—
.............■■■»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