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CRAZY AD What a poor choice to enclose an AOL CD in your 'alternative' weekly. This is a non-recyclable and unnecessary item. Especially ironic since the other insert for LCOG is so ecologically oriented. It's hard to tolerate the sleazy ads for topless bars, but this AOL decision seems crazy! Cliff Martin, Eugene Editor's note: EW is aware of the landfill concerns related to the AOL inserts. Our carriers picked up the CDs that fell on the streets, our staff manually removed them from the returned papers and we have arranged with Weyerhaeuser to recycle them.
IN BED WITH AOL Having lived here for more than a decade, I have enjoyed — nay, taken for granted — all the luxuries Eugene has to offer. Good coffee, fresh produce, you get the picture. I have utilized EW's multiple listings, articles and am grateful for whoever came up with the Happening People section. This week, I have a bone to pick with you guys. What's up with the AOL thing? Of course they can pay you well, of course you're a free paper, but is there no line for you not to cross? AOL distributes millions or even billions of these pieces of plastic and offers deals to people that are similar to the Visa card terms. I am enclosing my copy of the AOL bullshit for you to keep. If you need money, have a fundraiser or something. No need to slough off and sleep with a corrupt bloated company that does not give two licks about the environment or you or I. Have you ever tried to take their software off your system? It is next to impossible. Anyway, EW, get a bloody backbone and realize you are successful. You don't need those AOL bastards any more than you need a hole in the head. Brian Ellis, Eugene
ANOTHER VIETNAM As a Vietnam veteran, though not a SEHS grad, I was pleased to see a memorial was placed to honor the students who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. Having lost a number of my high school friends in the war, it is good to remember. Hopefully all SEHS Vietnam veterans will take this memorial as a tribute to their sacrifices as well. Sadly, these young men didn't die defending America, though understandably it eases the pain of their loss to believe so. We lost that war and none of the events we were told by the government as to why we needed to fight in Vietnam have come true. Are the soldiers dying every day in Iraq defending America, or are they once again a sad casualty of government lies? As it was during the Vietnam war, this question will be answered individually, with different results. However answered, the loss of life and the pain for their families and friends is real. Donald C. French, Eugene
ENOUGH ALREADY Citizen review for the Eugene Police Department would be a Band-Aid. The time for Band-Aids is OVER. Law enforcement is too important to leave to career bureaucrats. It is definitely time for a state-wide initiative to bring ALL law enforcement personnel under the control and supervision of "We the People." No exceptions. The criminals have had more participation in law enforcement than the citizens for long enough. This initiative would create one outside independent review board for the state of Oregon. All government agencies would be prohibited from having or creating any such review entities. The greatest resource of this board would be the citizens. The board would furnish the citizens video cameras, other equipment and the training to collect and preserve evidence that would stand up in court. If enough evidence was accumulated, the board would then move to the next step of hiring an investigator, perhaps from the Oregon Bar Association. Frank Skipton, Springfield
UNFOUGHT When George W. Bush went to Arlington this Memorial Day and engaged in what in my view was a hypocritical gesture of respect for the sacrifice made by veterans of past and (sadly) present wars — particularly those whom could not be identified — I had a thought. When the sitting president eventually passes on, perhaps his marker might state: "The Tomb of the Unfought Soldier." Bill Smee, Springfield
COUNTERFEIT WAR It has now been nearly a month since the leak of the "Downing Street Memo." It is time for a complete investigation by Congress. It seems to me reasonable that if the Government can expend $50 million on an investigation which ultimately revealed the shocking revelation that the former president had publicly lied while under oath about an extramarital affair, just maybe the government can find the financial resources to investigate the distinct possibility that our current president lied and continues to lie about something just a touch more serious: taking our nation to war on an entirely counterfeit pretense. The time is now for a thorough investigation, complete with significant consequences, to determine if President Bush willfully lied to every citizen of this country about why he engaged our military in this mire of horror which has become the Iraqi war. This war has now produced the tragic and needless deaths of 1,654 brave members of the U.S. military and the tragic, shameful maiming and wounding of another 12,348 brave members of our military as of May 26th, 2005 (www.rationalenquirer.org). This war has caused thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths — regular folks just like us, our families, our neighbors — wiped out, killed and maimed because they happened to somehow be in the way as the massive plow that is our military, directed by President George W. Bush, was "sowing the seeds of freedom and democracy" during this potentially drummed-up hunt for "weapons of mass destruction." Michael D. Scheffer, Eugene
DOUBLE HYPOCRISY On February 29, 2004, in gross violation of both U.S. and international law and in direct contradiction to every democratic principle this country was supposedly built upon, the Bush administration orchestrated a violent and bloody coup against the democratically elected government of Haiti, forcing into exile Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and installing a pro-U.S. interim government. Since then, thousands of Haitians have been tortured and killed by the Haitian police, the Haitian military and government-sponsored death squads. They are doing it in broad daylight and with the full support of the government of the United States and our born-again Christian president. Good people: Pretending to believe in democracy is easy; anyone can do it. But if you're not outraged by what our government is doing in places like Haiti, you don't really believe in democracy, you believe in something else. Likewise, pretending to follow the teachings of Jesus is easy enough. But if you remain silent while your government consistently supports regimes that murder and torture their own citizens, you don't really follow the teachings of Jesus, you follow the teachings of someone else. Remember, it was Jesus Himself who said that what we do to the least of us, we do also to Him. (And in the long run to ourselves.) David Kennedy, Florence
REAL CRIMES The Bush Administration is blaming the news media for violence by Muslims who are upset with news reports about the brutal torture of prisoners at American prison camps. They say these news reports are getting people killed. But it's not the news reports that are getting people killed; it's the news. The torture at Abu Ghraib really did happen. The Gonzales memo approving the torture really did happen. And the abuse at Gitmo as reported by Amnesty International really did happen. It's not the job of the news media to cover up for the president's war crimes. If the Bush administration wants to stop the news reports, I suggest that he stop doing the things that the news media is reporting on. Marc Perkel, San Francisco
GALACTIC LOVE If God made everything, what made God? It's possible that we've got it backwards — that God is at the end, not before the beginning all the way back to Chaos? That would suggest that, to make God real, we should stay focused in the present, not in the past. Current and looming wars are between contending religious blocs. In my view, none of them should prevail. Emerging technology could lead us to become, virtually, one. Being in the here and now, creating universal compassion and creativity with our willpower and generativity could result, eventually, in a planetary reign of love. That would be God enough for me. Paul Prensky, Springfield
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