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IN THE DARK "We" now have a black secretary of state succeeding another black secretary of state, said Bebe Moore Campbell at a private Republican soiree held in a locked public building Monday on the UO campus. The public had been told we were invited to this event, planned by the city of Eugene and student groups, but when the public arrived at the announced time, the doors had already been locked. We were told only 500 people had been admitted. Most of those 500 came an hour early, obviously as special invited guests who knew the real starting time was 5, not 6 pm. By advertising this affair as "public," someone got a big tax deduction for all the money spent on food, drink and entertainment for Eugene's upper classes. Meanwhile, having gone round and round looking for an unlocked entrance, hundreds of people of all races, including dozens of black children and teenagers, were left standing in the dark on an emergency exit stairway, barred from entrance to an affair advertised as a celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. Where was Martin Luther King Jr. on that day? Dr. King was on the stairs with those black kids, who once again had been told that equal rights do not apply to them. This event was just another in a long string of messages from Eugene's ruling class to the lower classes that there will be no equal treatment, no fair treatment, for anyone in this town unless they are rich. Ann Tattersall, Eugene
DESPOTIC RULE Mr. Bush uses Orwellian doublespeak in his inaugural address to lull us into the idealistic vision of democracy spreading across the world, but that really means plutocracy, which is what we have in America today, a despotic rule by the rich. Since the Vietnam war, America has intervened militarily in more than 31 foreign countries. The reality is that America uses the overpowering threat of military violence to impose the will of the rich onto the weak and poor nations of the world. Mr. Bush is only the current player in a long list of puppets. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) understands the necessity for curbing American military madness, and has sponsored HR 1673, which would create a Department of Peace to establish nonviolence as our new frame of reference. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), co-sponsor of the bill, needs your support for that as well as his co-sponsorship of HR 2037. This bill would establish the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund, so that people who as a matter of conscience object to income taxes being used for death and destruction may legally divert their tax into a non-military fund. Until that bill is passed, I am seriously considering depositing my taxes owed into an escrow account offered by The Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia to be used for life-affirming purposes, because I cannot be complicit with a government that violates international law and denies the dignity, freedom and equality of all peoples. David Hazen, Eugene
LTD FAILING As the spouse of a Lane Transit District driver, I see firsthand the toll that driving a bus takes on a person. Not only is the jostling of the seat difficult, but they work odd hours, including split shifts, early mornings, late nights, weekends, holidays — no real routine for their bodies to adapt to. They are responsible for safely transporting thousands of people daily, no matter what the weather and yet must grab restroom and meal breaks on the run. No, it's not a glamorous profession, but it has been providing good family-wage jobs to more than 260 employees in Lane County and it's critical that at the very least, they continue their existing contract rather than take a step backward by accepting LTD management's proposal. These are loyal, hard-working people — our friends, family members, and neighbors — not greedy people asking for too much. They are trying to hold on to what they've worked hard for, but management's proposal represents substantial economic costs for the workers. LTD management has also proposed cuts in the time operators have to do bus safety inspections, the time they have between shifts (used for sleeping), cuts in vacation as well as decreases to other benefits. LTD Management needs to review its strategic plan, because their vision to "Be the best transit system in North America" is in danger of becoming a joke. Team LTD is failing its mission. Betsy Kelly, Eugene
BETTER WITH COLA The Oregon Restaurant Association has submitted a bill in the Oregon House to repeal the cost of living adjustment (COLA) in the minimum wage law in the state. Those increased wages help pay for the COLA increases that we seniors receive each year with our Social Security check. Maybe the ORA doesn't feel those minimum wage workers need the annual increase, but I know we seniors need it. Maybe we should begin asking our local eating places if they are members of the association. Bob Cassidy, Eugene
SAVE LTD What's going on with Lane Transit District? Why are the employees preparing to strike? Why have 200 of the employees signed a petition of no confidence in the general manager's ability to run LTD? Why aren't the citizens of Eugene and surrounding areas up in arms over the excessive capital expenditures by the current general manager? Everyone who has an employee or is self-employed in the area serviced by LTD pays the employment tax. Do they realize that their money is being spent on grandiose projects and not to support service for the riders? The current general manager, Ken Hamm, started with a capital expenditure budget of $2 million when he came onboard four years ago and the budget is now $27 million for 2005. He has done this while cutting the number of routes served and the hours of service resulting in a 24 percent cut in service in the last three years. Hamm and his board of directors has also now requested an increase in the payroll tax. If this is the way you run your business; buying new buildings, remodeling, repainting, buying new vehicles, while cutting your services and service hours and raising your rates, then support Ken Hamm. If, however, you see this as a way to business ruin and in this case a gross abuse of the way your taxes are being spent, contact Rep. Peter Defazio, your LTD Board representative, Gov. Ted Kulongoski and don't forget to write letters to the editor. Please, help save LTD. Melinda Raven, Springfield
FINE TRADITION It is reassuring to know that the district attorney continues to honor the comforting tradition of absolving vigilante executions. Bernard Nickerson, Eugene
MODEL VILLAGE? How prescient of the City of Eugene to arrange for construction of the large low-income housing development on Kinsroad to coincide with completion of the Urban Village at Garden Way and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard! These newest Harlow Neighborhood inhabitants and hundreds of their neighbors will enjoy the large grocery store that will anchor a mixed retail complex of various shops in a well-planned complex. Consumers will now have the option of walking or biking instead of driving to buy groceries and shop at adjoining stores. And the city will create a model urban village other neighborhoods will want to emulate. Oh, wait! The city isn't going to build an urban village after all. City wisdom now decrees the land should be covered with medical offices — just what the service-starved residents need! Never mind that the city spent many dollars planning for the village in accordance with public input. All that is beside the point. Apparently the city is willing to renege on its promises, preferring to ignore the wishes of one of its largest constituencies, and now content to create even more traffic problems. Is this a portent sounding the death knell for citizen-proposed projects in other city neighborhoods? Marian Spath , Harlow Neighborhood resident
WOLF AT THE DOOR In response to the gray wolf discussion, I can see why a Eugene resident would be agreeable to releasing wolves back into Oregon — it makes no real difference to you. If you were to step into the boots of a rancher you would see that wolves represent a real economic concern. As a rancher, you realize that reintroduction of wolves could cost you thousands of dollars and you are already struggling financially. Imagine that your "job" requires you to wake up at dawn and sometimes work till midnight. You make nighttime rounds during calving season, and you rarely vacation. You know a lot about the land and you toil on it daily. You know that wolves may mean decimation for the baby calves you painstakingly birthed, fed, vaccinated, housed, etc. Wolves are not stupid. After one kill they will remember that calves are easy prey. The Fish and Wildlife employees perform the "hate crime," not the rancher. The rancher is well aware of huge penalties and possible jail time for killing a wolf. I can tell you that a lot of western Oregon politics (such as this issue) are sending ranchers to the welfare lines. Some say good riddance. Others will respond with the evils of eating meat. The fact is, folks in the U.S. eat a lot of beef. If beef is not raised in this country then it will be imported from somewhere and it will probably result in the clearcutting of more rainforests. Shutting down agriculture in this country is a big mistake. Let's worry about ranches, farms and American jobs becoming extinct, not the wolf. Pamela Kersgaard, Springfield
SOY IS NOT THE ANSWER In reply to "Simple Solutions" letter of Edward Newland (1/6), I agree with most of your thoughts that in spite of election results, each of us can do a great deal on the domestic front battles of health, the environment, and soul. However, eating supermarket soy burgers and dogs or ready-to-eat frozen dinners of soy products is not the way to achieve this. Funny how the well-intentioned are so easily hoodwinked by the soy industry to promote a very dangerous food as healthy. Honest research not funded by the soy industry shows a host of dangers from isolated soy protein, and there is a strong, grassroots movement to ban infant soy formula as it carries the same health risks as an infant taking 10 birth control pills a day. Early formation of breasts and starting of young girls' periods at 8 years old, not to mention higher adult cancers, is linked to this high-estrogen food. For truth in science, check out: WestonAPrice.org. See the truth. A great dis-service to health is how many vegetarians equate factory farms and slaughterhouse atrocities with all meat products. We buy all our protein from local Willamette Valley farmers who grow their free-range animals on grass and sunshine. They slaughter it humanely, and I can ride my bike to any of their farms. They support local commerce, and I haven't been to a supermarket in five years. And I work 50 hours a week at my job. We believe in the health benefits of bone broth soup full of our backyard garden vegetables. We support the Farmers' Market whenever we can't grow what we need. Processed food transported far from its source is the cause of most obesity, not whether you choose to allow another animal to give their body so you can sustain yours. Tom Schneider, Eugene
PATHETIC TALE I wanted to comment to the article (1/13) written by Steven Sawada. What a wrong and pathetic message this article was! Don't you have any creativity? I can't believe the number of cheap excuses you came up with to justify the presence of one or multiple strippers at a bachelor party. Just part of the equation. Hey, we don't even have to be original, guys! A strip club is a business after all. Yeah, and, conveniently, they happen to have naked women too! Well, darn! I just wanted to have a beer with my friends! The hair stylist David Wilson brings some fresh air and hits right on the nail by saying that having a female stripper at a bachelor party is one of the few ways heterosexual men know how to bond. He pushes even further saying they need a stripper because they're fantasizing about each other. It also masks conversation issues. He's so right! Believe me, they definitively have something else to talk about than personal issues in a strip club, and its not pretty! One thing is sure, if you really feel like it's your last shot at freedom and you think it's hard to get out when you're married and this is the only way you can bond with your friends before you get married, here's some advice: stay single. You are more likely to make your wife miserable by being so immature. You treat marriage like it's a prison; that alone is starting on the wrong foot. If you have to be surrounded by strippers to mask the conversation issues, how are you going to be able to stand a conversation with your wife should a problem arise? Show her early commitment and maturity by refusing to act in such a farce to the risk of disappointing your friends. Alby Thoumsin , Springfield
METH HYSTERIA Like the little boy who cried "Wolf!" our federal and state legislators now claim there is a "methamphetamine epidemic." After years and years of crying wolf about marijuana why should we believe these little boys? The moral of the story holds true: If you falsely cry wolf, when there is a real crisis no one believes you. Chris Pender, Eugene
CURSE OF CONCRETE I'm glad R. Sparks Scott (1/20) has done such a great job excusing automobile usage by simply claiming that it's inevitable. Yes, industry and commercial businesses depend on automobiles, but that doesn't give license to individuals to depend on a wasteful form of transport. It's analogous to an argument that I should be allowed to hold prisoners and stock a military simply because governments do so. I particularly find interest in the line, "The problem isn't too many cars, it's too many people." Therein lies Scott's prejudice, and the prejudice of our society — that cars are needed, and we must make allowances for them. The problem with automobiles goes far beyond exhaust emissions, a facet long overlooked by manufacturers, policy makers, citizens, and environmentalists. Private automobile usage requires the rearrangement of public space to fit its needs. Parking lots and roads gobble scarce space that could otherwise offer places to live, play, shop or garden. The concrete for roads and parking lots in the U.S. would fill the state of Oregon. Even so-called low speed (is 10 times the walking speed really a low speed?) traffic discourages human activities, leading to a lack of public interaction in our cities. The consequences of allowing automobile traffic in our cities is clear when auto fatalities are put into numbers; more than 40,000 people in the U.S. killed every year, with complicity on the shoulders of every driver. I accept that I am dependent on business's automobiles. At least I'm not double-taxing society by using a truck to get my produce to the store, then using a car to get the produce to my home. A pox on Scott and his ilk for sloughing off guilt with minimally effective methods. Jeffrey Stout, Eugene
MISSING INFO Thank you for printing Republican apologist Randy Kolb's presentation of shallow mainstream nonsense (12/30). His piece served once again to remind me of how worthless the world view he presents really is. Randy, there are a couple of items you forgot to cover in your article. 1) You forgot to tell us how many civilians have been killed by the U.S. in its misguided war in Iraq. 2) You forgot to remind us that more than 1,300 Americans have lost their lives in that war. 3) You forgot to mention that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq and the reasons presented for justifying the war have since proven to be false. 4) You forgot to mention that most of the terrorists flying the airliners on 9/11 were Saudi nationals. 5) You forgot to explain why the Bush administration has so totally bungled their pursuit of Osama bin Laden. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. The real story in the Dec. 30 edition is the evolving realization that the Bush campaign really did steal the last election. This act, if proven true, would constitute one of the greatest acts of treason in the history of this country. In the six states relying extensively on electronic touch screens in their polling places (including Ohio), the discrepancy between the exit polls and the final tally always favored Bush. While exit polls are not perfect, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume, in a random sampling, that Kerry would be favored at least once? What are the odds that you can flip a coin and have it end up heads six times in a row? The answer is one in 64. Personally, I don't plan on "getting over" anything about the Bush administration or the results of the last election. I do, however, plan to do all I can to see that Bush and his criminal friends are one day, finally, brought to justice. Steve Johnston, Eugene
REBEL WITH HOPE Hope gets a bad rap in today's world. Hope is too often equated with folly, and with naïveté, as if those who hope suffer from inexperience and ignorance. Hope is accused of being a way of escaping reality, as if by hoping we avoid accepting and dealing with what is actually happening. Yet without hope, nothing would change. Hope is conceived from the union of imagination and indignation. Hope is imagining things as different from, and better than, what they are now. Hope is not a manner of escaping reality, rather of living one step ahead of reality. Jan. 20 brings the second inauguration of a man who would love nothing more than to stamp out hope. Let us rebel by hoping. Ignore the shouting media to hear the quiet voice of hope that says "not yet, but soon." All the sooner the more we hope, and act, together. Todd Huffman, MD, Eugene
GOD'S OWN PARTY Eugene "Republican" Randy Kolb's open letter (12/30) was a good snapshot of the fantasy world right-wingers inhabit. Mr. Kolb seems to think the 69 percent of Americans who either did not vote or did not vote for the Bush regime should sit back and accept things as they have turned out. Well, Mr. Kolb, think again. Not only will we not accept things as they are, we will do what we have always done. We will continue to work hard to expose the Bush agenda for what it is — the makings of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in which those who disagree are seen as anti-God therefore anti-American. So be it. We will continue to fight for truth and honesty, attributes nowhere to be found in W's playhouse. Get used to it, Mr. Kolb. You and your cohorts in the GOP (God's Own Party) are in for a rough ride for we are not fooled. Republicans used to be merely my political enemies. Not any more. Since 2000, through their willingness to trounce the constitution and efforts to create a right-wing fundamentalist dictatorship and their infuriating crusade to Americanize the vast majority of the world that is not America, Republicans are now my lifelong mortal enemies. Run that up your pole and salute it, Mr. Kolb. Gibral Gillard, Fall Creek
NOT SO EASY Billy Gruwell of Springfield (1/6) is mad if he thinks anyone can walk into a hospital or surgical center and get gender reassignment surgery. The fact of the matter is it's damn difficult, and rightly so. Our litigious society created extra-paranoid medical insurance companies and you can bet your bippy there is an excruciatingly stringent protocol for something as irreversible and ground-shakingly life-changing as gender reassignment surgery. The screening process is called the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care. First, you have to be diagnosed with gender identity disorder (is it really GID, or do you have schizophrenia and your voices say your body is sinful?). Of course only a psychiatrist or psychologist can diagnose GID, and that requires therapy sessions — a minimum of three months of weekly therapy sessions before you can be recommended for hormones or an ID change. And a GID diagnosis isn't the end of the line. It's just the beginning of things that have to happen before a recommendation for irreversible surgery is given. The most current Standards of Care can be found online at www.hbigda.org/socv6.cfm. Finally, Billy, pretend you wake up every day in the opposite sex's body, expected to always wear their clothes, move, speak, sit, walk and act as they do, conform to the rules they conform to, but feel about yourself exactly as you do right now. Psychiatric therapy isn't something someone seeking GRS can avoid. And GRS isn't the way to get a big tax break next year. Jesse Davis, Eugene
HELL NO I was particularly peeved when I came home from work to find a big packet of U.S. army propaganda in my mailbox. I guess the UO gave them my address. I suppose that either the college would rather see me join the Army than finish school, or the Army forced the UO to hand over all of their students' information. I thought I'd pass along the letter I composed to request exclusion from future U.S. army mailings: Hello U.S. Army: I am writing to request that my name and address be removed from your mailing list. In case you are wondering why, I will tell you. I have absolutely no intention of ever joining your ranks, whether it is willingly or not. I am under the moral opinion that shooting and bombing babies and others is wrong, even if the people being killed are non-white individuals residing in faraway lands. In fact, it is way worse than just "wrong," it is disgusting, depressing, demoralizing, discriminatory, and extremely deviant. (I study psychology in school, and I can promise you that the behavior of military personnel overseas is much worse than that of delinquent teenagers.) Not only do I want my information removed from any and all mailing lists you may keep, I would also like to extend an invitation to those of you who might be on a slightly higher moral echelon than the rest. Please, join with me in conscientious objection. If you care at all about goodness and decency, or even if you are just concerned about where your soul might end up, please consider quitting the army. Go AWOL if necessary. When you're defending our nation, I appreciate it. Right now, however, your comrades are attacking Iraq, which means baby-bombing. I've seen the photos and heard the stories. Maybe you have, too. Please reconsider your blind nationalism. Our right to drive big vehicles is not worth the disaster we've caused in other places. Jenene Peterson , Eugene
SAVE THE MCKENZIE The new year is a time for resolutions. Hopefully, the Forest Service has made some, as the McKenzie District continues to auction off ancient forests along the McKenzie River to the highest bidder. This threatened river supports not only endangered wild salmon and bull trout, but a healthy and thriving recreation industry, bringing in millions of dollars into Lane County and providing a myriad of economic opportunities for small business. It is stunning to think that the Forest Service is continuing to further degrade upstream water quality by logging some of the last remaining native forest left in the watershed. These forests are very important to the health of the watershed and the economic security of many small businesses. I don't know many people who enjoy recreating in a clearcut or fishing in a silted stream. It's time for the Forest Service to get with the 21st century and make a resolution to preserve the remaining public old-growth forests that make the McKenzie such a special place. Mary Gatlin, Eugene
ROLL OVER Randy Kolb's letter (12/30) can be summarized in a very few, very familiar words from the macho component of our so-called society: "If rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it." Bill Durst, Florence
GEORGE W. ORWELL President Bush is showing an unending capacity for newspeak, I believe George Orwell called it in the book 1984, which involves using words to mean the exact opposite of the truth. He's at it again with Social Security, planning changes to reduce the current benefits to retirees and claiming that Social Security will become "bankrupt" at a certain date — neglecting to explain that the serious reductions he's calling "bankruptcy" are specifically due to the very changes he's planning to make! This will particularly hurt women, many of whom count on Social Security in old age. He did this reinvention of the truth with the war in Iraq, with the Abu Ghraib case, with Rumsfeld, with the elections, with arguing he's "for life" and that's why he opposes sex education and contraception even though these policies can help protect life. We can't now stand by and let Bush cut people's promised, guaranteed retirement benefits while claiming to help promote prosperity through risky private accounts, which will actually benefit the already rich at the expense of the still poor. People need to open their eyes and see what is really being proposed — and stop it before it's too late! Joyce Gall, Eugene
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