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Obama, Clinton; priorities
From Wally Hardie
Selma

We, as Americans, are on the verge of the unbelievable. We have a woman and an African American both running for the U.S. presidency. I never thought this would happen in my lifetime.

One heartbeat ago women fought for and were given the right to vote. My mother was one, and that was considered the impossible. The Republicans riled against that, saying women are not capable of making those decisions.

The thought of a man of color as president was impossible: It would never happen. I remember how some said that Negroes don’t have the mentality for any higher office. And now it looks as though Barack Obama stands an excellent chance of making it happen. And could he be worse than the president we now have?

Obama and Clinton have laid out some of the needs for America. Sen. McCain has said we cannot afford those plans of Obama. This war that has no end, McCain has said, he will keep going for a hundred years if necessary to win. Win what?

This war costs us $500,000 per minute, $3,000,000 an hour, $72,000,000 a day. Perhaps if and when that kind of expense for a war that never had to be comes to an end, we could find monies for some of the necessities: Health care for children. All children. And a health plan for the elderly so that they don’t have to choose between eating and dying.

Get county’s act together
From Ellis Couron
Cave Junction

The other day I received a letter soliciting money in support of the Cave Junction Police Dept. Of course, there is no police department, so the letter went in the round file.

But the letter did remind me that in the bottom drawer of my desk I have a red-white-and-blue decal that reads, “Support Your Local Sheriff.” I have wanted to display this decal on one of my vehicles since before Bill Arnardo was the sheriff of Josephine County, and have not as yet seen anyone elected sheriff that warranted my support.

I am a retired reserve deputy sheriff, and have some knowledge of what should be happening in law enforcement. Unfortunately it isn’t happening in this county. This newest representative of county law enforcement lost me and others when he reportedly went to Salem in his nice new uniform and tried to lobby the Legislature into setting aside the vote of the people that protects our property taxes just long enough for him to get his $10 million or so.

Of course, the larger picture is the fact that for years the county lived high on O&C money and spent it like there was no tomorrow. I sent several letters to county government years ago and tried to get some of that money set aside for times like these. But they were so busy raising salaries and building things we didn’t need that they couldn’t see that far ahead.

Actually I believe that the O&C Counties have a long-standing contract with the federal government and that the contract should be enforceable. The legal and administrative arms of our government are running all over the world giving away billions of our tax dollars to foreign governments as I write, so why should it be such a big deal getting that same government to honor its contract with its own citizens in these counties.

And while I am at it, I don’t like to hear that rhetoric about low taxes in these counties compared with someplace else. We are not someplace else. I don’t care what other counties have to pay.

I live here, and what benefits I may get from living here has nothing to do with Portland or someplace else. We are not someplace else. The county government here should get its act together and straighten out the mess that we are in.

If those elected are incapable of doing that and getting it right without always trying to force taxpayers to bail them out, then they should find something else to do.

The bottom line is that the federal government, which contracted to pay us the O&C monies, should find some way to resolve that problem in our favor -- and if and when it does, the county should take care of those funds as it should.