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TOO FAT FOR SEX Here are the top 10 reasons to skip the turkey this Thanksgiving: You won't spend a sleepless night wondering how the turkey lived and died. Fruits and vegetables don't have to carry government warning labels. You won't have to call the Poultry Hotline to keep your family alive. Your body will welcome a holiday from saturated fat and cholesterol. Commercial turkeys are too fat to have sex. Could happen to you. You are what you eat. Do you really want to be a "butterball"? Your kids can tell their friends about their cool "unturkey." You won't sweat the environmental devastation guilt trip. You won't fall asleep during the football game. Your animal rights friends will cherish you. Millions of vegetarians across the U.S. find these reasons sufficiently compelling to celebrate the joyous Thanksgiving holiday without the carcass of a dead bird on their dinner table. The menu may include an "unturkey," lentil or nut roast, stuffed squash, corn chowder, or chestnut soup, candied yams, cranberry sauce, pumpkin or pecan pie, and carrot cake. This Thanksgiving, let's give thanks for our good fortune, health, and happiness with a gentle, cruelty-free feast of the fruit of our earth's bounty: vegetables, fruits, and grains. An Internet search for "vegetarian Thanksgiving" will provide more recipes and other useful information than we need to know. Lonnie Zea, Eugene
YES, YES, YES What a great, creative and exciting idea to put a hospital in the Glenwood area (cover story, 11/11). The area along the river in Glenwood is presently filled with ugly buildings and dead areas that are an eyesore. Wouldn't it be great to have a centralized hospital and a park-like area around it so close to both Eugene and Springfield? Small business would flourish near by the site. If PeaceHealth really wants to be part of this community, then they will take up this proposal and run with it. They would be in the thick and the heart of both cities, enhancing both cities at once. Another benefit would be that a beautiful area along the McKenzie River can stay as it is, natural for future generations to enjoy. Parks and open areas make our cities livable. So, YES, YES, YES on the Glenwood option! P.S. If this doesn't work, I think they should transform that entire Glenwood area into a park. Now that's radical! Tita Evans-Santini, Eugene
NOT FIT TO PRINT Your viewpoint article "Another Stolen Election" by Mark Robinowitz (11/11) was not fit for print. Although Robinowitz claims that there is widespread evidence of vote tampering in the Nov. 2 election, he fails to provide us with a single piece. Instead, he gives third-hand anecdotes and claims of discrepancies between exit polls and actual tallied votes. This, along with other unfounded conspiracy theories, belongs on the television show "The X-files" instead of your newspaper. I voted for Kerry in the election, Gore in the last, and Nader in the one before that. I too feel the frustration of the last four years of incompetence and blundering by our current administration. I too was in disbelief when late on election night it became apparent that we were not going to win this last election. This said, I do not feel that the election was stolen. Bush ran an extremely effective campaign based on fear and blind, unquestioning patriotism that appealed to conservative voters in non-urban areas and in the heartland. This, as well as some well placed mud slinging designed to belittle Kerry's war record and the wedge issue of gay marriage that brought fundamental Christians out in mobs that have not been seen since the Crusades, were what won him the election. Instead of crying fraud and throwing tantrums reminiscent of children that have had our toys taken away, we should take a good long look at how and why we lost. Why did John Kerry not appeal to the majority of American voters when from the Democrat viewpoint the election should have been a slam dunk? It's a good question. You should publish articles that address questions like this instead of worthless yammering about conspiracy and unfounded claims of fraud. Nathaniel Embry, Eugene
NOTE FROM PRISON I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who voted me Best Activist. I was deeply touched that after more than four years behind bars, people still carry me in their thoughts and hearts. I'm honored. My sincerest and deepest thanks. Jeffrey Luers, Salem
TWO WORDS FOR TORREY As a Eugene resident for almost 35 years, I suffered through the terms of one anti-environment, pro-big usiness/sprawl/development mayor after another, the worst of the bunch being Jim Torrey. Torrey's Chamber of Commerce local-media cronies portray him as a moderate balance between business and environmental concerns. His 12-year voting record on the city council and as mayor, however, reveals relentless support for big business tax breaks and giveaways, votes that transfer huge hidden costs of pollution and sprawl to the taxpayer while privatizing profits for his big-buck buddies. Torrey met secretly with Hyundai (now Hynix) officials, spearheaded their demands for more than $50 million in tax breaks and other concessions, profited personally from selling land in the Hyundai area, supported an enormously expensive freeway boondoggle through sensitive wetlands, promoted urban sprawl, voted consistently against tree preservation, praised police for their vicious pepper spraying of and attacks on tree sitters and their supporters, added his voice to the deceitful Gang of 9 attack-ad campaign against council progressives, and encouraged the RunJimRun fiasco. As lame-duck mayor, he's promoting an anti-environment Wildish executive for the Planning Commission and the hiring of another business facilitator costing $100,000 annually. Although numerous surveys over the years indicate strong citizen support for prudent, environmentally sustainable growth in Eugene, Torrey has consistently abused the public trust to push his short-sighted right-wing economic agenda. Remember his record when he resurfaces politically. For now I have two words for Jim. They are not run, run. They are good riddance. Jerome Garger , Yachats
CHRISTIAN MARINES It seems a rather sad irony that a majority of Marines are Christians, and as such, their poor souls have been vanquished for eternity to hell in the name of lies, obfuscations, and flat-out political manipulations. I am a veteran and live in Eugene. I've had several discussions with the liberal, self-made capitalist hippies asking them to withhold judgement of the troops. Soldiers represent the poorest, most uneducated segment of our society and the military is nothing more than a survival strategy option for many destitute families. However, murder is murder no matter how many official documents claim otherwise and no matter how many ribbons you wear on your chest. I am now in every form against our military, against our current regime, and against the woe we spread in the name of Christian democracy. I will be burning a flag very soon for the 1,100 dead soldiers. I hope millions of citizens join in! William Porter, Eugene
VELVET FLYING ELVIS Right now, many Bush supporters are quite possibly regretting the FCC's current crackdown on "bad-taste broadcasting" (although, like their leader, they'll doubtlessly change the subject rather than admit to a mistake). Because of "uncertainty" over rules regarding what is permissible, this Veterans Day several CBS affiliates refused to broadcast the award-winning movie Saving Private Ryan — which, in case you don't know, contains scenes of graphic violence, as well as words that would make George Carlin blush ... well, blink maybe. "But it's a really good movie, in which the firm resolve of our brave soldiers under fire is strongly depicted," the Bushists might say — to themselves, of course. "Surely an exception can be made for true, quality works of art." Ah. So it's an old argument, resurfacing again: if the distinction is to be made, then who is to judge what is or is not "art"? Now there's a concept that ought to make you rock back on your heels and say "Howdy!" We all know that George II and his cronies are not ones to shy away when it comes to making moralistic decisions. So here are my predictions of "art" by the year 2006: TV — nothing but NASCAR and big-haired televangelists 24/7. Radio — nothing but the O'Reilly Network and the Limbaugh Channel. Magazines — nothing but "Ann Coulter Living." And soon to be unveiled at the Eugene Airport, replacing all those weird flying locals: wall-to-wall velvet Elvis. Praise be. Bill Smee , Springfield
ANTIDOTE TO DESPAIR Stay outraged and engage the right-wing fundamentalists by disengaging yourself and your family from the Bush economy over the next four years and beyond. Get to know the individual corporations and companies who financially supported the right-wing ruling class andtheir agenda, educate others about them, and boycott them. Engage in a North American dream of self sufficiency and true freedom from material and debt slavery. Help those who have similar desires of disempowering the right-wing fundamentalists. Offer them discounts on labor or shelter or work trades. Give them a living wage job. Support local progressive businesses and agriculture, not transnational corporations which are knowingly perpetrating the biological holocaust. Search out ways to avoid federal taxes. It seems to me if you just accept what has just happened and go about living the typical American lifestyle that you are not just being apathetic and letting them get away with crimes against humanity (the Iraqi people, etc.) and all life – you are actually supporting them. In effect, becoming complicit in their "evil" grand scheme. The fascists and corporate capitalists are counting on us, those who voted for regime change and oppose their agenda, to simply lie down like helpless lemmings and regress into being average Americans, i.e. slaves to their right-wing corporate agenda of death and domination. Is it patriotic to let our country be ruled by fundamentalism and fascism? Is it patriotic to resist the economic system that props it up? The "holidaze" are a great time to start exercising your economic power. Expand this and pass it on, if you dare. Shannon Wilson, Eugene
GET INFORMED I believe that information is the key to revolution. Every American needs to read Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert. Get informed. Organize. Unite. The time is now. Tiersa Turner, Eugene
A BAD DREAM I believe in rights for all people, all living things, but most Oregonians and Americans don't agree with me, so let me try to persuade you. Would you consider locking your dog in a cage for the rest of his life? No, that would be horribly cruel. Shame on me for asking such a question. So, what do you do for the ones who share my belief? Sell us free-range chickens. Of course! Because we don't believe that chickens should be imprisoned either. We want them to have freedom, and we are stupid enough to pay double for it. Now, if some wacko put a proposition on the ballot stating all animals have to be locked in cages, would you vote for it? Of course you wouldn't. You love your doggie, so you vote to ensure his freedom at the risk of setting the other animals, including chickens, free. Thankfully, that proposition wasn't real. Farmers can continue to raise free-range chickens and it doesn't bother you. It doesn't affect you. You don't have to buy them if you don't want to. It was all just a bad dream — but wait, it was real. It was on the ballot, but it wasn't about animals. It
was about people and you voted to take away the freedom of gay couples.
Why? They're not proposing to you. Honoring their marriage wouldn't
affect you. It may not yet be time for Americans to support all living
things, but it is time to support all Jacob Werblow, Eugene
ANOTHER RIGGED VOTE I am writing this one week after election day. With the help of Tom Tomorrow, Greg Palast, black writers and other sources it is not hard to analyze the "results." If Republican operatives had not selectively thrown out or refused to count many minority votes, discouraged voting with long waits and, most important, rigged paperless machines to turn many Kerry votes into Bush votes, Kerry would have won. Analysis further reveals that all three elections (2000, 2002 and 2004) were rigged. We were thrice robbed. Democracy has been blind-sided by the Bushies, many of whom are electoral criminals. If all states had established Oregon's clean vote-by-mail system, Gore would have won huge in 2000, Democrats would have won more House/Senate seats in all three elections and Kerry would have won huge in 2004. Massive investigations would reveal the guilty persons, all of whom should be impeached/prosecuted/jailed. Probably won't happen because big biz loves their bought power (both Bush and Kerry) and bought anti-peace killing machines. Bush's misplaced faith in fundamentalist drivel and Kerry's misplaced faith in the validity of the vote counting will cause all of us great pain in the next four years, for the powerful have failed the people. Bob Saxton, Eugene
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