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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 2005)
— .............■■■»I—................ ..................................... 1......... " ...." .-'■■-»I I I- .J-nU L .!.......................................... The INDEPENDENT, February 17, 2005 Page 3 ,l........ ........................................... ............................ ■■■■■ I-....................................... I................ ............... Letters Northwest power rates are Bush budget target To the Editor: Bush and the Neocons’ as sault on the American Middle Class seems to be continuing. They are not satisfied with just spinning the facts on Social Se curity; evidently they are now going after our N orthw est’s Bonneville Power Administra tion. According to a PBS report (Feb.7), the Administration will be proposing to raise Bon neville’s electric rates by a good 20%. Justification for this raise has nothing to do with in creasing power costs. A spokesman for the Administra tion stated that they would like to equalize NW power costs with the rest of the county to make things “more fair.” Fair for who? Just another hidden tax on the rest of us to try and make up for his spending blunders, and another step in the direc tion of privatizing a successful New Deal program. Bill Eagle St. Helens Relief funds going to help tsunam i victim s nations were divided equally between the Mercy Corps and NW Medical Teams. Once again, Vernonia proved though this outpouring of offerings that we should be proud to live in a town that values not only our own, but those in less fortunate situations. We applaud the ef forts of these organizations to make this world a better place for the unfortunate victims of disasters. Sincerely, The Staff of Vernonia Sentry and Randy Parrow, Manager/Owner To the Community of Vernonia: We are pleased to announce through the efforts of Sandra Rogers and our customers of President returns to Vernonia Sentry we were able to raise over $500.00 for the his old scare tactics Tsunami Relief Funds. The do 'l. ............. b. ■ — tette--te* -z • I........... I.................... and The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty. By Nancy Burch, Librarian Both Outside Valentine and The Tarnished Eye Vernonia Public Library are novels based on real crimes and criminals. Don’t you just love the In Outside Valentine, The 1950’s “Starkweather titles of children’s books? Murders” in Lincoln, Nebraska, are relived from Franny, B. Kranny, There’s the perspective of three narrators—Caril Ann Fu a Bird in Your Hair, Who’s gate, Charles Starkweather’s teenage girlfriend A fra id o f the big Bad and accomplice in the killings; Susan, a teenag Book?, and I Wanna Igua er obsessed with the lives of the murderers; and na are just some of the li Lowell, who was orphaned as a boy when his bra ry’s newest acquisi parents were murdered by the duo. Of special in tions. Thanks to The terest, Lisa Ward, the author of Outside Valen Friends of the Library, ad tine, is the granddaughter of two of the victims of ditional Beginning Reading and Ready-for Chap Starkweather’s killing rampage. The Tarnished ter books have been added to the collection, as Eye draws its plot from the unsolved 1968 mur well as more “We both Read” books. The latter ders of the Robison fam ily—Richard, his wife, of these books are especially nice as an adult Shirley, and their three sons and daughter—at reads a page and the youngster reads the next their summer cottage in Michigan. page which consists of just a few words from the In The Memory of Running the reader is intro previous page—but completes the idea, making duced to Smithson “Smitty” Ide, an overweight, it the punch line. friendless, chain-smoking forty-three-year-old At the next meeting, April 5th, The Friends of drunk. By all accounts, he’s a loser. Then, within the Library will be electing new officers. Present the span of one week, his parents are killed in a officers (Jennifer Butcher, Joann Glass, El Don car crash and he discovers his long-lost sister na Williams, Claudine East and Linda Johnston) has died. Unmoored by the loss of his entire have done a commendable job of getting the or family, Smithy rides down the driveway from his ganization legally started and being the driving parents’ house on his old Raleigh bicycle into a forces in any and all of the projects that have journey that will take him across the United been undertaken. These ladies have...and con States. tinue...to work very hard, but would greatly wel Don’t forget the Monday morning Pre-school come help in all aspects of the organization, in Story times at 10:30, the Monday afternoon cluding leadership, fund-raising and publicity. Reading Enrichment programs at 3:30 and the Membership in The Friends of the Library is Bedtime Story time at 7:00 p.m, with its next date open to all individuals in sympathy with its pur of Tuesday, March 22nd. Watch for flyers telling pose, which is to promote and better the library. about a special musical presentation by Mark The only other requirement for becoming a and Helena Greathouse, that will be held on member and being eligible for office are that Monday, March 21st at 7:00 p.m. This event will dues ($5.00 for an individual and $10.00 for a be sponsored by The Vernonia Study Club. family) must be paid for the current year. Dues Vernonia Public Library: 701 Weed Ave. may be paid at any time in the library. Hours: Mon., Wed., Frl. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; New acquisitions for adults include Chainfire “Tues., Thur. 2 p.m. - 7 p.m. by Terry Goodkind, The Same Sweet Girls by Sat. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Cassandra King, Dark Eye by William Benhardt, Preschool Story Time: Mondays, 10:30 and Conviction by Richard North Patterson. I’m a.m., when school is in session. especially anxious to read Outside Valentine by Phone: (503 ) 429-1818 Liza Ward, The Tarnished Eye by Judith Guest, )WH I I JIMU wnJII Ul l i i n i.. j i i i i . i > í .................... w a v a w . v . . z Letter to George W. Bush: I watched the State of the Union address the other night, and was not at all surprised by the scare tactics, propaganda, and m isleading “facts” you voiced, (between your smirks and winks to people in the gallery), to officially announce your proposal to “overhaul” So cial Security. Thinking back on recent his tory and how you, and your ad ministration, “chicken littled” to anyone who would listen, that we had to rid the world of Sad dam due to all of those W M D’s he possessed and his ties to Al Quaida. Funny how, when it was found that there were no weapons, and no connection to Al Quaida, you placed the blame on our intelligence agen cies. Boy, you sure were tricky not admitting any fault or offer ing any apologies, (With the ex ception of a few lower ranking officials, and I bet we don’t hear their names mentioned in the beltway much longer). Man, I was impressed by your versatil ity. Even though your adminis tration had lobbied the misinfor mation in any venue available. And in any calculated degree of fear mongering you could con ceive, when the truth came out you just changed the message to “we are bringing freedom to an oppressed people,” and a lit tle more than half of Americans bought it. Now there is one heckuva a mandate if I have ever seen one. By the way does this mean we will be invading China anytim e soon?.oh but I d i gress... Well what’s past is past and life goes on (except for the 1400+ and counting brave sol diers and 100,000+ innocent Iraqis who died for a lie). The vote tallies in Iraq are coming in, but while you are patting yourself on the back and spreading democracy around the world, have you noticed that the party in Iraq that looks to be the winner, is closely aligned with the leaders of neighboring Iran. Well you must, because already there are veiled threats coming from your adm inistration tow ards Iran. Such as the recent one from your new Secretary of State, Dr. Rice, who says that invading Iran is not on the ad m inistration’s “present” agen da. Reading between the lines I wonder how fast that “company line” will change and your ad m inistration goes on the warpath again. I imagine it will be when the newly elected pro Iranian leaders of Iraq, (put in power by the will of their newly liberated constituency), tells you they don't want you to play in their blood and oil soaked sandbox any longer. And what is going on in Afghanistan? Didn’t we invade Afghanistan to destroy the ter rorist training camps of Al Quai da and rid them of the Taliban? It isn’t in the headlines anymore because of the more “newswor thy” events you helped create in Iraq. But in case you didn’t know, since you “liberated” that country and turned it into a democracy, Afghanistan has again become the world leader in opium production. Warlords run the majority of the country, (as they did before the inva sion), and their newly elected leader has to be protected 24 hours a day by U.S. security forces. Funny, but I do not see the term “puppet regime” listed under democracy in the diction ary. I bet you are hoping that Americans don’t look at a world map and note that Iran lies be tween Iraq and Afghanistan. And hopefully they don’t think back over time, especially from the days of the Shah of Iran, the Iran-Contra affair, etc. It might strike them that the inva sions of Afghanistan and Iraq were quite possibly just a pre cursor to the present stage that has been set. And now that the U.S. basically surrounds Iran, how that country would have a serious problem trying to de fend two borders if you were to unleash a new pre-em ptive war, of course you already know if you categorized it “in the interest of national security” all would be okay. Now I see you have a plan for overhauling Social Security. I bet this will be your coup de grace, as it will have a direct ef fect on every Am erican’s pock et book for many generations to come. Although I find your “conven ient” accounting m ethods to promote this plan, along with your newly proposed budget th a t you claim w ill cut our na tional debt in half, are quite c o n tra d icto ry and som ew hat Please see page 15
