The INDEPENDENT, April 1, 2010
Page 21
Letters
From page 3
Higher vehicle fees
hurt the unemployed
To the Editor:
I feel duty bound to speak
out for the retired, unemployed
and poorer citizens of the state
of Oregon, especially Columbia
County residents, where I re-
side.
Last November our Gover-
nor decided to hit us again by
cramming through a number of
tax issues that have to be ab-
sorbed by us without a vote of
the people. I am alluding to the
increase in vehicle registration
fees that became effective Oc-
tober 1, 2009, to mention one.
Our legislators, with the ex-
ception of a few, approved this
measure right in the middle of a
severe recession and in an ex-
tremely high unemployment pe-
riod.
I think most people know
that increased revenue is a
necessary evil but to continue
to increase taxes on citizens
who can least afford to pay, es-
pecially during this recession
and high unemployment period,
is a travesty.
I am a retired union repre-
sentative and can personally
attest to situations where peo-
ple have been permanently dis-
placed by plant closures and
down-sizing in the wood prod-
ucts industry that resulted in
losses of jobs with little, if any,
chance of finding new employ-
ment. In one case that I am
very familiar with the only job a
person was able to find was in
the Portland area at minimum
wage and after transportation
costs barely netted him a profit.
Many others have exhausted
their unemployment benefits
and are without any health care
or any appreciable income.
I truly believe that there were
other solutions to raise revenue
other than what was mandated
by the last legislative session. It
is time that someone gets cre-
ative down at Salem without
further taxes on citizens that
simply cannot afford it.
Before the vote on HB 2001
I emailed my district legislators
and pleaded with them to
VOTE NO but of course they
voted yes and didn’t even have
the courtesy to respond to my
email.
It is time that we the voters
stand up and be counted and
remember in future elections to
get better informed on legisla-
tive candidates as well as other
elected officials that will be rep-
resenting us. We simply cannot
afford to pay higher taxes when
our earnings do not increase
and in many cases have de-
creased during the past years.
J.L. (Jay) Perrizo, retired
St. Helens
Predators now use
college yearbooks
To the Editor:
When I was a little girl, I
dreamed of being Miss Ameri-
ca. She was so elegant, parad-
ing in her beautiful flowing
gown, with a crown upon her
head. She exuded such high
morality. I wanted to emulate
her in my life.
It was a real shock for me to
see a candidate for Miss Amer-
ica on the front page of my lo-
cal newspaper, in more skin
than clothes, and standing in a
very suggestive pose. Would I
want to emulate that? No WAY!
Another newspaper came at
a later date, advertising for a
young woman, a lucrative busi-
ness of selling nude ‘various
occasion cards’ via the internet.
A half a page of the newspaper
was dedicated to the advertise-
ment of this local girl. It almost
made a person feel that we
should be proud of her new
venture!
All I could feel for either one
of these two young ladies, is
sadness, sympathy and re-
morse. They both have been
‘duped’ by a shady business,
and are not aware of the reper-
cussions; and there will be
repercussions further down the
road! They may have under-
gone some of them already.
I first saw a picture a few
years ago in the newspaper, of
the very young and beautiful lo-
cal girl, fresh out of college, and
about to make the biggest mis-
take of her life! I placed her pic-
ture on my refrigerator, and
prayed for her ever since. After
all, she was following the same
scenario that is being repeated
over and over in this country.
They have been seduced and
then they seduce others.
The scenario is: Predator
Playboys keep an ‘Evil eye’ on
the year books of the girls
freshly graduating from college,
usually in their twenties. (The
predators are not looking for
bright minds, believe me!) Their
focus is on Beautiful Bodies!
These Predators search the
year books as if they were the
Montgomery Ward Catalog.
The enticement they use to get
these girls to their Mansion is a
brand new Cherry Red Car,
$10,000, and a ‘Movie Star’
role! Sounds exciting! After
they get to the mansion, they
are given the candy of Cocaine,
on which, girls lose all their nat-
ural inhibitions. The next step in
this frequent scenario is disrob-
ing oneself, the loss of their in-
nocence, and Porno Movies.
Cocaine may be the reason no-
body blushes anymore!
There is a tag on movies that
say, ‘Strong Parental Guidance
Advised!’ Now it should be at-
tached to every college. What
does a PREDATOR look like
and where are they found?
You’d be surprised! STRONG
PARENTAL GUIDANCE AD-
VISED! STRONG PARENTAL
GUIDANCE
ADVISED!
STRONG PARENTAL GUID-
ANCE ADVISED!
Marie Hatcher
Scappoose
Nation is on brink of
identity crisis
To the Editor:
Recent events have brought
this nation to the brink of its
greatest identity crisis since the
Civil War.
In the last year, the federal
government has intruded into
the private sector to a degree
not previously imaginable.
They took over management of
General Motors (and fired the
CEO, a decision usually re-
served for the Board of Direc-
tors), then managed the re-
structuring of both General Mo-
tors and Chrysler under terms
which left the government and
labor unions owning substantial
portions of both companies. Af-
ter working to lower lending
standards to homeowners,
thereby destabilizing the mort-
gage market and financial mar-
kets more generally, they used
the TARP bailout to increase
their influence over the banking
industry. Most recently, they
have dramatically expanded
their control over the one-sixth
of the economy that represents
health care.
The question before us is
clear: Will we remain a free-
market capitalist nation and the
strongest engine of economic
growth in the history of the
world, or will we instead be-
come a socialist society, far
more dependent on govern-
ment for every facet of our
lives?
While our national identity
crisis has not yet reached the
point of violence, the rhetoric is
becoming increasingly heated,
and the hostility is palpable.
While cooler heads still prevail,
I would urge us all to take the
following steps:
To our representatives in
Congress, I urge you to recall
that you were elected to repre-
sent us, your constituents, and
that you took an oath to protect
and defend the Constitution of
the United States. Please take
these duties as seriously as we
do. And please, if you ever
think of casting a vote that you
would find difficult to defend in
a Town Hall meeting with your
constituents, think again.
To my fellow citizens, I would
urge that we apprise ourselves
of the issues and give our elect-
ed representatives constant
feedback. Let’s tell them what
we think, and then hold them
accountable for serving our in-
terests. We, the people, are the
seat of power in this country.
That can only change if we al-
low it.
Yours with respect,
Robert Speirs
Columbia City
Ike Says…
From Page 2
lyst that spurred many sports-
people to question what
ODF&W has been doing to the
state’s elk herds, and the
ethics of killing cow elk with
calves. Many of the cow hunts
that were already on the books
are for agricultural areas, many
of them on the east side of the
state that are used to help re-
duce farmers’ crop damage.
While these hunts are under-
Please see page 22
An Oregon Perspective
From page 19
It’s understandable that Wall
Street doesn’t want a strong, in-
dependent CFPA that will clean
up the tricks and traps in finan-
cial products because they’ve
certainly made a lot of money
with those practices. The ques-
tion is: Who will stand with Wall
Street, and who will stand with
the millions of families and small
business owners who deserve
financial products they can
trust?
Meyers
‘ Auto Body,Inc
503-429-0248
493 Bridge St, Vernonia, OR