TO THE EDITOR
DARING TO ATTACK
“Bring ‘em on,” says our commander in
chief. The man who evaded his own mili-
tary service during the Vietnam War dares
Iraqi dissidents to attack our soldiers. In the
days that followed “Bring ‘em on,” the
number of attacks grew. How callous, how
irresponsible! When I heard him say it, I
screamed, “Then you go and fight!” “Bring
‘em on?” You got it, prez. Let’s bring on the
call for impeachment before he kills more
American soldiers.
The real American heroes, now, will be
the brave Republican congresspeople who
put their country before their personal gain
and stand up for the Constitution. If either
the Senate or the House of Representatives
were in the hands of the Democrats, investi-
gations and impeachment proceedings
would already be under way. It is up to our
Republican congresspeople to represent all
of us.
I didn’t vote for Gordon Smith, but he is
still my representative. If you want Sen.
Smith to actively question what the Bush ad-
ministration is doing, then let him hear from
you. Send letters or e-mails, make phone calls
until his staff is buried in our demands. There
are patriotic Republicans in Washington.
Encourage them to do their jobs.
Carol Horne
Eugene
to have Dr. King’s contribution to all
Americans publicly recognized by our com-
munity.
Because of her active involvement with
the issue from the beginning, she under-
stood that the NAACP leaders had done
everything that was required of them in the
public process. She knew they had done
everything they were asked to do.
She understood the anger felt by
NAACP leaders and community supporters
when they experienced what so often hap-
pens to people of color, women, working
people, and others who are not part of the
power structure: Play successfully by the
rules and those in power will turn around
and change them. Councilor Bettman, the
Eugene-Springfield NAACP and the MLK
Boulevard-naming community supporters
deserve our thanks.
Roscoe Caron
Eugene
SLIPPERY DICKERY
Dick “The Hand” Cheney must have
slipped out when “Dubya” the sock puppet
accidentally spoke the truth and said, “I
stand behind the speeches I have been
given,” instead of “the speeches I have
given.”
Michael T. Hinojosa
Drain
BONNY’S SENSE
MISPLACED BLAME
There is something that deserves to be
added to the discussion about the renaming
of Centennial Boulevard after Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. City Councilor Bonny
Bettman was a constant source of common
sense and support for the NAACP’s efforts
Once again we have one of your readers
slamming industry for messing up the
Willamette River (Chris Gaylord, 7/3).
Once again I feel compelled to point out that
around 80 percent of the pollution in the
Willamette comes from unregulated non-
BY TONY CORCORAN
Sausage
vs. Baloney
Unholy counsel, hostage swaps
and other legislative quirks.
T
he speaker has a little problem: Even though there are 35 House
Republicans, she doesn’t have 31 votes to pass her insufficient budgets.
She has offered $5.05 billion for schools; but almost everyone else in the
building is looking for a minimum of $5.3 billion. But don’t get me wrong; the speaker
is a good, caring person. It’s the people advising her, the four Horsepersons of the
Apocalypse — no, that isn’t the name of a New-Age country-western band. Larry
Campbell, Gary Wilhelms (both former legislative leaders), Chuck Adams, and
Oregon’s own Cruella de Vil, Paulette Pyle. Paulette represents a group with a nice
name — Oregonians for Food and Shelter (better known as Agribusiness for Pesticides
and Herbicides). These unholy advisors have placed the speaker in harm’s way. She is
unable to get us out of the building and we’ve been held hostage almost 200 days.
One senator was so bored he left Friday for a National Baloney Festival. I don’t make
this stuff up.
Sausage-Making 101: OK class, here’s a pop quiz on the ethics of
voter hostage exchange. House Bill 3631 allows a 90-year-old lady, Dorothy English,
to override Multnomah County and subdivide her 25 acres — purchased in 1953,
almost 20 years before land use laws — into six parcels. House Bill 2379 allows a tax
credit for low-income family housing, sponsored by Sen. Margaret Carter, long-time
champion of the working poor and minorities. Senate Republicans, under the influ-
ence of anti-land use extremists, Oregonians in Action, refused to pass Margaret’s
bill unless we gave them the votes for the Dorothy English bill. Is this illegal? No. Is
it bribery? Technically, I’m not sure. Does it stink? Yes. What would you do? Based
on my risk/benefit analysis, I voted for the English bill to get Carter’s bill passed.
4 JULY 24, 2003
point sources such as agricultural runoff and
storm water. Gaylord can confirm this by
calling the friendly local DEQ office.
Industry is already heavily regulated in
this state with some of the most stringent
discharge limits in the nation. Gaylord also
fails to mention the impact of municipal ef-
fluent treatment discharges. If Gaylord
thinks it’s bad now, what do you suppose is
going to happen when the valley grows by
its projected one million more people in the
next 20 years?
We as a species refuse to control our
numbers. Government policies such as child
tax credits and wide-open borders encour-
age the population explosion. This is the
root cause of the dirty water. Trying to fix
things by heaping even more regulation on
industry would be akin to fighting a forest
fire with a garden hose.
Jerry J. Ritter
Springfield
Dilemma #2: Yesterday in Senate Rules we heard testimony on HB2537, spon-
sored by two thoughtful ladies, Reps. Joanne Verger and Laurie Monnes-Anderson.
The bill provides low-cost health insurance for employers who don’t currently pro-
vide coverage for some of Oregon’s 400,000 working poor. A noble idea, but
it’s meeting tough resistance from seniors, women and mental health advo-
cates. The dilemma is that in order to make premiums cheap enough for
small employers to buy into the plan, the bill removes mandates and criti-
cal services. So prenatal care and delivery, chemical dependency, den-
tistry, HIV treatment, mammograms, emergency eye care and mental
health are not covered. And physician assistants, nurse practitioners and
optometrists are, illogically, not included — even though they would certainly
save money for any plan!
What would you do? The AFL-CIO’s health policy advisor, Lynn Marie Crider,
made a good point. It’s bad public policy to just pick and choose services, discon-
necting from the services provided, for example, by the Oregon Health Plan. Instead
we should be looking at the cost-drivers that cause health insurance premium infla-
tion. I think we need the missing ingredient from Dr. John Kitzhaber’s original
health plan — an employer mandate — with a tax credit. And we should all thank
Verger and Monnes-Anderson for putting our public health insurance crisis on the
table.
T
he lack of a mental health component brought out some of the strongest testi-
mony I’ve witnessed all session. A man explained how his schizophrenic son,
who was taking $600 of medication a month, kept losing his health care cov-
erage as his income increased, only to lose his job when he was off his meds. Another
witness described being so suicidal and depressed that at one point she dug her own
grave in her backyard. She calmly and objectively described the treatment she re-
ceived at OHSU — years of therapy including electro-shock — and the forced separa-
tion from a young daughter. Then she described her current state of wellness. She’s
just about to get her master’s degree and there was no sign of the crippling depres-
sion that had almost ruined her life.
Her point was to let us know that mental illness, or “biochemical
imbalance” as she preferred we call it, was curable if people just had
access to treatment. She left us with a quote from J. Krishnamurti, the Indian
theosophist: “It is not a sign of good health to be well-adjusted in a sick society.”
Seems like a perfect metaphor for Oregon’s 72nd Legislative Session.
Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove represents portions of Lane and Douglas counties in Senate District 4, which
includes the UO area. He can be reached at sen.tonycorcoran@state.or.us