Letters to the Editor 06/08/2016

To the Editor:

Please give a big Sisters "Hi, Hello or Howdy" to eight international college students!

Having lived for 44 years in Central Oregon we are excited for the opportunity to welcome eight international college students to our community through a work and travel program. We believe there are extraordinary benefits of cultural exchange both personally and in our work place.

We were so impressed with each student during their interview and how eager they are to experience the American culture. These students are from Turkey and China and their majors include engineering, law, hospitality and tourism. These are bright young leaders and we want to introduce them to the American culture enabling them to develop positive American experiences that they will take back with them to their home countries.

The students will be working to help pay for their travel and living expenses. While our international students are working in our restaurant there will not be any impact to our current staff and how many hours they are working. We continue to hire individuals from our community who are willing to work with passion and who are looking for opportunity. We believe in investing in our staff. We have a program called Archways to Opportunity, which offers free college tuition, high school completion programs and various management training programs - all for free! Our teams take care of us and we take care of them.

These students had a choice where to travel and work for the summer and they chose to come to Sisters. When you come into our McDonald's please introduce yourself and give them a big Sisters welcome. Say "Hi," "Howdy" or "Merhaba" ("Hello" in Turkish) or "Huan ying" ("Welcome" in Chinese)!

Nanette and Mick Bittler

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To the Editor:

This letter is a response to the guest columnist, Carol Lovegren Miller, writing about transgender bathroom and dressing room issues in The Nugget of May 25. Disturbing and offending:

1. Guilt by association: Linking transgendered people in the same paragraph with "perverts" and "pedophiles."

2. Self-appointed sexist "protectors": Women who have more male characteristics, transgender or not, are being harassed or attacked when going to the restroom. Let women learn to protect themselves.

3. Wrong abusers: Young children are almost always accompanied by an adult in public bathrooms. The sexual abuse Ms. Miller mentions is most often not by teen peers but by family, pastors, and politicians. There are already laws to deal with this behavior.

4. Prejudice/sexism: "Separate dressing arrangement for transgendered people." Separate but equal? Uh uh.

5. Not reputable source: The American College of Pediatricians (the ACP) is, in fact, a small conservative advocacy group that has been labeled as a hate group; it only speaks for 200 members.

6. Not healthy at all: LGBTQ cannot be converted into straight. This only forces them to pretend at great cost.

7. Sexist, prejudiced and judgmental: Gender-confused. A more respectful term is Transgender.

8. Patronizing: "...deserve our compassion." It is the judgmental person that needs that compassion and education, for their rejection and their hate, their pity and their fear.

9. Prejudice: "Forcing people to feel violated, uncomfortable and unsafe will decrease acceptance of transgenders." First, no one is forcing you to feel that way. That is your choice. Second, insert "blacks" instead of "transgenders" into that statement and think back to our history.

10. All in all, this article reflects this society's prejudice, ignorance and fear of people who are different from us, and fear of change. Fear is "False Evidence Appearing Real."

Dawn Song