LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The problem is President Bush

Carrol Dower's April 1 letter to the editor, "Republicans are power crazy," makes many negative statements regarding Republicans and implies that they are responsible for the sorrowful condition of our country. This mindset only causes more separation and hard feelings between political parties.

I generally lean toward the left but have a few friends and relatives who lean toward the right. And I must say that they are honest, hard working and environmentally friendly people, and I'm sure there are many more like them. Please understand that it's not so much the Republicans who are running our great country into ground, it's the Bush administration. That said, I would also like to say that George W. Bush is without a doubt the worst president ever to be in office in the entire history of our country.

Never have the American people experienced such blatant disregard and disrespect. Our economy, our environment, our public education system, our social programs for the poor and disabled and our separation of church and state are all going down the toilet so that a few greedy people can increase their already over-inflated bank accounts.

C'mon now, how much money do Bush and his cronies really need?

RANDOLPH HERB

Elmira

Rifkin is an unscientific activist

It's curious that Jeremy Rifkin, writer of "Biotech tinkering getting out of hand," (Commentary, April 3) was not described as a professional activist. A scientist or a professional journalist would be worthwhile reading. Instead we get an anti-intellectual, ex-hippie movement self-promoter with no knowledge of science or genetics.

The well-respected Stephen Jay Gould said of Rifkin, "Either I am blind or he is wrong - and I think I can show, by analyzing his slipshod scholarship and basic misunderstanding of science, that his world is an invention constructed to validate his own private hopes ... Rifkin shows no understanding of the norms and procedures of science: he displays little comprehension of what science is and how scientists work."

As when he wildly asks "What if the mice (with injected human brain cells) escaped the laboratory and began to proliferate in the outside environment?" and later, about similar fused animals, "Creatures that could mate, reproduce and repopulate the earth?" This, of course, is nonsense.

If I had a chimp arm grafted to my shoulder, my future kids wouldn't have chimpanzee arms, just as progeny of mice with injected human brain cells would only have mice brains, and the "geep" with a goat head and sheep body would mate to produce a sheep having sheep reproductive organs.

Rifkin seems to have a 17th century, pre-genetic idea of reproduction. Or else his aim is just to raise fears and end all genetic and most other scientific research.

JONATHAN KLAY

South Beach

Time for religious letters truce

The venomous exchange of views with respect to religious belief or lack of belief in letters in recent weeks is grist for observation and comment.

It is well settled that the United States of America was founded on the principle of one God and the Ten Commandments. Equally settled is the First Amendment position protecting the free exercise of religion. This implies rather strongly the free exercise to not believe. Therefore the issue!

This observer believes both expressed views are correct, except that both set forth a principle not addressed in the Constitution: Neither has the right to be publicly offended by the other's free expression of their right.

So truce, already! Be who and what you are and afford everyone else the same privilege.

HENRY E. MASTERSON

Eugene

Minnis school plan insufficient

The April 1 editorial on Oregon House Speaker Karen Minnis's proposed stable schools plan was completely on target. The plan sounds good on the surface, but it has some serious problems.

The speaker proposed that our state limit the growth of regular kindergarten through 12th grade spending to 4 percent per year, then set aside any money over that amount (but only up to 50 percent of personal income tax receipts) for a reserve fund.

The speaker's attempt to provide some level of stable school funding is admirable, but our current levels are hugely inadequate. Oregon schools used to be much better funded, and we had the quality and results to show for it. Now, our funding level is 31st among the 50 states, and dropping. Our elementary class sizes are the second-largest in the nation. We have up to 20 fewer school days than most other states. And every district is losing key programs, such as counselors, physical education, art and music.

Even at our current inadequate levels, we may need more than 4 percent each year just to keep programs intact. Our state population continues to grow, but the Minnis proposal doesn't offer one more dime if thousands more children come into the schools. Health insurance inflation is in the double digits. Oregon's schools could well be forced to cut even further under the speaker's proposal.

We need to invest in our children and provide high-quality schools. This plan would never allow us to do that.

GRETA SANGDER, Member

Lane County Stand for Children

Eugene

End military coffin photo ban

Apparently it's OK in the U.S. media to honor Pope John Paul II by printing prominent photos of him lying in state (Register-Guard, April 5).

But it's definitely not OK to honor slain U.S. servicemen and women by printing a photo of a flag-draped coffin.

U.S. citizens should demand an end to this policy.

DAVE PEDEN

Florence

Support climate stewardship

Trading pollution credits among industrial contaminators to mitigate risk to public health has become de rigueur for the Bush administration, but it is a deceptive smokescreen that allows the worst industrial polluters to continue contaminating our environment.

Even the Environmental Protection Agency was recently coerced to redact its own scientific evidence that the effect of administration policy can actually be measured in terms of increased health-care dollars, because to tell the truth might have had an adverse economic effect. Huh? What about the effect on human health? Hello?

Despite more convincing scientific evidence of industrial contribution to global climate change every day, the Bush administration continues to neglect its responsibilities to American citizens by trading away our health for the benefit of corporate greed. The corporatist tendency for legislators and administrations to be influenced by the interests of business enterprises - where government decisions create policies that lead to greater profits for favored companies - has come to supercede their responsibility for public health.

Recognizing the need to reverse the administration trend, Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman recently introduced the Climate Stewardship Act, legislation that will require industry to reduce pollution to 2000 levels by the year 2010. It's a good start. Please join me in giving Sens. Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden our endorsement for them to support this bill.

DAVID BERG

Eugene

Thurber's words ring true today

When the New York Herald Tribune suggested in 1947 that workers be forced to sign loyalty oaths, James Thurber wrote that the editorials could be collected into a totalitarian handbook, which should have a first chapter titled "How to discredit liberals as dangerous elements who imperil the safety of the nation and the true meaning of the Constitution and who stand in the way of the new freedom and the greater security."

He could have been writing about the George W. Bush era.

KEN CAPRON

Eugene

Economy belongs to everyone

David Pokvitis' "politics of envy" is among those sad conservative sophistries with no meaning (letters, April 4).

Concealed behind the conservative politics of illusion are facts the conservative culture war has managed to mask from too many voters.

America's economy and government belong to all Americans. When capital ignores the economic rights of labor, workers must rely on the government for redress. Capital can protect itself.

We had robber baron capitalism. Only the success of the politics of illusion enables Republicans to re-institute that insanity. Protecting workers, consumers and the environment isn't communism - it's a required restraint on greed.

No one gets rich in a bubble. The business without employees is just a single owner/operator making, hopefully, a decent living. Employee labor creates real wealth.

Government services serve wealth. Name any service not required to control greed whose primary purpose isn't the protection or promotion of wealth.

Entitlements exist because conservatives would leave workers destitute once retired, forgetting that entitlement payouts are reborn as profits. Social Security privatization frees business from sponsoring matching fund 401(k) plans while ensuring a continuing flow of money through the stock market.

Expectations that the wealthy pay all of their taxes stem from reality, not envy. The rich require more government than the rest of us and make government intervention necessary through their own irresponsibility.

SANFORD SILVER

Eugene