Even though we sent you an email back in February and it didn't bounce, we believed you didn’t know. Even though roughly 11% of our aggregate traffic originates from CSU-LACCD netblocks, we believed you didn’t know. Even though we’ve served thousands of page requests in a few short months, we still believed you didn’t know.
In fact, we were so confident in our belief that we assembled more than 320 unique photographs and videos--week after week, month after month, year after year--of individual animals, animal groupings, animal facilities, fixtures, and conditions on the Los Angeles Pierce College farm. True, we don't frame each subject with Warner Center in the distance. Traffic snarls excepted, its just not our concern. Nor do we require that all submitted images have GPS data embedded in the EXIF. It's doable, but a simple "please date stamp if possible" seemed sufficient.
We edited more than 11,000 words in explanation, expansion, and support of our documentation down to just under 6000. True, we don't annotate each posted entry with the legal names of any contributors. Why? Here are just a few of the reasons, in their own words:
"I just want to graduate and get out of here before this place gets shut down."
"I still have to go to class there."
"I'll lose clients."
"I could lose my job."
Though we have no reason to doubt its sincerity, unfortunately we have to decline the invitation to sit down and talk with you about improving conditions for animals on the Los Angeles Pierce College farm. Years of sitting and talking rather than navigating the manure, mud, and misery to check on the investment is what brought us all where we are today. And from the first catalogued photo to the last, we found it more dirty, hungry, thirsty, weak, ill, injured, and in abject need than any of us bipedal beachcombers are likely to be in a lifetime.
Asking for operational transparency has failed consistently for better than a decade but that doesn't mean you should abandon the idea. We just don't think you'll have much of an unobstructed view from the vantage point of office towers sparkling in the distance or beneath a fabric woven from derailment of the issues, denial of their validity, or criminalization and censorship of the dissenting voice. You, for yourself, must either unravel the curtain or tear it away. Consider Pierce Farm Watch as having frayed a thread and lifted a corner. You appear young and able-bodied, neither the naked Emperor nor the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, least of all the smoldering Man of Straw. Stay with it. And BTW, you're welcome.
Post a Comment