Eugene weekly., August 30, 2007, Page 7, Image 7

TO THE EDITOR
an end to the war. Many civilian leaders
welcomed the bombings in order to rid their
nation of their military’s tyranny. Koichi
Kido, a Hirohito adviser, said, “We of the
peace party were assisted by the atomic
bomb in our endeavor to end the war.”
Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief cabinet sec-
retary, called the bombings “a golden
opportunity given by heaven for Japan to
end the war.”
The Japanese people simply reaped the
bitter harvest of the whirlwind that their
nation sowed and began. They have only
their fellow countrymen to blame.
Lance Jacobs
Springfield
SERVERS ARE WHINY
The author who wrote that article about
tipping that was on your website (“The New
Etiquette,” Chow!, 1/25) intrigues me. What
fostered that tone of peevish entitlement? I
sense the person is relatively new to the
world, and not just the world of business.
For the longest time servers made a couple
of bucks less per hour than the minimum
wage, and tips were de rigueur to bring them
up to the minimum wage. Servers now
make minimum wage; tips have been built
into the price of meals, you could say. Any
tips left on the table now are truly a gratuity
and should be appreciated, not expected —
that is unless the server was called upon to
perform more than the standard.
Gordon Smith
diverting the water flow in the Klamath,
leading toward the largest fish kill ever in
the Northwest, some 60,000 salmon. In the
interim, Smith, Rove and Cheney took care
of the wealthy area farmers — great con-
tributors to the Republican cause.
Last year I took a group of young people
to Washington, D.C. One of our stops was
Sen. Smith’s office. A PR person came out
and asked us to sign up for a photo oppor-
tunity with Smith. I declined. He came out
like a rock star, hair with a combover and a
smile that wouldn’t stop.
You take the combination of Smith,
Rove and Cheney, and you have a combina-
tion for disaster. Their belief is that we hard
working middle class people were put on
this earth to service them and their millions.
Election will be upon us soon. Like the
last election, it’s the best way to show dis-
content to undesirables. Let your elected
officials know of your feelings. I believe it
was Martin Luther King Jr. who said, “The
opposite of love is apathy.” Amen.
Arthur Golden
Eugene
FACTS VS. INNUENDO
That some servers expect a 20 percent
tip as standard is troubling. It is a fact of
economics that all businesses can provide
jobs that pay a family wage. Some jobs that
pay minimum wage, like serving tables,
were often held by students as an after
school job, or for people looking for some
part-time work; the job was often an intro-
duction into the working world and not
expected to be a career choice. Old habits
die hard, but the fact is that the minimum
wage should have abolished the expectation
of a tip. Any tip is generous, and if no tip is
left, these days it should not be taken as a
reflection on the service.
Lisa Johnson
Portland
SEND SMITH PACKING
I remember well the first time I read
about Gordon Smith. He was running for
the U.S. Senate and wealthy enough to buy
the election. I remember being turned off
when it was stated he paid a million dollars
for an antique golf club.
Now I read that he was instrumental in
The “fate of Palace Bakery,” as depicted
in the Slant section of the Aug. 9 edition of
the Weekly, implies that a giant, mega-chain
corporation, Full City Coffee Roasters
(which is in fact a locally owned business
with all of two stores), was responsible for
the closing of the Palace Bakery. Well, the
facts would seem to contradict that this was
part of some evil “grand plan” by Full City
Coffee Roasters.
If the person responsible for this article
had read the business section of The
Register-Guard earlier in the week, he/she
could have stuck to the facts instead of
innuendo — the previous owner of Palace
Bakery is the one who closed the business,
stating it was too much for him to oversee
while also managing Café Zenon.
Then the Slant went on to make an omi-
nous sounding suggestion that Full City
Coffee would undoubtedly choose to
switch to Full City brand coffee instead of
Wandering Goat coffee. Well, DUH! I
mean, does EW share articles or ad rev-
enues with the R-G? I don’t think so.
This article also decries such mergers
and acquisitions because of displacing
workers and depriving customers of shop-
ping options. Is that to suggest that a vacant
storefront where Palace Bakery had been
would be a better?
Finally, two articles along in this sec-
tion, dealing with the “possibility of a
downtown theater,” the Slant states the
Weekly is excited about the idea of a down-
town theater: “Another two or three-screen
independent art house theater would be an
interesting option,” going on to add, “The
new Regal Theater at Valley River Center
should have been built downtown.” Well,
excuse me, but wouldn’t either of these dis-
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