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It
Costs Too Much Lurking on a the November ballot is another attempt to increase state expenses and hurt the quality of life for Oregon residents. If approved, Measure 37 would require the state of Oregon to "pay owners, or forego enforcement when certain land restrictions reduce property value." Provisions in the U.S. and Oregon constitutions already safeguard citizens from unfair governmental "taking" of private land without just compensation. Measure 37 goes far beyond these constitutional rights. It forces taxpayers to compensate landowners if any land use decision has restricted the use of property purchased by the owner, their parents, and even their grandparents. Measure 37 will be extremely costly to Oregon taxpayers. According to the secretary of state, Measure 37 will cost taxpayers up to $344 million per year in new paperwork and red tape alone. According to the state treasurer, the final costs for payment of claims to landowners "cannot be determined." Measure 37 provides no funding mechanism and the only way to pay for these costs would be through cuts in local services or increased taxes. Measure 37 is poorly written. The measure provides no guidance on its implementation, and it will lead to lawsuits, uncertainty and increased costs. The retroactive clauses are impossible to calculate, and unfair to the public. The courts threw out a similar idea in 2000. Voters need to do the same in November. Join the broad-based, bipartisan opposition to Measure 37. Farm Bureaus from across the state, including Lane County, oppose the measure because it will increase taxes and remove protections for prized farmland. Conservation groups oppose Measure 37 because it will increase sprawl and decrease our quality of life. Small businesses and business owners oppose Measure 37 because it will increase bureaucracy and lawsuits and make it even more difficult to obtain basic things like building permits. More bureaucracy and red tape make it harder to do business in Oregon. Neighborhood Associations oppose Measure 37 because it would undermine protections against the effects of harmful development, and would provide no compensation for reduced property values resulting from development. Would you want a used car lot or fast food chain next door to your home? So, who is in support of Measure 37? Large corporate landowners who stand to gain millions. In researching campaign finance reports, 1000 Friends of Oregon found that eight corporate landowners gave 72 percent, or $540,000, to support the measure. Corporate special interests should not benefit at taxpayer expense. This fall vote "no on 37" to safeguard land use planning in Oregon and preserve the quality of life that Oregonians enjoy. Jonathan Evans is a student at the UO School of Law and a member of L.A.W. Environmental Law Society
Nuclear
Rapture During the weeks leading up to my country's March 2003 invasion of Iraq, I received a letter from Diane, a friend I met during the summer of 1964, when we cheerfully cleaned toilets at a United Presbyterian campground on the shores of Lake Tahoe. Her Feb. 23, 2004 letter exuded the same cheerfulness she has poured into 40 years of Christmas and birthday cards to me, but this time she poured it into what she called "the news." "Zecahariah 14:12 says," she wrote, "'And this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: their flesh shall dissolve while they stand in their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths.'" "Watch out, Saddam," she added. "One nuclear bomb can ruin your day!" After all, what more literal way to fulfill Zecahariah's prophecy of a sadistic, vengeful God than with a nuclear bomb? "Read Zechariah 12," she urged me. "It describes how God is making 'Jerusalem a VERY HEAVY stone for ALL peoples,' and He says He will destroy all the nations who come against Jerusalem. And then He says the whole nation of Israel will see that Jesus was their Messiah." "This is certainly an exciting time to be alive," she concluded without a hint of irony. "Love, Di. P.S. Bob and I are going to Carmel in March for our 31st anniversary." Presumably the joyful anniversary trip was going to go forward even if, meanwhile, the flesh of Iraqi children was dissolving while they stand in their feet. A few years after she and I cleaned toilets, Diane had become, in her words, a "born-again Christian," and her letters began to resemble tracts. I told her that I missed Diane, the person, amid all the Bible quotations. Over the years she has tried to tone the quotes down, but the possibility of Bible prophecy being fulfilled by the Iraqi war was just too thrilling. Her February 2003 letter was bursting with sentences from her book of God. There is no question that compassion, self-sacrifice, kindness, and care have blossomed countless times because people followed Jewish, Islamic, or Christian teachings. Likewise, there is no question that Crusades, jihad, missionary cruelties, suicide bombings, inquisitions, justification for shooting children, and nuclear holocaust have blossomed because people accepted interpretations taught within those same religions. Perhaps religious-based care (at least for humans) arises when religious teachings encourage adherents to pay attention to real, flesh-and-blood people who are poor, suffering, lonely, hungry, or otherwise vulnerable. This was the religion of my Presbyterian minister father and social worker mother, for instance. Atrocities arise when religious teachings encourage adherents to pay attention to written words, prophecies, dogma, and religious ideology instead of to real, flesh-and-blood people who are suffering. It's a matter of what you focus on: the real person, or dogma about that person. Religion can foster compassion, through attention to the world's inhabitants; or it can be a force for barbarism, through attention to religious dogma. Throughout the years, Diane has been extraordinarily kind to her own children, grandchildren, husband and me. But through immersion in one religion's dogma, the possibility of nuclear war has become a matter of rapture for her. Real, suffering Iraqi, Palestinian, or Israeli children have "disappeared" from her religious eyes, which now gaze only upward toward her vengeful God. President Bush is not unlike my friend Diane. Funny, cheerful, probably even kind to friends and family. But he apparently hates non-Christian, capital "E" Evil more than he loves small "c" children. As president, Bush has been pushing for the development of "usable" nuclear weapons; guidance of small A-bombs to their targets from outer space; reduced time to launch a nuclear strike; and pre-emptive, first use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear nations. His 2005 budget reduces funds available for U.S. efforts to curb the spread of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium throughout the world. Dissolving flesh, eyes, tongues. Dissolving evil. Armageddon. Is this what it means to be a nation under God? Mary O'Brien of Eugene has worked as a public interest scientist since 1981. She can be reached at mob@efn.org
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