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Letters to the Editor
(Editor’s Note: Views and commentary, including statements made as fact, are strictly those of the letter-writers.)
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* * *Caution warranted with winter diets
From Jo Anne Stone
Cave JunctionI’m concerned hearing about folks going on a “raw foods diet” as a way to lose their holiday pounds. In the winter, when one is not accustomed to such a diet, the result can be unbalance leading to illness, heart problems and even death.
Let’s examine our relationship to food. Are we bingeing and purging? Or are we losing weight slowly with gentle exercise? If we are diabetic, asthmatic or more than 20 pounds overweight, are we under a practitioner’s care?
Medication dosages may need to be adjusted. Purgation or extreme diets, especially in winter, can lead to problems.
Here are some tips from a Chinese guidebook:
*Omit sugar and dairy products.
*Limit meat to 4 ounces several times a week.
*In winter, cooked root veggies, especially soups, are ideal.
*Omit all cold food and drinks.
*Take digestive enzymes 1/2 hour before meals.
He’s puzzled by war rationale
From Wally Hardie
SelmaIt is puzzling to me trying to comprehend just what criteria are used by this administration to go to war.
When we say a country has weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that nation says, “No we don’t,” and we send in inspectors by the thousands and they all say there are no WMDs, we continue to insist they do and if they won’t produce them we will go to war, and we did, and there were no WMD.
However, if another country (Korea) says, “We have WMD,” we want to appease them in any way we can. We have told them we don’t want war. We have told them we will provide food, build electrical generating plants, send medical aid; you name it, we’ll do it. Much like jumping through hoops to appease.
However, Korea doesn’t have oil either. Perhaps that’s why we don’t want war with it.
When we fought them before, it was to defeat communism. Now the communist sell their goods through Wal-Mart and most other department stores -- so much for defeating the commies, now we support them and owe communist China billions of dollars.
I believe we went to war in Vietnam for the same reason, to fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here. Going to war for religious or ideological reasons results in wars that cannot be won. Fought, yes; won, no.
Americans had to die in wars, and we now support the communist victor.
Another country (Iran) says, “We are going to continue to develop nuclear power for peaceful use, and will allow monitoring of same.” We tell them that they are lying and we will stop them, just like we stopped their neighbor Iraq.
We need an administration with a consistent foreign policy, but after six years without one, it may be too much to expect.
When this war in Iraq finally ends, and we pay billions and billions more to rebuild it, when we can’t take care of our own, who will we turn to for help?
We are in another war that never had to be, and when we finally declare victory and bring the best of the best home, just what will we have won?
This administration isn’t through yet; we still have two more years to go. President Bush has said, “Well, we already have ‘em (troops) there, so we’re ready.” Ready for what?
What constitutes ‘quality of life?’
From Gregory D. Anderson
Cave JunctionIn 1990 the logging industry, including mills and associated business, provided a living for hundreds of thousands of residents in Oregon, Washington and California.
The environmental extremists with a PR campaign that featured the spotted owl changed this economy forever. There were at least 130,000 jobs lost, closing more than 900 sawmills, pulp mills and paper mills by the mid ‘90s.
The costs to the area were more than economic. Divorces shot up, breaking up families. Men committed suicide. All resulting from Clinton’s 80 percent cut in logging to appease the spotted owl worshippers.
We now know that all these disrupted and destroyed human lives were for naught. The spotted owl population continues to plummet to this day. Biologists utilizing real science, instead of the junk science so popular with the liberal left, have found the diminishing numbers of this cute little fella’ is not man’s fault after all. Another of God’s creatures, the barred owl, is moving into the spotted owl’s territory and killing the little guys, in spite of the EPA’s regulations.
The saddest part of this saga is that in 1992 the secretary of agriculture in Bush One’s cabinet pointed out evidence that the larger barred owls were eliminating their smaller cousins. When Clinton came into office he was prodded by his radical enviro supporters to ignore the real science, and the government destroyed an industry in three states.
After all, when have human families’ livelihoods been more important than the liberal green political agenda?
“I.V. News” (“BLM chastised” 1/18/2006) reported some emotional enviros in Takilma who said in effect that the Bureau of Land Management should do nothing, and that “quality of life is important to the people here …” Don’t they think the quality of life was important to the many thousands who lost their jobs due to their nonscience political agenda some 15 years ago?
These same leftist greens through various liberal groups stalled the salvage of the Biscuit fire with their lawsuits, propaganda and demonstrations until any economic benefit from the logging is questionable. So again, many jobs were lost and profits not made to pay taxes to help the poor and elderly.
Is this the kind of track record that should make us confident that their radical ideas are what is best for us? Or should we pay attention to the Bureau of Land Management professionals?
Perhaps Roger Brandt’s (“I.V. News” letter to the editor 1/18/2006) could provide us a pro forma to show how the “millions of dollars annually” could have been made if BLM hadn’t salvaged the T.J Howell Botanical Drive area. For that kind of money some entrepreneur will figure a way around the salvage problem.
Heaven knows that the citizens of the valley could use the help after the abuse they’ve taken from the so-called environmentalists.
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