Letters to the Editor
From our weekly issue dated April 8, 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
‘Open I.V. Library’
From Andrea King and Linda Naydol
Cave Junction
The library will reopen in Cave Junction when 400 Illinois Valley residents subscribe at the $100 level, or when 1,000 of us subscribe at the $40 level. Such a commitment will have almost no effect on an individual budget; less than $10 or $4 per month, respectively.
Reopening all libraries in the county has been the goal of Josephine Community Libraries Inc. (JCLI) since its formation in 2007. The system’s base, the Grants Pass Library, opened last December and has established technical support for branch libraries when their communities offer financial and energetic commitment.
The adventure of JCLI’s existence is exceptional in the world of libraries. It is a volunteer-run nonprofit organization whose sole purpose is to open and maintain community libraries throughout its home county.
To participate in re-establishing the I.V. Branch Library, people can mail a check with a note that it comes from I.V., to Josephine Community Libraries, P.O. Box 1684, Grants Pass OR 97528; complete the automatic monthly payment form on josephinelibrary.org, or phone 592-3289.
Beware ‘green-washing’
From Shannon Wilson
Selma
The residents of Takilma, Selma, O’Brien, and the entire Illinois Valley should pay special attention to the so-called “fire fuels” reduction projects being touted as restoration.
The Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest’s real mandate remains the production of tree fiber from native forests and future tree plantations. The timber industry and the emerging “forest biomass energy industry” still hold the U.S. Forest Service and BLM captive to their whims.
Just because the forest service and BLM are proposing to use some good folks to do the job does not mean that this will benefit the ecosystem (community) and biodiversity.
Earlier this year I witnessed the pre-commercial thinning of the replanted Longwood Fire Complex just outside of Takilma. This is just the continuing subjugation of the native biodiverse forests struggling to re-establish itself. By eliminating the naturally seeded species the forest service and BLM are perpetuating the industrial tree farm model.
In fact they are perpetuating the subjugation tactics that have been used on Native American people and native species for more than 500 years.
Real fire fuels reduction would be most effective within a few hundred feet of homes. Real restoration would not reduce biodiversity and the populations of native species, but would increase them upon every acre treated. Real restoration would remove hundreds of miles of eroding and failing forest roads. Real restoration would not degrade nor compact soils and mycorrizial relationships within the forests.
The subjugation of the forests in your own backyards may get painted in “green-wash.” Be watchful.
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Solutions at hand
From Bruce Jackson
Cave Junction
There is something artificial or disconnected about our current financial crisis. The crisis is in the system that has facilitated the accumulation of massive wealth by some and a challenge to survive by most.
The problem is more abstract than what can be fixed by all of us merely working harder.
There is the growing factor of public awareness. It’s not that people are better educated, or that the general public has a better understanding of economics and politics than before. In some ways apathy has won, and most people feel helpless to affect the systems of wealth and government.
But something else is emerging in the awareness and consciousness of a growing number of people. Ironically, it may be the very oppression and threat of disaster that serves to awaken us to real solutions.
To start with, we must realize there are many perspectives to view our current situation.
If we begin to dissect the system with the intent to fix it, we run into a quagmire of complexity that would put us safely asleep if we study it long and hard enough. Instead we need to think a little more like Thoreau, who described economics of two men. One worked to earn the money for train fare while the other began walking.
Both ways have validity, but result in very different experiences. Starting over is not really an option that most of us would care for, as the system for all its evils has produced some remarkable conveniences that keep us careening down the highways at high speed to our next appointment. Indeed the very system that threatens to destroy us is helping us all to live more comfortably in many ways.
So the system works in some ways, but remains fatally flawed. The world now at this critical juncture has a rare opportunity to transform. Unfortunately, real change in this world requires the uncomfortable breakdown of the very system we depend upon to live. I am not an advocate for anarchy nor is any effort needed to bring down a system that is consuming itself at an alarming rate.
How long the agony can be prolonged by printing more money and assigning it to our collective indebtedness is yet to be seen, but I propose that we use our remaining time to make our own positive effect on this world.
I believe we must look past the economics to the real solutions and the real problems that face us. In order for us to have food, shelter, clothing, health care, education, and the agricultural, manufacturing, and service ability to produce the essential and desired stuff that we have come to depend upon, we must give something for it.
What have we to give? We have only our lives, our energy, our creative innovation. Our heart and souls are our true treasures. And so we live in a world of two realities; our flesh and blood and living soul reality, and our existence as a legal entity with a number.
We cannot return to the land like the communes of the ’70s attempted. We cannot live in isolation from the rest of the world that makes our shoes and cars and computers. The glory of our present system is that we can pull into a service station or a grocery store and fill our tank or shopping cart with the swipe of a card. The power lines keep our TVs and computers powered while we contemplate organic gardening and spiritual awakening.
So what can we do while the economy threatens the balance of so many? Our direction begins by simply keeping in touch with that question. What resources do we have within our reach? What kindness can we do to relieve the suffering of others? What good ideas can we implement? How can we build something new? How can we create the kind of community that we would like to live in?
How can we live full, healthy and productive lives?
May the celebration of resurrection this year be our true willingness to be made new in heart and mind as we trust in our highest inspiration, and then find its purest expression in our lives.
Resources counter bullying
From Sue Lily
Cave Junction
Our middle school has been celebrating a “Day of Respect” for several years, but it’s a continual process. An April 4, 2009 article in the New York Times by Winnie Hu on the subject of bullying included the following links, for those who wish to help improve communication in our town and county:
Knowledge Is Power Program; Second Step: Roots of Empathy; National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform; Character Education Partnership; Thomas B. Fordham Institute; Parent Teacher Association.
Even smugness is a form of bullying.
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