LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Examine campaign ads carefully

America is a vast expanse of humanity - and advertising. As you prepare to vote next November, stop and consider why you are seeing or hearing an advertisement for a candidate or an issue. The ones who have the most money are supported by big industry. These ads are paid for by us, usually with our dollars spent to buy products or services, or by our tax moneys siphoned through pork-barrel subsidies. Ads that are paid for by big contributors usually have their own interests in mind - not those of the public.

President Bush has raised more campaign money than anyone ever in the history of the world. He is totally pro-industry and has no connection to ordinary folks, the environment or a peaceful world.

The tragedy of Sept. 11 has already been overly abused by the Bush administration to bamboozle our emotionally stunned nation into support for the secretive Patriot Act and an expensive, illegal war in Iraq. The latest Bush re-election campaign ads use images of Sept. 11 to further his political ambitions.

If Bush wants to use Sept. 11 in his resume, he should let the Sept. 11 Commission proceed, and he needs to testify, as he has been asked to do. What went wrong in the period leading up to the attack has never been determined, and Bush has thwarted the commission's attempt at bringing to light the truth.

We need dialogue and open discussion on the issues - not marketing techniques to raise fear and emotional patriotism.

LAURA STUART 

Eugene

Suicide bombing is insane

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting to get different results (Register-Guard editorial, March 23), then surely the Palestinian strategy of murdering Israeli civilians qualifies as insanity. The bombings of buses and supermarkets, of religious observances and celebrations, have intensified and accelerated, yet I do not recall a Register-Guard editorial deploring the insanity of Palestinian policy.

Sheik Ahmed Yassin was a genocidal bigot, a man who presided over the planning of multiple attacks on Israeli civilian targets. With his blessing, Palestinian teenagers and pregnant women took on the mission of blowing themselves up in crowds of Zionist infidels. Hamas is at war with the existence of the state of Israel and the presence of Jews in the Muslim holy land.

When Yassin is executed, there are cries of moral outrage. Representatives of Western governments call the killing illegal, extrajudicial, unjustifiable, unacceptable. Where is this moral outrage when Israeli children riding the bus to school are blown up?

The editorial warns that Yassin's assassination will "draw Muslim militants worldwide into a confrontation with Israel." But they are already in confrontation with Israel, and not only with Israel, but with Jews as Jews. Synagogues have been bombed in Turkey and in Italy, a Jewish community center in Argentina was destroyed with massive loss of lives, a Jewish school in France burned down.

Where is the sanity in any of this?

MARIANNA WEISS 

Eugene

Courts must rule on marriage

An editorial in the March 4 Register-Guard brought up a great point: It will be up to the courts to decide the legality of same-sex marriage. Obviously, there is a conflict between the marriage laws and the Constitution. The issue should be decided by no one but the Supreme Court - not the president, Congress or individuals.

No one can use the argument that our Founding Fathers did not intend to include gays in the club of equality. Blacks and women were long considered to be appropriately excluded from the declaration of equality, but after much protest blacks and women now have the same rights as the white men who founded this country. So should gays.

Let's not forget that many blacks broke the law protesting segregation, because the laws were unjust. While the marriages performed in Portland and San Francisco may be illegal, that does not mean the laws uphold our country's principle of equal rights for all.

This isn't a religious issue. The Constitution clearly delineates the separation between church and state. All that matters is this document, the backbone of our country's actions.

Prohibiting gay marriage violates the Constitution in the same way that slavery, segregation and the denial of women's suffrage did.

HEATHER McCONOCHIE

Eugene

We've lost moral high ground

In the current state of the union, the argument against secular marriage for homosexuals is untenable. As a country we have lost the moral high ground and are sliding down that slippery slope. Our secular society already permits, promotes and sanctifies no-fault divorce, abortion on demand, birth control for recreational sex, artificial procreation, experimentation on and commercial use of fetuses, fornication, pornography, adultery, foster care by homosexuals, adoption by homosexuals, parenting by homosexuals and civil unions of homosexuals. What part of secular marriage is there left to protect?

Heterosexuals mock civil unions more than homosexuals ever would or could. But they can't touch this: the holy sacrament of Christian marriage. Let Caesar have what is Caesar's and God what is God's. On our account, the name of God is held in contempt by America's new pagans.

We Christians should consolidate our forces, abandon the public school system and its secular agenda, abandon a federalism that doesn't support our beliefs, mass migrate to establish an enclave of Christian values, secede from this corrupt union already divided against itself, form a new government that fosters religious freedom - not freedom from religion - declare our new country theistic, and pledge to and trust in God.

But first, we should inventory our hypocrisy and realign our actions in accordance with our Christian beliefs. We then should gather quietly but steadily as if Satan were in our midst.

KELLY COUGHLIN

North Bend

Land use vs. health care

It seems obvious that the primary excuse for government intervention in the affairs of local hospitals should be the health and welfare of the public. Unfortunately, that energy has been less productively spent using hospital siting as a political football for competing philosophies of land use and economic development.

PeaceHealth's primary excuse for pushing the siting envelope for its RiverBend campus has been to create the optimum healing environment. It might be in the greater public interest for local government organs to take them at their word and yield a little on land use in order to bargain for better public health.

A society, its governments and, of course, its hospitals are measured by how they care for their most vulnerable citizens. This does not only mean cute babies.

Local government and Peace- Health have a real opportunity to reverse the current state of affairs for a group of citizens for whom a benign and healing environment is critical. Let the county psychiatric hospital at the jail site - which PeaceHealth was paid to run - close, unmourned. Make new plans to serve community mental health needs in a better atmosphere. There will be ample space in the vacated Sacred Heart complex, if not at RiverBend. Indigence is often a symptom or result of mental illness and should not be treated in a discriminatory or punitive manner.

WILLIAM DiMARCO

Junction City

It's time to lose the snow tires

With so many issues to rant or rave about - President Bush's tax plan, same-sex marriage, the lure of a new basketball arena, the Public Employees Retirement System, what to name our schools - I have instead chosen to bring a new topic to the agenda: studded snow tires.

Yes, for the first time in years, Eugene had some real snow this year. For a few days some folks here actually could argue they had a need for snow tires. Of course, I had no problems driving with my little front-wheel-drive sedan, but I can see how a truck or SUV would not handle as well in the snow due to a less optimal weight distribution.

The snow has been gone for a couple of months now - and these folks are still tooling around on their snow tires, chewing up our streets. That would be fine if snow tires carried a surcharge appropriate to the damage they cause on urban roads. But they don't.

The results can be seen on roads like Willamette Street or 13th Avenue, where the ruts are getting deeper and more costly to repair. Please - it's time to lose the snow tires.

JAMES DUHAIME

Eugene

Postpone DRS voting machines

We may never know the true outcome of the upcoming November presidential election. Optical scanners were used in our most recent Lane County election. It was said to have passed a pre-election test, and our mail-in ballots were available as a paper trail if a recount was deemed necessary. Some states are now trying Direct Recording Systems, computer screen voting where no paper trail exists.

It has benefits: no chad, it walks you through the voting process, you can correct a mistaken vote easily and it makes voting easier for disabled people. But the DRS systems pose a risk of fraudulent results in the upcoming presidential election.

Federal law requiring a paper trail begins in 2006. Until then, if the systems are rigged at the factory or hacked into on election day, there is no way to check if the vote is accurate. Rep. Peter DeFazio's office sent a congressional report that confirmed these major concerns. Any state using DRS can ruin fair results for all of us. As we promote democracy around the world, let's ensure an open and fair election in the United States. The credibility of DRS is more suspect as the three biggest manufacturers of the computer systems are contributors to President Bush's campaign.

Calling [phone] connects you to the secretary who will forward your call to Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, Reps. DeFazio and Darlene Hooley, and any other congressional representatives. Demand no DRS computer voting in federal elections until 2006.

KEVIN JONES

Eugene