4 A
The First Amendment
Letters to the Editor:
C
ongress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the press, or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the Government for a redress of grievances.
Editor@TheSiuslawNews.com
Press Releases:
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SATURDAY
APRIL
Coast Guard
to the rescue
25
Liberty and justice for all
W ESLEY V OTH
For the Siuslaw News
B Y D ANIEL B LOMBERG
C HAPLAIN , L ANE C OUNTY A DULT C ORRECTIONS ,
E UGENE
I
USPS# 497-660
L
ast night I watched a program on
Oregon Public Broadcasting that even
though we do not have television, I was
able to view by streaming it through a comput-
er. It was titled “Portland Civil Rights: Lift
Ev’ry Voice,” and it focused on the neighbor-
hood where I was born in 1952 called the
Albina District.
As a child there, one of the first things I
could read on my own were prominent signs
saying “Whites Only” near the school, on stores
by our church (Piedmont Friends on Albina
Avenue), and the neighborhood park,
Peninsula. It was this setting that informed my
early moral education, and my father
explaining to me that the reason he did
not want me to recite the Pledge of
Allegiance with my kindergarten class
was because it claimed there was liberty
and justice for all, which was not true.
I was told that Jesus expected my yes to
mean yes, and my no to mean no. Caring
about my neighbor meant every person with
whom I came in contact, regardless of who they
were or how they treated me. As it turned out,
the greatest failing of this moral education was
that its view of evil was too puny.
Sadly, universal liberty and justice is still a
myth in Portland, in Oregon, in any part of the
United States where I have ever been. As the
program I watched pointed out, the Albina
District problems went far beyond the racial
intolerance of some individuals, they were per-
petuated through systemic policy: banks
allowed to discriminate within the “redline” of
the district; planning commission and school
board and federal projects used to confine and
then chip away at education and housing; police
misconduct largely condoned.
Apparently African-Americans believe
Oregon is a poor place to live; the 2013 census
numbers them at only 2 percent of our state’s
population. Our actions have achieved more
than our original black exclusionary laws could
ever have hoped.
Some people believe things are better now on
the liberty and justice front. I think they are
worse, and we’re moving in the wrong direc-
tions. Some say our government is too big, but
apparently it’s not big enough to ensure even
the most basic of human rights: clean air and
water, or a free and appropriate public educa-
tion for all of its children.
And there is no justice without economic jus-
tice. The richest individuals and corporations
who buy our elections and benefit most from
the way the system is rigged, flaunt any mean-
ingful taxes and bow to no flag.
Martin Luther King Jr. said that evil triumphs
when good people do nothing. I regret that I have
focused way more of my life on being good than
acting to bring about liberty and justice for all.
LETTERS
Dramatic delivery
A recent story on the news made my day.
On hearing about the pilot landing his home-
built auto-gyro on the White House grounds
under the nose of the very Secret Service
Corps, I immediately thought back to a story
from long-ago childhood, about the brave little
tailor who faced the giants with nothing but a
needle and a spool of thread.
Only in America could a middle-aged mail-
man see a dream come through, a mission as it
were, to get a message to Congress — dramat-
ically and attention-getting. He hit the jackpot
with this one, and I applaud him for getting it
done. An important message too about the
almighty dollar buying our government.
This man put together a letter for each mem-
ber of Congress, then went ahead and built the
method of getting them there. He signaled his
intentions, and was probably very surprised to
find nothing or no-one in his way. No scram-
bled jet fighters to wave him down when he got
into the no-fly zone around the White House.
No squad of soldiers lined up to meet him on
landing. He unfastened his cache of letters from
the machine and then surrendered to the Secret
Service, who by then were ready to meet him. I
bet all their faces were red as they should be.
Are these indeed the men who, on being
selected to serve, would be ready to take a bul-
let for the President?
And three cheers for the “brave little mail-
man,” for showing us that the Secret Service is
not quite what it should be. Perhaps a thinning
of the ranks might be in order about now?
Connie DeGray
Florence
Community radio support
As a former board member of West Lane
Translator, FCC licensee for the new noncom-
mercial radio KXCR 90.7 FM, I appreciated
your recent coverage noting the station’s start-
ing year on-air (“Community Radio Station
Celebrates First Anniversary,” April 15, A1).
Your story brought to mind the broad com-
munity support our station effort received,
including unanimous resolutions of support
from Dunes City and Lane County, and letters
from so many community-based organization
like the library, the realtors’ association, the
watershed council and others.
In fact (small clarification) our effort had no
federal funding. Congress, in its wisdom, can-
celed its long-standing community assistance
program (worth about $12 million nationally)
after it successfully subsidized the conversion
of commercial television from analog to digital
signals for over $200 million.
KXCR station support started with and
remains dependent on our Oregon community
of listeners and supporters.
Rand Dawson
Siltcoos Lake
Protect our water
The Florence dunal aquifer, designated the
only “sole source” aquifer in Oregon by the
U.S. EPA in 1987, is “an aquifer that supplies at
least 50 percent of the drinking water con-
sumed in the area overlaying the aquifer, where
there are no alternative drinking water sources
that could physically, legally, and economically
supply all those who depend upon the aquifer
for drinking water.”
In 2009, Florence City Council updated the
2003 Drinking Water Protection Plan for
Florence, joining with 19 federal, state, tribal
and local agencies in a three-year project fund-
ed by the EPA and certified by the DEQ:
“Residents and businesses within the Florence
Urban Growth Boundary rely entirely on water
from the aquifer for their public water supply.
In addition, all streams, lakes and wetlands in
the aquifer boundary are hydrologically con-
nected with the groundwater system.”
Community concern for the aquifer, and its
hydrologic system is well documented in City
Comprehensive Plan policies and annual City
Council Goals. Some of the city’s responsibili-
ties include: Identifying and obtaining agree-
ments from stake holders on strategies for pro-
tecting water quality in the aquifer; engage in a
public process to improve awareness of threats
to our drinking water quality; and update the
list of potential contaminants and Potential
Contaminant Source Inventory.
This is timely information. This past year,
residents in the watershed have been exposed to
spraying of glyphosate formulations and the
burning of sprayed brush. Now, spraying
begins again with tryclopir and glyphosate, and
is expected to continue for up to four years.
This should move us into action. Heceta
Water District asked the land owners to use
hand methods for brush control, which would
have been partially funded by the district. They
declined. Now a larger group of concerned cit-
izens have petitioned the city to take a role in
protecting our water source, as Florence had
the foresight to do in 1987 through 2009.
Studies around the world classify glyphosate
based formulations as endocrine disrupters at
levels permitted in drinking water, “a real cell
impact of glyphosate-based herbicides ... in
food, feed or in the environment has thus to be
considered, and their classifications as carcino-
gens/mutagens, reprotoxics ....” And World
Health Organization research has just declared
glyphosate a “probable cause of cancer.”
Dr. Thierry Vrain, soil biologist, geneticist
and former head of Agriculture Canada and
Summerland Research for 30 years, says
glyphosate is one of the most important threats
of our time: “Glyphosate based formulations
(like Round-Up) are used on 500,000,000 acres
of crops and forests, migrating through soils,
water, and into our bodies through our food and
water. Glyphosate alone competes with the nec-
essary minerals in living cells and can kill all
100 trillion good bacteria that keep plants and
animals alive ... in doses as low as one or two
parts per million. ... We are on a steady diet of
antibiotics damaging to our immune systems
from glyphosate residue on and in our foods.”
Jim Furnish, former Siuslaw National Forest
supervisor and deputy chief of the Forest
Service, in a recent Register-Guard article, said,
“The Federal Government ceased using forest
herbicides in Oregon just before my arrival
after notoriously losing a landmark lawsuit
over human health issues associated with mis-
carriages and birth defects ....” (Federal forests
now use more natural methods.)
But Oregon’s state and private forests, not
regulated as well as they are in California and
Washington, leave us open to investors with a
cost/benefit bias, at great expense to citizens
and the environment. Triangle Lake has been
documenting illnesses and miscarriages for
decades, after spraying on state and private for-
est lands. Florence is not immune to this threat.
Furnish supports Senate Bill 613, “a simple
law that would require accurate records,
accountability and access to information con-
cerning poisons used in forestry applications.”
It’s a start, and should encourage pro-active
pressure from localities whose water is affect-
ed, as well as state legislation that stops herbi-
cide spraying all together. Any combination of
toxic chemicals in our water is unacceptable.
We can do this as we have done in the past by
acting on and expanding Florence’s Aquifer
Protection Plan. We can call our legislators in
support of Senate Bill 613, and ask them to pro-
pose stronger legislation.
Our water, our lives, and our livelihood
should be that important to us.
Joann Henderson
Florence
Copyright 2015 © Siuslaw News
Publisher, ext. 327
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Editor, ext. 313
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Office Supervisor, ext. 312
Production Supervisor
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WHERE TO WRITE
Published every Wednesday and Saturday at 148 Maple St. in Florence, Lane County, Oregon. A member of the National
Newspaper Association and Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. Periodicals postage paid at Florence, Ore.
Postmaster, send address changes to: Siuslaw News, P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439. Phone (541) 997-3441 (See
extension numbers below). FAX (541) 997-7979.
John Bartlett
Jenna Bartlett
Ryan Cronk
Susan Gutierrez
Cathy Dietz
Ron Annis
Jeremy Gentry
2015
VIEW FROM UPRIVER
GUEST VIEWPOINT
am writing to commend the U.S. Coast
Guard and the fine men that recently
came to our assistance. At about 7 p.m.,
April 17, I came upon a strange sight when I
went to pick up my wife at the North Jetty. A
cold wind was blowing briskly as I pulled
into the parking lot where the Siuslaw River
flows into the ocean. After picking up my
wife, Marilee, I noticed a man layng on the
ground, covered with a jacket, next to a
motorcycle with his head covered up.
At first I thought he might have been drink-
ing and had merely passed out. But on closer
inspection, I saw there were two motorcycles
and a large young man standing there in a T-
shirt, looking distressed. I circled back in my
car and asked the young man if everything
was alright. It wasn’t.
The man, Aaron, explained that he and his
buddy had been out on the jetty rocks when
his buddy began to feel ill. He became dizzy
and fell on the rugged rocks and soon began
to vomit. Alarmed, Aaron struggled to pick
him up and carry him back to the parking lot.
In the process, they both fell on to the rough
rocks, scraping their arms and legs.
It had been nearly two hours later when I
showed up. To my amazement, I learned that
many people had came by but no one had
offered to help. Some had even laughed at
him as they walked by.
Aaron was freezing cold, chilled by the bit-
ing wind that was blowing sand sideways. I
immediately offered him a towel I had in my
trunk and a wool cap. After further inquiries, I
learned that his friend had a serious liver con-
dition and had been jaundiced since his youth.
Aaron had called another friend in Eugene to
come and get them, with plans to load their
motorcycles into his pickup truck. Upon
learning that he wouldn’t arrive for another
30 minutes, I offered to run back to our RV
and get a warm blanket and a heavy down-
filled parka for Aaron to wear.
Upon my return, I was impressed to call
the local Coast Guard station, knowing they
always come by the jetty at sunset to check
on the tower lights. I reasoned that they could
be trained in first aide and could be of some
assistance. I barely had time to pray for him
before three strapping, young men showed up
in a pickup. Immediately they were surround-
ing the fallen man, asking him questions and
gathering a medical history, before calling
911. Within minutes, an ambulance arrived.
It was determined that the friend needed to
go to the hospital, so the guardsmen helped
him onto a stretcher and into the ambulance.
By then, Aaron’s other friend had arrived
from Eugene with his pickup truck. The three
guardsmen assisted Aaron in loading the two
heavy motorcycles onto the pickup.
We thanked them profusely for their assis-
tance and shook hands with all of them as
they said goodbye. They then did their regular
inspection and returned to their duty station.
This incident has reminded me how impor-
tant it is to have a Coast Guard presence read-
ily available when needed. I know there has
been talk of closing this station because of
budget concerns, and relocating the unit to
Coos Bay, Ore. I believe that would be a terri-
ble disservice to the people of Oregon and
those poor souls in distress, whether they be
in a sinking ship or in peril in a parking lot.
These guardsmen went above and beyond
the call of duty, putting a very human face in a
much needed place — a reminder to our com-
munity of how we should care for and serve
one another as members of the human race.
•
Pres. Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
TTY/TDD Comments: 202-456-6213
www.whitehouse.gov
Gov. Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court St.
Salem, OR 97301-4047
Governor’s Citizens’ Rep.
Message Line 503-378-4582
www.oregon.gov/gov
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
541-431-0229
www.wyden.senate.gov
FAX: 503-986-1080
Email:
Sen.ArnieRoblan@state.or.us
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753/FAX: 202-228-3997
541-465-6750
State Rep. Caddy McKeown
(Dist. 9)
900 Court St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1409
Email:
rep.caddymckeown@state.or.us
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (4th Dist.)
2134 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-6416/ 800-944-9603
541-269-2609/ 541-465-6732
www.defazio.house.gov
State Sen. Arnie Roblan (Dist. 5)
900 Court St. NE - S-417
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1705
West Lane County Commissioner
Jay Bozievich
125 E. Eighth St.
Eugene, OR 97401
541-682-4203
FAX: 541-682-4616
Email:
Jay.Bozievich@co.lane.or.us