Letters, letters, letters

The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer's name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.

To the Editor:

It is sad to realize that with our growth in the greater Sisters area comes the increase in crime. I have fond memories of those days when we could leave our windows open in our vehicles when left unattended and unlocked, without fear of finding it gone or things stolen upon our return.

The fire stations and fire vehicles were always considered hands-off even by the thieves. I guess in those times there was some honor among thieves, but I fear those days are gone forever.

During the last year the Cloverdale Volunteer Fire District has been the victim of theft and vandalism on several occasions. Most recently uniform items were stolen from a fire vehicle while providing fire and first responder coverage at a local event and during the same weekend someone stole our recruiting sign that stood in front of our fire station located at Highway 20 and Cloverdale Road.

This was a full-size six foot tall cutout of a fire fighter in full turnouts, built especially for recruiting our most valuable resource, volunteers. We labored dozens of hours to build this bright yellow sign and it was doing its job to help recruit volunteers.

Along with advertisements in The Nugget our firefighter sign helped in a recruiting effort that brought seven new members on line in the last three months. The sign also served to declare "No Outdoor Burning" and we had plans to use it in fire prevention efforts along with the opportunity for kids to get their picture taken when placing their face in the cut out area of the fire fighters face.

I am asking the person or persons who stole the sign to please return it as soon as possible, no questions asked.

Whatever reason it was stolen for could not be more important than the purpose it was serving.

If anyone has any information of the whereabouts of the sign, I ask that you please contact me at the Cloverdale Fire Station located at 68787 George Cyrus Rd, Sisters OR 97759 or call 548-4815 at your earliest convenience.

Charles R. Cable, Fire Chief

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To the Editor:

Your personal onslaughts of the present administration of this country are totally out of line and, pursuant to the idolatrous thinking of you and your ilk, I think that you are being very volatile and vicious in your attack upon the present administration and their efforts to keep this nation safe and stable.

It is apparent that you are a young, impetuous, fairly bright young man that has not gone through any rigors of war, but is very infatuated with a "person" that claims to have gone thru all the fire and damnation that the enemy could force upon him and came away with three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. In only four months and 12 days of action. And he claims to be a hero -- many, many times over.

I am a "veteran" of both World War II and Korea and spent both times in California. But I met many actual heroes that would never talk about their actions.

I would suggest that, before condemning the present Chief of Staff, you read up more on the activities of your apparent idol. Such as, the hard to get book "Unfit For Command" by John O'Neil, whose book Kerry is very upset about as it is "all lies." If that is the case, why isn't Kerry suing the author?!

Bob Read

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To the Editor:

You have no idea how wonderful it is to hear from someone who had voted for GW Bush in the past to come out and say what you did. Thank you for giving others permission to do the same.

I honor you for your truth and sense in the matter of where our country is going.

Blessings to you,

Michael Valoppi

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To the Editor:

I challenge you to actually print this in your section of letters to the editor.

Eric, bear with me and read the entire letter please. In your recent paper you wrote a column titled "Send Bush Back to Texas."

If only the rest of us were fortunate enough to own a newspaper to relentlessly drive our opinions week after week into our local community. Your paper is far from fair and balanced and I think you have an obligation to be just that.

Anything positive about our president or negative about his opponent is rarely published and usually in the back of the letters to the editor and I assume this is done to make it look as though the majority of us feel the way you do.

I am a local businessman and it makes me reluctant to advertise in your paper when week after week you see to it that there is a negative twist on the president. I assume that I am not the only one who feels this way but there is not a lot of options in our great little town.

I must ask you a question that you should think long and hard about. You seem to be so focused on the things that you are not happy with our president that you have not put a lot of thought into the question of "Is the replacement candidate a better option?"

All I hear John Kerry do is point out all the negative, but I have no idea what he stands for or what he would really do different. His track record as a senator and his absenteeism in the Senate I think speaks for itself. He also seems to stand for something one day and then take a complete opposite stance later on. Another question: Do you feel safer with Mr. Kerry in office? Thanks for hearing out my thoughts.

Dean Reese

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To the Editor,

I respectfully submit, for your consideration, the following reply to Dr. Benson's opinion entitled "Iraq was a threat," (The Nugget, September 1, page 2).

As a true conservative, I have no issue with the need to apply force when required. The invasion of Afghanistan was a justified response to a "clear and present danger" to the safety of the United States. And while I do not support the encroachment on civil liberties enabled by the Patriot Act, many of the steps taken to improve homeland security were long overdue.

The invasion of Iraq is another matter.

Justifying the cost of that invasion based on the belief that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, or fomented terrorism, committed genocide or repressed his own people is an argument that could be made to justify the invasion of many other countries, such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Pakistan to name but a few.

I find absurdly ironic that Pakistan has done more to spread the threat of nuclear terrorism than any other single nation -- including Russia -- and has tens of thousands of young men in Muslim "jihadist schools," and yet we say nothing about invading them.

There existed no more evidence to justify invading Iraq prior to March 2003 than there does for any of these countries. Surely no one, other than some misguided souls in the administration such as Msrs. Wolfowitz, Libby, et. al. would suggest that this is the appropriate course to take in any of these countries.

The $100-billion-plus cost of this war will come at the expense of the citizenry.

The 9/11 commission report, while supporting some of Dr. Benson's opinions, says much more about the failures of the current administration when it came to ignoring clear and convincing evidence of an imminent attack on U.S. interests. Their obvious blind ignorance, coupled with a reliance on information from sources -- then and now -- clearly with agendas not in support of U.S. interests, rather than the intelligence available from the experts, should lead any reasonable person to question the fitness and skill of many of the people President Bush has chosen to surround himself with.

David Opsahl

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To the Editor:

After seeing Bill Moyers' interview with John Dean on the PBS show "NOW" I read Dean's book "Worse Than Watergate."

It is important to read as many perspectives as possible.

Dean is the same criminal he was during Watergate. He is just plain wrong; shame on you again John Dean.

I think I've got a good idea regarding your eight books, Ms. Lester (The Nugget, Letters to the Editor, September 8). May I suggest "The Coming Anarchy" and "Warrior Politics" by Robert Kaplan; "Terror and Liberalism" by Paul Berhman; "Power, Terror, Peace and War" by Walter Russel Mead, who is the Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This book is subtitled "America's Grand Strategy in a World At Risk."

And, perhaps most relevant, "Imperial Hubris" and "Through Our Enemies' Eyes." This author is a senior intelligence official with 20 years of experience in national security issues related to Afghanistan, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

He is currently serving America's clandestine services, has been analyzing al Qaeda for 10 years and headed the task force hunting bin Laden 1996-99. He found bin Laden three times. Sandy Berger, National Security advisor to Bill Clinton vetoed two of the strikes against OBL. By the time Clinton launched 75 cruise missiles into Afghanistan, OBL was long gone.

To Mr. Dean Billing regarding Israel: please understand, Israel has learned the need for advantageous balance of power in their region. Their powerful military and lethal security services do instill fear in enemies, which is what America must do!

Since the Holocaust, when Israelis say "never again," they mean never again. Israel is under siege, which is the reason for legitimate occupation. Israel will gladly go home when Arab murderers stop their violence.

Steve Coltin

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To the Editor:

Mr. Gailey's letter in the September 8 issue of The Nugget said that the poverty level has not changed much in the last 36 years. It said the poverty level was 12.6 percent in 1968 and it is now 12.5 percent.

I would like to point out that, while those statistics certainly are true (close to true, anyway; the official U.S. Census Bureau states the 1968 poverty level at 12.8 percent), the poverty level has fluctuated much over the last 36 years.

It has not been going down from 12.8 percent at a steady rate until it has reached 12.5 percent, as the letter (in my opinion at least) made it sound. For example, during 1983 the poverty level was 15.2 percent, and in 1989 it was down to 12.8 percent. During 1993 the level was 15.1 percent and by 2000 it had dropped down to 11.3 percent, a drop of 3.8 percent!

Since 2000 the level has gone up until it reached 12.5 percent, a gain of 1.2 percent.

Thus we see that the poverty rate has not stayed the same throughout the years 1968-2004. I thought I should point this out to give readers a more balanced presentation of the facts, and allow them to come to a more informed decision.

On a lighter note, an interesting website I found shows the current tally of electoral votes using the latest polls. The tally changes fairly often, and I like to check on it daily to see who's ahead. As of September 10, the tally was Bush: 254 Kerry: 252, with Florida and Nevada tied. The site has a map of the states that are color coded depending on whether they are Strong Bush, Weak Kerry, Barely Kerry, etc. If you are interested, the website is at http://electoral-vote.com/.

Dane Moorehead

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To the Editor:

What is happening in this country? For the past few years, White House appointments to the various departments of our government have been dismantling programs which help people and rendering powerless those that protect us from abuse by big business.

Programs that help corporations at the expense of the taxpayers are being left in place. An address in the Bahaman Islands qualifies a corporation that physically still exists on U.S. soil to pass on paying income taxes.

I read a quote attributed to Mussolini that "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."

If our government continues in its evolution as a tool that serves corporations at the expense of the average American worker and taxpayer then what kind of country do we have?

When we vote every four years for our President we are not crowning a King. We are choosing an individual who will in turn appoint a host of others to powerful positions throughout the country, impacting all our lives at every level.

It would be helpful if the media had kept us all informed in greater detail about the various appointments of our judicially appointed president and the effects of their work these past four years.

Dale Lester

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To The Editor:

If it is true that birds of a feather flock together then based on treatment of the Social Security program under Democratic presidents, what do you think John Kerry will do?

Under Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, the Social Security trust fund was put into the general fund so it could be spent as Congress saw fit. It was the Democratic party that eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security withholding. When he was Vice President, Al Gore cast the tie breaking vote to begin taxing Social Security annuities. And it was under Jimmy Carter that Social Security began payments to immigrants at age 65 who had never contributed to the fund.

Based on his record of flip flops on issues like the war in Iraq, eliminating the marriage penalty for the middle class, the Patriot Act, the constitutional amendment barring gay marriage and the death penalty for terrorists, even the birds of a feather test is useless.

Think about it.

Jack Berry

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To the Editor:

How ironic now that the new high school is built and paid for that the long range population forecast for Sisters has been revised downward.

I seem to recall that one of the most compelling arguments to build the school was to handle the dramatic projected increase in population to the area.

I do commend the (school district) for managing the budget well. Even with the accounting error, the school was built for close to the projected cost. Managing a project of this magnitude is no small feat.

In Lake Oswego, where I also live, we approved approximately $40 million to upgrade our two high schools. After construction was half done, the school board, in their infinite wisdom, decided they had to bring make both schools' amenities equal so as to not offend the students. This task required another $10 million.

We could have used your planners on this side of the mountains. It would have been nice if they thought about that before they spent the original money. Next time they have to cut teachers because of the budget, they have only themselves to blame.

Ken Pearce