LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
NOT TO WORRY
I have noticed a lot of letters from
folks including Dorothy Karstrom (12/16)
who are afraid that if gay people are per-
mitted to marry that this will result in peo-
ple marrying animals, pizzas or mattress-
es. I want to report some of my experi-
ences in order to clarify the situation.
When my cat Achilles had his fifth
birthday; I went to register him for kinder-
garten. The school board told me that I
could not enroll him in school because he
is not a human. I hired a lawyer and
pushed the issue as far as I could, but
unfortunately I could not convince anyone
to let him attend school.
In a separate incident, after my hus-
band passed away, I fell in love with a can
of Westbrae soybeans and we went to
apply for a marriage license. When we
were turned down, on the grounds that my
beloved can is not a human, I contacted the
ACLU and spent a lot of money and made
a lot of ruckus, but we were never allowed
to marry legally.
So I want to reassure people like
Dorothy Karstrom that the government
seems to be quite relentless in distinguish-
ing a human from a non-human, and your
fears that marriage between two gay
humans will lead to marriage between a
human and a food snack do not appear to
be grounded in reality.
Susan Rogers
Eugene
PERSONAL AUDIT
After having read about the internal
police audit on the Jordan Cortez com-
plaint, I decided to conduct one of my
own. I invited a black co-worker to coffee
for her perspective. The black community
is small and close-knit, and it turns out she
varies. We all have a natural tendency to
seek out those sources that validate our
own views. It is comforting. But I believe
in my heart that if we had open, honest dis-
cussions about the issues of the day, we
would find that we actually have much
more in common than we are told! As long
as we are spoken to by the media and the
two political parties in simplistic sound
bites, half-truths taken out of context,
incomplete pictures and twisted facts and
figures, it should come as no surprise that
we are split.
The problems we face together are not
black and white, good or evil, right or left,
conservative or liberal. They cross all
boundaries. These labels oversimplify and
also lead us to dead ends. In my opinion,
until we open our minds and actually listen
to view from all directions and have honest,
complete discussions, we will appear false-
ly split. I personally refuse to accept this
simplistic analysis and honestly believe all
Americans have many things in common
and hope for many of the same things.
Tim Boyden
Eugene
REAL TRASH
is related to Mr. Cortez. She vouched for
his character. Later I had lunch with a
friend and mentioned the audit. This per-
son again voiced her trust in Mr. Cortez,
recalling his good-natured ways with kids
at a day care center. Case closed. I believe
in Mr. Cortez.
Do I expect you to agree with my inter-
nal audit? No. Do you expect me to
believe the one done by the police? Their
internal bungling of the complaints against
ex-officer Juan Lara alone justifies an
external police review board. It’s long
overdue.
Jerry Kendall
Eugene
MUCH IN COMMON
I have been trying to figure out how
this country can be so divided 50/50 on
issues, as the media keeps telling us or as
the election appears to indicate once again.
One recurring thought is to consider the
source of our information, which surely
While Stephen M. Roberts’ letter (12/9)
made some good points, it started out
poorly by labeling paper as “trash” which
is co-mingled with plastic, cardboard and
other recyclables in Eugene and most
other cities. Paper is definitely a prime
recyclable mixed with other recyclables by
command of Sanipac and is not real trash
which is not allowed in the recycle carts.
Roberts is right about defects in the
current system of recycling which has a
long way to go to get the recycles proper-
ly sorted and not have so much of them
land-filled.
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4 DECEMBER 30, 2004