te,,ers
TO THE
EQITOR
NOT SO CLUELESS
I must take issue with your recent -article
"Defazio & Wyden: Clueless Lobbyists?"
(8/7), which suggested that Congressman
Peter Defazio and Senator Ron Wyden were
misguided in thinking that the Bush adminis-
tration's efforts to impose a tariff on Hynix
may undermine its Eugene plant, where
1,000 people currently work .
While it is possible that tariffs on Hynix
imports could encourage them to increase
production at their Eugene facility, the fact is
that this site is already one of the company's
most productive and best-equipped. We don't
need artificial tariffs to encourage them to
produce here. What we need is to make sure
the company as a whole has the resources to
continue to invest in upgrading their products
and facilities so that they can stay ahead of
the competition.
The proposed tariffs are largely in response
to lobbying by Sen. Larry Craig ofldaho, who
is trying to obtain a competitive advantage for
the Micron facility in his state. It is only appro-
priate that Sen. Wyden and U.S. Rep.
Defazio, along with Sen. Gordon Smith, have
weighed in on behalf of a besieged company
with a strong Oregon presence.
I personally want to thank Wyden and
Defazio for taking the time to testify before
the International Trade Commission on this
matter. I also want to thankEW for finally ac-
knowledging the major economic contribu-
tion Hynix is making to our community.
Jack Roberts
Lane Metro Partnership
SHABBY TREATMENT
Oregon citizens: Please ask Gov.
Kulongoski to direct his attention to the dete-
riorating labor dispute in the Oregon
University System (OUS).
• Higher Education state employees are
being treated shabbily compared to other
state workers in the Department of
Administration
Services (DAS). The
Kulongoski administration dealt with DAS
workers in a mutually respectful and con-
structive process, and a tentative agreement
will soon be approved.
Sadly, university employees are assaulted
with unacceptable contract proposals that
weaken our rights. Chancellor Richard Jarvis
would slash seniority and layoff protections
in the current contract. Please ask the gover-
nor why OUS is attacking the workers who
keep the seven university campuses operat-
ing smoothly.
Union (SEIU) negotiators have agreed to
economic parity with the proposed DAS
agreement. Yet the chancellor rejected our
proposal and refuses lQ delete insulting take-
away language. In the DAS agreement, part-
time workers get fully covered health insur-
ance, but university part-timers will pay out-
rageous premiums. Yet part-time university
managers enjoy fully paid health coverage!
Higher education workers are now in
strike preparation mode! If we are pushed to
strike the first day of classes in September
due to hostile OUS proposals, the blame for
the shutdown of campuses will rest squarely
on Chancellor Jarvis!
Join me in urging Kulongoski to become
personally involved in the OUS labor discus-
sions before the situation worsens. Please
call, fax or email the governor! Phone: (503)
378-4582; fax : 378-6827; or e-mail via
www.governor.state.or.us/contact.htm
James Jacobson
Former UO bargaining table rep.
WJIW.QU!LBDQW8BKLV
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Final Perfomance:
Friday,
Aug 15th! Tix: 682-5000
FEED HUNGRY TABLES
I say kudos to UO President frohnmayer
for his bully promotion of a new basketball
arena to replace Mac Court. His continued,
aggressive promotion of the athletic program
· should convince all true believers that UO is
in good hands.
The benefits of promoting these athletic
programs are many: They give students an ap-
preciation firsthand of our dynamic free mar-
ket system, they instill a deep respect for cut-
throat competition so important to our capital-
istic system, and they provide an antidote to
and relief from the liberal claptrap students are
assaulted with daily in the classroom.
Dave's deft hand at managing the liberal
bias at the university has been remarkable. Just
a few years ago he appeared to-kowtow to a
small group of complainers who had camped
out in front of Johnson Hall to protest Nike's so
called sweatshops. But instead of confronta-
tion, he did an end run around them and in the
process brought a righteously outraged Phil
Knight back into the fold. And unlike our other
president, Dave doesn't need handlers!
Clearly, this proposed facility is a winner.
For one it gives the university an opportunity,
as Dave put it, to put "some bread on a whole
lot of tables in Eugene-Springfield that have
been pretty hungry." It also means that those
generous contributors now being organized
by Phil will get the most bang for the buck by
the UO Foundation's plan to create a non-
profit to build the arena. This strategy will re-
lieve all those sub-contractors of having to
offer union wages to their workers.
And to those snivelers who might com-
plain that the $130 million of private money
raised could better serve other university pro-
grams during tight budgets, I say let's get
with the agenda! Educating our university
students will only get in the way of preparing
them for their future role managing the un-
derclass in this country, just as Phil has so
ably done overseas.
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LibertyBank
Peter Ferris
Eugene
THE SONS ARE DEAD?
I just went out on the Internet to see for
myself what our government is passing off as
evidence that Saddam Hussein's two sons
Odai and Qusai are, ind~ed, dead. After care-
ful examination, between the published be-
fore and after pictures, there was no way that
I could visually conclude that the allegations
of our government are true. I must say, that a
IO-Year-old with an Instamatic camera could
have taken better quality photographs.
It would have helped if a professional
photographer were to have taken full frontal
and side views, and then have them com-
pared, side-by-side, to similar views when
the two men were alive. Unfortunately, the
angles and quality of these morbid pictures
are such that no definitive conclusion can be
made, particularly, if I were an Iraqi citizen
fearing for my life from retributions from
these two henchmen.
· I am gravely disappointed , and equally
concerned, that our government is acting so
irresponsibly and pitifully, as to think that
such a poor quality effort would suffice to
prove to the Iraqi people that these two pur-
ported thugs are dead. I cannot help but think
that our government is once again trying to
deceive us, and the rest of the world, to possi-
bly enhance the public opinion polls of our
own homegrown illegally elected regime .
John IL Haines, MD
Kent A. Karren, MD
Robert IL Davis, MD
.
The Eye Center
William A. Fleenor
Mapleton
eugene
we~KlV
AUGUST
14, 2003 5