LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Do something about ponds

This is a very hard letter for me to write, as I have never been an expert on speaking publicly and I have never before lost a grandchild to a drowning.

You see, I am the grandmother of the two beautiful boys who perished in the Golden Garden ponds on Fathers Day, June 19. I will never forget the horrifying telephone call telling us our beautiful grandsons were missing and presumed drowned. The pain is unbearable for all of us who loved and cared for Nick and Britt so very much.

I have been informed that other families have also suffered the horrible loss of their loved ones in the exact same ponds. I am not asking, I am begging for something to be done about these ponds so that another tragedy doesn't take place. I feel I must speak out and ask for help and support in getting something done about these ponds so that this doesn't happen again to another innocent child and their family.

Please, we cannot bear the thought of another innocent family experiencing the same kind of pain we are experiencing, so let's all band together and get something done about the Golden Garden ponds.

SHERYL A. DAVIS 

Cottage Grove 

Is this the American way?

Let me see if I have this straight: We are in Iraq for the wrong reasons - or not the reasons originally presented. But now that we are there we have to stay until victory. We cannot cut and run. That is not the American way.

We are fighting terrorists there so that we don't have to fight them here. Fighting them there has so far killed and wounded tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children, to say nothing of American soldiers killed and mutilated.

Thirty or 40 more Iraqis are killed every day. But it is better to fight the terrorists there so that American civilians here don't have to be killed or wounded. That is the American way.

Have I got it straight?

ARTHUR MOKIN

Leaburg

SB 1000 supports fairness

Very soon the Oregon Legislature will vote on Senate Bill 1000.

SB 1000 would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and would create civil unions for same-sex couples. It does not affect marriage. It does not go against the will of voters. This bill is a compromise between full marriage rights for same-sex couples and the desire of some groups to ensure that same-sex relationships are not recognized in Oregon law.

Civil unions are not only the right thing to do but also have the backing of Oregon voters. Senate Bill 1000 would go a long way toward achieving that goal.

Please contact your elected officials and ask them to support Senate Bill 1000 because it supports fairness for all Oregonians.

PETER HOWLAND

Springfield

Change legislative rules

The Oregon Legislature wants to meet every year instead of every other year. Lawmakers say they do not have enough time for the legislative business.

Of course they don't. For months they posture, issue press releases and trade insults before they finally rush to judgment in the 11th hour of the session - or worse, need to come back for a special session - to complete even a minimum of business. There is no prospect that this would change if they met every year.

The solution is not more time, but a change in the rules of procedure so the Legislature can become more effective. Currently, legislative procedure is governed by rules that do not have the force of law - they are informal rules devised by the Legislature itself. Legislators of both parties like these rules because they institutionalize career longevity and they obscure transparency, since most real business goes on in caucus behind closed doors and beyond public scrutiny.

Why is this secretive, self-serving and ineffective practice allowed? Because with the separation of powers, the legislative branch is beyond the courts - even though their governance by committee clearly violates the one-person-one-vote principle and their caucus decision-making makes a mockery of open government - and the executive has no jurisdiction in legislative internal matters. Citizens, however, can make the Legislature into a working body by using the initiative process to change the rules of legislative procedure constitution- ally.

ROBERT MEEKER

Vida

No 'one size' shield law 

Regarding the editorial titled "Beneath Contempt" (Register-Guard, July 5): I generally agree with the newspaper's position on reporters having the right to withhold the names of sources and protect their anonymity. I am sure it has served the public well in most cases.

But the Valerie Plame case should not be protected by such shield laws. Her case is not the same as the Pentagon Papers, Enron, Abu Ghraib or other instances in which whistle blowers needed anonymity to expose wrongdoing. This case is about protecting lawbreakers.

Just how does it benefit our society to keep anonymous the name of someone in the Bush administration who outed a CIA agent and put her and her contacts at great personal risk, just to punish her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, for exposing one of their lies? A lie that was used in part, to start a war that has resulted in thousands of dead and wounded in Iraq.

A "one size fits all" shield law does not serve the public well.

H.A. PERRY

Eugene

Make room for languages

In a brief news story, we see that the president of the Oregon Board of Geographic Names is not pleased with the proposed name for an island due to be renamed (Register-Guard, July 6). His concern: "The way it's spelled, it's not an Anglicized spelling that most people could pronounce."

Oh, really? Included in the story is a fine and clear deconstruction to an English pronunciation. I believe the sentence involved, showing us the pronunciation, contains only nine words. Do I understand the president of the concerned group feels that we in Oregon are unable to grow in our language skills? Perhaps I misunderstand him.

We have a state known for a number of innovative language programs and individual immersion programs of great quality and scope. It is my understanding that we have new words being created here and around the country at a massive pace, and many are selected or included in updated dictionary printings. The words in those books came from many places around the world, collecting upon our human tongue over great stretches of time. They carry the life that has been lived, forward to the life that is being lived, and thence, to that which we hope to live.

We can make room for all these languages and yet we cannot make room for a word which grew fresh and sweet upon this land now known as Oregon? Oh, really?

INA PUUSTINEN-

WESTERHOLM

Springfield

Parental status irrelevant

I am not sure of the implication behind the headline ``Mom' to shepherd shuttle mission' (Register-Guard, July 5). Is it that the most important thing about a woman is her parental status? Or that any time a woman with children achieves something outside the home, it's remarkable enough to be front-page news?

This recalls the headline in a California paper when Maria Goeppert Mayer, a scientist in La Jolla, Calif., won the Nobel Prize in physics: `La Jolla mother wins Nobel Prize.' But that laughable headline dates from 1963 - surely in the past 42 years we have learned that a woman is not defined by her family situation.

Until you print headlines like `Bush, father of 2, meets with Putin, father of 1,' I hope you will leave a woman's parental status out of news articles about her professional achievements.

MARTHA BAYLESS

Eugene

DeFazio record falls short

Wow! I guess I hit a nerve.

During last year's campaign Peter DeFazio tried to undermine my credibility with veterans, even though I had served our nation for 20 years. But his latest effort to brand me as anti-vet is completely void of reason.

His shrill rhetoric (letters, July 2) would lead one to think that I was against veterans. If DeFazio had actually read my June 20 guest viewpoint he would have realized his assumptions were wrong. His terse reply and failure to address the issue only diminishes his credibility.

I wonder to which congressional campaign DeFazio was referring. Perhaps it was a campaign in the Kerry/Edwards `other America.' In my campaign, we talked about jobs and the need to revitalize southern Oregon's economy (among the highest unemployment in the nation). We talked about the war on terror and the need to keep America strong.

Last year DeFazio constantly accused me of distorting his record. His record never matched his rhetoric. Look at his votes on Thomas.loc.gov. He didn't vote yes on defense appropriations until 2004!

DeFazio accuses me of `blindly following President Bush.' When it comes to supporting our troops and bringing jobs to Southern Oregon, you bet I will! Apparently DeFazio forgot two important lessons from last year's campaign - our military and veteran's affairs are too important to be politicized, and his mischaracterization of me and the facts will not go unchallenged.

JIM FELDKAMP

Eugene