Letters to the Editor
From our weekly issue dated February 18, 2009
(Editor’s Note: Views and commentary, including statements made as fact, are strictly those of the letter-writers.)
Typed, double-spaced letters are considered for publication. Hand-written letters that are double-spaced and legible also can be considered. “Thank you” submissions are not accepted as letters
Stimulus package
From Christine Perala Gardiner
Cave Junction
Regarding President Obama’s economic stimulus plan, here are some facts that affect us all. Early this month it was reported that during January, some 100,000 people lost their jobs in this country, and the record number of foreclosures is hitting every corner of the United States.
Among other aspects, this stimulus plan will create or save 3 to 4 million jobs during the next two years; avert “literally hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs” -- and it doubles funding for the Dept. of Education; create 500,000 green jobs and double our clean-energy production; and immediately help unemployed folks get affordable health insurance.
Some economists are arguing that it should be bigger, and they’re probably right. But right now, this is the best down payment on economic recovery we have, and it needs to be passed by Congress. The issues being singled out for Republican criticism amount to a tiny fraction of the bill. These include anti-smoking programs that make up less than one 10-thousandth of the package.
If this doesn’t pass, we’re all in deep trouble. Yet Republican senators are lining up to stop this stimulus, while they gave the big banks billions of dollars of our money with no strings attached. Even John McCain’s economic adviser estimates that without the stimulus, unemployment would top 11 percent by 2010, the highest level since the Great Depression.
We need to make sure the Senate takes action quickly. Nearly 200 economists from across the political spectrum wrote to Congress, agreeing when they wrote: “We do not have the luxury of a lengthy debate over the best course of action. This legislation may not be enough to solve all the economy’s problems, but it is urgently needed and an important step in the right direction.”
Those who support the Obama stimulus package should contact their legislators.
(Editor’s Note: It’s anticipated that the president would sign the bill this week.)
Addiction vs. disease
From A. Reser
Cave Junction
Isn’t it interesting that enough Oregon legislators agreed that alcoholism was a ‘disease’ that they voted to make a law that protects those so afflicted to continue to drink alcohol in public.
Yet, they exert their legislative powers to stomp out cigarette smoking every way possible. A smoker might toss a butt on the ground, but that is preferable to his human waste being deposited on public property.
Alcoholism is not a “disease,” it is an addiction that results in multiple diseases the same as smoking. In a state of intoxication a person can harm others just as a smoker’s secondhand smoke can harm others. If our lawmakers can do their best to stomp out one vice they should work equally hard to eliminate the other and not protect it with the label “disease.”
Perhaps we taxpayers can let them know about the inequity of the law that prevents communities such as ours from taking legal steps to discourage/prevent groups of transients from setting up shop on city streets and park to continue feeding their chosen addiction and life style in full public view.
(Editor’s Note: See story elsewhere in this issue about possible changes to the law.)
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Forestry Action active
From T. Peno
Cave Junction
I’ve been on the fringe of the Forestry Action Committee (FAC) as a volunteer and interested bystander.
FAC has been in the news lately as an innocent victim because of an employee charged with crime. Do we blame the victim? “It” happens to nice people because they don’t expect it. FAC has reorganized its accounting after learning the hard way.
I’ve been impressed with what FAC accomplishes. I asked about weed-pulling because I saw a patch of bad weeds spreading. Not long after, Susan Chapp and I were pulling those weeds. I’ve not seen this kind of hands-on solution before.
We began trying to get more people to help, and it’s not easy. Last fall I found a bunch of household rubbish dumped in a flood zone. I talked to Susan, and she found people who could help clean it up. This is action.
Susan told me that FAC was started to try to get people on different sides of issues to work together. I stayed to volunteer because of being impressed with Susan Chapp and her ideas. She is a determined woman with a vision of what FAC can do.
I think that she is a delightful and brilliant woman, and I will continue to help because of what she and others at FAC are doing.
About deputy’s driving
From Sunshine Cook
Takilma
I’m not feeling safe knowing that Deputy James K. Geiger, of Josephine County Sheriff’s Office, is driving on our roadways. And I don’t think that his K-9 partner, Basco, is going to want to ride with him anymore.
Is it true that the deputy has wrecked two vehicles since 2007? And why was he making a U-turn on a blind curve?
I think I might feel safer and maybe actually be safer if he were to take up the job of walking a beat in Cave Junction. Maybe then he and Basco could catch that guy smoking marijuana on the parking lot.
Freedom of the press
From Juliet Hansen
Harbor
As a child during World War II, I was impressed by Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedom posters displayed in all schools, offices and store display windows. Two paintings were “Freedom froms” — Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. Two were “Freedoms of” — Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion.
The Bill of Rights lists even more freedoms. During the 200-plus years of our country’s history, we have come chillingly close to losing some of those freedoms. The sacrifices of blood, sweat and tears spent to obtain them have at times been disregarded in the causes of expediency, crises or disguised self-interest.
In any government intent on total control of its citizens, one freedom is destroyed first, often violently. That is the freedom of the press. Other times it can be lost through negligence and inattention by the population.
Broadcasts of the news are helpful and convenient, but spoken words may be misunderstood or misleading, and they disappear into the air. The printed word is solid. It can be held in the hand and referred to and verified as needed. For example, the U.S. Constitution is written.
All newspapers are important. We can choose to read or not read, and to add our own opinions to the rest.
Regarding letters to the editor, and community newspapers, the sheets of such publications contain written news and ideas that we might never see if we did not have small-town, small-population newspapers. As we read them we hold in our hands the one freedom that supports and secures the rest of this country’s basic foundations, the local newspaper — the freedom of the press.
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