and illegal). How is your organization dealing with these two issues: population growth and immigration?
C.M. LaRuffa
Bronx, NY

Editor’s Response: E often addresses the relationship between shifts in population, both in terms of numbers and geography, and the environment. Please visit www.emagazine.com to browse related past articles (enter “immigration” and “population growth” in the Advanced Search function), and see the feature story in the May/June 2008 issue titled “Destination America.”

KERNELS OF TRUTH?

The article “Eating Mercury,” (Currents, May/June 2009) may mislead consumers about high fructose corn syrup. No mercury or mercury-based technology is used in the production of high fructose corn syrup in North America. The American public can rest assured that high fructose corn syrup is safe. Safety is the highest priority for our industry, which is why we commissioned external testing as well as independent expert review of claims concerning mercury and our sweetener. Dr. Woodhall Stopford of Duke University Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading experts in mercury contamination, reviewed the results of total mercury testing of samples of high fructose corn syrup conducted by Eurofins Central Analytical Laboratory (Metairie, Louisiana) in February and March 2009. Dr. Stopford concluded that no quantifiable mercury was detected in any of the samples analyzed, and that high fructose corn syrup does not appear to be a measureable contributor to mercury in foods.
Audrae Erickson
President, Corn Refiners Association
Washington, D.C.

OPEN HOUSE

I bought the magazine on impulse because of the cover article on tiny houses (“Little Boxes,” cover story, May/June 2009), but after reading the article knew little more than that there are many and varied kinds of small housing. A few layouts or descriptions of interiors might have enabled a reader to envision how a person can live comfortably in a 100-square-foot house.
Louise L. Sherman
Leonia, NJ

CORRECTIONS

In the May/June 2009 In Brief, “Keeping Bikes on the Road,” we mistakenly wrote that in the Netherlands, the cyclist fatality rate is 1.24 for every 100 kilometers (about 62 miles), according to a paper by Ralph Buehler “Cycling for Everyone.” It is actually 1.24 cyclist fatalities for every 100 million kilometers (about 62 million miles), and 5.74 in the U.S.
In the September/October 2009 feature, Is This the End for Coal, we misicredited two photos. The photos of Michael Brune and Daryl Hannah in handcuffs should have been credited © Anrim Caskey