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Email: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online Edition:
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Wednesday, October 16,2002
-Oregon Daily Emerald
Commentary
Editor in Chief:
Michael J. Kleckner
Managing Editor.
Jessica Richelderfer
Editorial Editors:
Salena De La Cruz, Pat Payne
Letters to the editor
Health care is no free lunch
This letter is in response to Ruth Duemler’s let
ter on Oct. 7, concerning Measure 23 in the up
coming election.
Measure 23 is being proclaimed by its support
ers as health and dental care for everyone, no
matter what your income level. This is true, but
the taxpayers must stop for a second and think
where all the money is going to come from. Right
out of the taxpayers’ pocket! The harsh truth is
that Measure 23 will force the average Oregonian
to pay about double the income tax they do now.
Measure 23 is also one of the biggest job-killing
measures Oregon has ever seen. Within two to
four years, virtually everyone in Oregon working
for health care providers and related businesses
will be out of a job.
This measure will also hurt businesses in Ore
gon, small or large. Measure 23 will impose an
11.5 percent tax on employers in addition to the
taxes they already pay on employees. The result:
Established businesses will leave Oregon, and
new businesses will go elsewhere because of Ore
gon’s unfavorable business taxes, slowing growth
and increasing unemployment even further.
Essentially, Measure 23 is putting every Ore
gonian on the Oregon Health Plan. Oregonians
deserve the right to choose their health care plan
and how much they want to pay. Vote no on Mea
sure 23 to keep your freedom of choice.
Brian DeLaG range
senior
business administration
Kent State’s the answer
A way to stop the rioting in the University
area — and all others as well — is to stage an
other Kent State. If we had shot those persons
seen on the screen as they participated in the
riot, there would be no more.
The guilty would be taken care of, the dam
age would have been lessened and a lesson
would have been learned by the riot-minded
type. The “innocent” would be freed of accu
sation, the University would be cleansed and
we would all be ahead. Any observations?
Larry Traglio
Eugene
Media should cover
child abductions
I recognize “freedom of the press,” but I also
recognize your inability to grasp the real prob
lem here. If the media hadn’t placed the child
alerts they did, and if the media coverage hadn’t
taken place, where do you think the sexual pred
ators — that have been caught — would be to
day? I eamesdy pray that neither you, nor any
other family member, has to endure the pain and
sleepless nights many parents have.
Rather than turn your head and become numb
to these brutal attacks on our children, take your
frustrations and put them to good use. Robert
and Janet Cooke did just that, while they are still
searching for their missing daughter, Rachel
Cooke, missing since Jan. 10. She too hasn’t
made national news, but her family and friends
have kept her search alive, along with a country
singer named A1 White who wrote a song for
Rachel Cooke and all missing children. Listen to
the clip of “Rachel’s Song” atwww.kvue.com and
you will hear how one man has taken a totally dif
ferent attempt of restoring hope, faith and love.
One person can’t do this alone. You turning
your head and looking the other way won’t
change the situation, at least in your mind. I’m
thankful the people I’ve talked to haven’t suggest
ed stopping the media coverage. I pray for your
change of heart and thoughts on such terrible and
horrendous crimes against children and older
missing persons.
Pamela Shephard
Texas
X-Box makes us fat
On a recent trip to the Student Recreation
Center, I noticed a new X-Box game station. On
the yet-to-be-tumed-on screen was a hand
written caveat about how X-Box donates mon
ey to intramural athletics.
Now, instead of working out, students can
sample the newest incentive to join the ranks of
Pepsi-swilling couch potatoes. In order to make
the irony complete, could the rec center move
the new soda machines next to the X-Box? A
generation of obesQ, apathetic, physically unfit
students awaits.
Ezekiel O'Brien
Eugene
Nearsighted forest policy
In response to Salena De La Cruz’s Voice Off
(“HFI good for timber harvest,” ODE, Oct. 10):
I find your commentary very disappointing. I
am encouraging you to voice your opinion, but
to use the excuse, “I come from small-town
America” is quite sad.
You see, I too come from a small town, and
my family made a living off of the timber indus
try. Yet I choose to define myself by my own
thoughts and conclusions. I don’t stick to the
stereotype that all small-town Oregonians have
the same mentality.
Your argument goes in two directions. In one
paragraph, you are in support of the thinning
as to avoid future forest fires. In another para
graph, you encourage the use of old growth
trees, stating that they, “make better paper,”
even though, as you point out, they are more
fire resistant. This only shows your true
thoughts on logging.
This is not an issue of thinning for the safe
ty of people. You are worried about loggers
scraping by without a job. This is something
we need to address as a nation that can afford
billions on the military but must make budget
cuts in education.
You are barking up the wrong tree if you be
lieve that increased logging will help us. It
may, for a while, increase jobs and wealth, but
once again, we will be back to square one.
Look into the future, not just next year. We
can no longer afford to have such nearsight
edness in this world.
Adrian Hoffman
junior
environmental science
Anti-loggers should re-check facts about forest thinning
While the Oct. 10 Voice Off “Forest thinning not the solution”
undoubtedly tugged at many a liberal heartstring, it is surprising to
note that the author of the piece presented her case totally devoid
of factual information; only emotion-based conjecture.
Reasoned opinion backed by fact is the stuff of stellar commen
tary. Pure conjecture based on the assumption that Republicans
will stop at nothing to pave over everything in the name of progress,
lining their pockets along the way, is lazy journalism directed at the
unthinking portion of the University population.
Let us address some of the author’s more colorful points.
“Mature forests, however densely packed, do not cause
forest fires...”
True, but dead trees do. Overgrowth creates a breeding ground
for pestilence and disease, killing trees; dead trees are ripe for fire,
therefore; when lightning strikes, it is reasonable to assume that
acts of God may spark forest fires, but the inaction of men—more
specifically, inept bureaucracy—are responsible for recent fires of
biblical proportions. Apparently, the writer didn’t get the memo
on this one.
“People who build their houses in the middle of forests ... de
serve what they get. ”
Oh, really, and all of this time I was under the impression that we
Republicans were cold, heartless and uncaring of the needs of the
citizenry. While people may be at increased risk for fire damage
living in a heavily-forested region, there is no reason why home
owners should not be allowed to take proper precautions in order to
save their homes. Environmental groups have prevented them
from doing just that.
Take, for instance, a 1999 proposal to thin out the dangerously
fire-prone Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona. This pro
posal was appealed and subsequendy challenged in court by the
Tuscon-based “Center for Biological Diversity”; a final decision
was still on hold when the forest — and nearby towns—were en
gulfed by reeent conflagrations in that state. -—-—
“By reducing unnecessary regulatory obstacles that hinder ac
tive forest management,” as the proposal states, “Bush is clearly
looking to let his friends in the big-business logging companies have
their go at it—unhindered. ”
Care to back that opinion with fact? After scouring through our
president’s forest proposal, readily available online, one fails to find
any mention of quid pro quo. When will liberals realize that logging
companies do not profit from the devastation of forest land? Devoid
of trees, timber companies would indeed be out of business, would
they not? More trees are lost due to forest fires (1 million acres an
nually on average) than are lost to harvesting. In addition, compa
nies such as International Paper have been reforesting since 1898,
averaging 48 million acres of trees planted per year, five times more
than they harvest annually. Gan the Sierra Club match that?
Scott J. Kane is a pre-journalism major and is a member
■ of the-College Republicans---....