4 A
❘
SATURDAY EDITION
❘ APRIL 23, 2016
Siuslaw News
P.O. Box 10
Florence, OR 97439
RYAN CRONK , EDITOR
❘ 541-902-3520 ❘
Opinion
LETTERS
YESTERDAY’S NEWS
Certified gem
We in Florence are so fortunate
— the Oregon coast, our public
library, City Lights Cinemas and
what may have started off as a
diamond in the rough, Children’s
Repertory of Oregon Workshops
(CROW), now a certified gem.
Their production of “Shrek”
last weekend was a sparkling,
spectacular success. The audience
applauded in unison.
Way to go, CROW, and thank
you.
Rae and Pat Stutzman
Florence
Elect Judge
Brissenden
I am happy to see several can-
didates for the Florence Justice of
the Peace position. Citizen
involvement is always a good
thing for democracy and the can-
didates all have good intentions, I
believe.
But I know why I am voting for
Judge Rick Brissenden. Judge
Brissenden has been the Florence
Municipal Court judge for almost
20 years, coming over from
Eugene every week. When the
past Justice of the Peace retired,
Florence city employees didn’t go
to the hardware store looking for
a new judge. They called on
Judge Brissenden, who they knew
could fill in seamlessly and keep
the duties fulfilled.
Now, we the citizens are asked
to elect a new Justice of the
Peace. We don’t need a new
judge, we already have a great
one serving. Laws are getting
more complicated, not less so. We
need a real legal expert, not just
someone willing to give it a try.
The Justice of the Peace handles
landlord-tenant disputes, small
claims issues and traffic, parks,
animal and boating violations.
When I want to build a new
house, I want a licensed and
bonded contractor to do it, not
someone who has a variety of past
experiences and would love to
give this a try. When I need sur-
gery, I want a board-certified sur-
geon who has years of experience.
But if I have a legal issue with
a neighbor that ends up in small
claims court, I want a knowl-
edgable expert lawyer as a judge
who understands the nuances of
the law and didn’t just brush up
on the basics the night before.
Judge Brissenden is already pro-
viding that.
And, I don’t have to worry
about running into him in the
store the next day, when a judge-
ment doesn’t go my way. I’m
happy that he doesn’t live in
Florence, have lots of friends here
and have conflicts of interest that
may sway his judgements.
Judge Brissenden can provide
everything Florence needs in a
Justice of the Peace. His work
with the Municipal Court and
Justice of the Peace duties will
provide Florence with a continu-
ity we won’t have with someone
else. He won’t have to go to
school to learn what the duties are
and how to run a courtroom.
And, if Florence does elect a
citizen as Justice of the Peace for
a term, we know we will have
EDITOR @ THESIUSLAWNEWS . COM
Judge Brissenden to fall back on
when the citizen tires of the job or
finds they don’t like ruling on
their neighbors, or one term is
enough to satisfy them to add to
their resume. Then, the city will
call on Judge Brissenden again to
serve as Florence’s Justice of the
Peace.
Please think carefully about
who you want for Florence’s
Justice of the Peace, and join me
in voting for Judge Rick
Brissenden.
Mary Beth Rawlins
Florence
Support school
bond measure
I am writing in response to the
letter written by James McCoey
asking us to vote no on the school
bond (“Vote ‘No’ on School
Bond,” April 20).
I do not know Mr. McCoey, but I
gather from his grammatically cor-
rect letter that he is well educated. I
hope for his sake that his high
school was a comfortable place to
learn with the rooms being a com-
fortable temperature and that his
school was either not on an earth-
quake fault or was built to meet
seismic and fire codes.
Spending an entire day in the
school (which I have as a substitute
teacher) is much different than
doing the walk through that Mr.
McCoey suggests. Our wonderful
teachers may spend most of their
careers in that building and our stu-
dents spend four years in a building
where hot lunches cannot be pro-
vided and science and computer
labs cannot be made adequate for
today’s requirements.
The important matter here is
not how old the building is, but
how safe it is, and our high school
is not safe for numerous reasons.
I am a retired homeowner in
our district with no students
attending school here. I definitely
plan on voting yes for our stu-
dents as I am sure many retired
people did for me when I was
school age.
Maureen Miltenberger
Florence
Corporate media
It is extremely sad, scary and
not surprising to see the power
that corporate agenda expressed
through corporate media has to
influence opinion in our current
presidential election process and
national and international affairs.
For instance, corporate media
has given little coverage of presi-
dential candidate Bernie Sanders.
They have only had about 12-sec-
ond sound bytes of the
“Democracy Spring” protests at
the Capitol the last few days, in
which thousands of people are
trying to shed light on the corrupt-
ing effect of corporate money in
politics.
Corporate media also says little
about the United States’ contin-
ued involvement in Honduras
where we legitimized a coup d’e-
tat of an elected president and the
following unfair election a few
years back that led to recent assas-
sinations of prominent and
renowned environmental and
indigenous activists in order to
protect trans-national corporate
interests.
The lack of coverage by corpo-
rate media not only leads to our
own ignorance and ensuing impo-
tency as American citizens but to
the costs of many lives around the
world.
Thank goodness for a “free”
Internet and not-for-profit radio
and television stations that are not
afraid to provide in-depth cover-
age that traditional media ignores
for their own benefit.
Julie MacFarlane
Florence
Telling the truth
Watching the Democratic Party
presidential candidates debate
April 14, I finalized several con-
clusions.
Early on, Bernie said that he
was doing well because he was
telling Americans the truth. One
of Hillary’s major weaknesses is
the perception shared by many
that she is shifty, that like her hus-
band she places expediency above
integrity.
Bill, a leader of the Democratic
Leadership Council of the 1990s,
a “new Democratic,” was a friend
of large corporations. He vigor-
ously promoted NAFTA. He
signed into law the GOP legisla-
tive repeal of Glass-Steagall,
which separated commercial
banks from investment banks.
Because a majority of
Americans now recognize the
great injury done to them by large
corporations and because Bernie
Sanders is her primary season
challenger, Hillary has become
suddenly a critic of the TPP trade
agreement, the Keystone XL
pipeline project, big banks, the
fossil fuel industry and Big
Pharma.
It was expedient for her both to
support the invasion of Iraq in
2003 and to declare in 2007 that
that decision had been a mistake.
It is expedient for her now to
campaign as a progressive
Democrat and to wrap herself
around President Obama to curtail
Bernie’s criticism of certain poli-
cies that she asserts she and the
president share.
Needing also to separate her-
self from Bernie, she portrays her-
self as a pragmatic doer. She
agrees with Bernie’s diagnoses
(because she has to), but “his
numbers don’t add up.” He makes
promises; she delivers! (Read
Robert Parry’s article about
Hillary’s past decision-making at
www.truth-out.org/news/item/
35578-is-hillary-clinton-qualified.)
Her preference of a $12 an hour
minimum wage and her declara-
tion that natural gas — its quanti-
ty the result of fracking — is the
bridge to clean energy are exam-
ples of Democratic Party incre-
mentalism, a cutting around the
edges of a serious problem, for
corporations a protective backfire
to arrest a raging forest fire. By
donating campaign funds and
paying
speaking
fees
to
Democratic Party enablers, cor-
porations are able to hedge their
bets.
Bernie declared that we should
be thinking big, not small. His
reference to European countries
that provide their citizens the
health care, work benefits and
education that we do not is a
telling indictment of the virulent
economic system that controls the
levers of American political
power. To the argument that
Congress would never enact
Bernie’s policies, I answer, “They
didn’t Obama’s. Why would they
Hillary’s?”
If we ever break the exploitive
stranglehold locked upon us, it
will be due to a movement started
by a straight-arrow champion of
regular people, not by an individ-
ual who will do whatever it takes
— pander, employ three-quarter
falsehood attacks, change policy
positions — to win a presidential
election.
Harold Titus
Florence
Buying a politician
People, companies and other
governments throw many mil-
lions of dollars together and basi-
cally buy a politician.
Politicians are not supposed to
interact with their PACs (Political
Action Committees). You can bet
that is not the real world. You can
also be guaranteed when the
politician gets elected that it is
payback time.
PACs are responsible for how
you think about issues and people.
They are working 24/7 to make
you buy into their way of think-
ing. The truth is that it is highly
unlikely that you have ever had a
completely original thought.
Some who read the Siuslaw News
obviously have problems in this
area.
Trump is the only presidential
candidate who dissolved the
PACs forming around him and
made them return the money to
the donors. Everyone else on both
sides is bought and paid for.
Martin Cable
Dunes City
MOMENTS IN TIME
The History Channel
On April 27, 1773, the British Parliament
passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the
East India Company from bankruptcy by great-
ly lowering the tea tax it paid to the British
government and, thus, granting it a monopoly
on the American tea trade.
On April 30, 1927, the first women’s fed-
eral prison opens in Alderson, West Virginia, to
house all women serving federal sentences of
more than a year. Most were imprisoned for
drug and alcohol charges imposed during
Prohibition.
On May 1, 1931, President Herbert
Hoover officially dedicates New York City’s
Empire State Building, pressing a button from
the White House to turn on the building’s
lights. Hoover’s gesture was symbolic; while
he remained in Washington, D.C., someone else
flicked the switches in New York.
On April 26, 1954, the Salk polio vaccine
field trials, involving 1.8 million children,
begin in McLean, Virginia. Children in the
U.S., Canada and Finland took part in the dou-
ble-blind trials, whereby neither the patient nor
attending doctor knew if the inoculation was
the vaccine or a placebo.
On April 28, 1967, boxing champion
Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the
U.S. Army and is immediately stripped of his
heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious
reasons for his decision to forgo military serv-
ice.
On April 25, 1989, James Richardson
walks out of a Florida prison 21 years after
being wrongfully convicted of killing his seven
children. Special prosecutor Janet Reno agreed
to the release after evidence showed that the
conviction resulted from misconduct by the
prosecutor.
On April 29, 1992, a jury in Los Angeles
acquits four police officers who had been
charged with using excessive force in arresting
black motorist Rodney King. The verdict
enraged the black community, prompting three
days of widespread rioting, arson and looting.
(c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.
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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