LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Letter reference crossed a line

George Beres is entitled to his views (letters, Oct. 5) about the United States and Israel, and he is right to call for expanded investigation of Islam, Arab nations and the Middle East at the University of Oregon. We all have our wish lists of areas of study to conserve or expand in the face of radically declining state support for higher education in Oregon.

But Beres crosses a line when he attributes Professor David Frank's carefully considered, fair and independent positions on Israel, the Palestinian crisis, or United States or UO policies (letters, Sept. 16) to his supposed ethnic or religious identity, about which Beres is poorly informed.

Frank's views, which Beres acknowledges are moderate, are based on his disinterested scholarship, not his identity. And to claim that they are the latter is a form of racism, specifically anti-Semitism. Beres has no right to identify Frank publicly and without basis as Jewish or anything else and then to attribute views or characteristics to him based on that alleged Jewishness.

Beres's reference to UO "voices of Jewish extraction" sounds chillingly like an anti-Semitic code. We should criticize Israel, the United States or the UO and its faculty as appropriate, but we should do so civilly and without bigotry.

MATTHEW DENNIS

Professor of history

University of Oregon

Eugene

Newspaper hates George Bush

Admit it. The Register-Guard hates President George Bush. As a matter of fact, the newspaper hates conservatives, Christians and the God we believe in.

The paper has chosen to believe everything it hears that might substantiate the belief that we are wrong, but it doesn't do the research itself to assure that its staff knows what they are talking about. The lies are so bold that most of them are totally absurd.

Therefore, because the newspaper doesn't have the ammunition to present a valid argument, it resorts to name-calling and negates any opportunity it may have to persuade anyone that it has the wisdom and knowledge that you want us to believe you have. And the editors wonder why conservatives are taking up more and more of the electorate every time elections roll around.

Don't we control the House and the Senate now, as well as the presidency? I am looking forward to the next elections. The more the newspaper talks, the more we win.

I welcome the opportunity for civil discussion or debate, but will not seek it further in this venue. In the meantime, see you at the polls!

MATT DAVIDSON 

Eugene

LIPA matches words with action

Lane Individual Practice Association, a private insurance company, administers the Oregon Health Plan to thousands of the elderly and disabled poor of Lane County.

About 2 1/2 years ago, a range of community health care providers and advocates mounted a protest against a host of abuses that they alleged that LIPA had perpetrated against our most vulnerable citizens. Advocates' efforts sparked government investigations of LIPA's practices.

A state investigation culminated in a settlement agreement and a LIPA voluntary action plan launched in late 2004. A year later, we are gratified to say that the LIPA of two years ago is not the health care organization visible to us today. LIPA has matched its words with action.

Thanks to sincere commitments expressed and carried out by LIPA CEO Terry Coplin and Dr. Gary Young on behalf of the LIPA board of directors, Oregon Health Plan consumers and advocates see real change in both the substance and the style of LIPA's administration of health plan benefits. It seems inconceivable to us that the bad old days of the health plan in Lane County could return.

Throughout the course of the investigation and its outcome, LIPA has consistently portrayed itself as a community partner in the effort to provide compassionate, high-quality health care to the least of these among us. LIPA's words ring true now. With the continued participation of health plan members and advocates in this partnership, LIPA seems set to raise its service to the highest level of excellence.

TIM BAXTER

Lane County Law and

Advocacy Center

and four co-signers

Eugene

Israel is still spying on the U.S.

On Oct. 5, American Zionist and senior defense department analyst Lawrence A. Franklin confessed to injurious espionage against the United States on behalf of Israel. I thought for sure American supporters of Israel in the media, such as Thomas Friedman and David Brooks, whose columns regularly appear in The Register-Guard, would leave their Zionist partisanship aside and condemn the perfidy of Franklin. They have not.

Jonathan Pollard, another American Zionist, spied for Israel. He was convicted and has been in prison since 1986.

Israel has its own member of Congress in the U.S. House of Representatives in the person of Tom Lantos, D-Calif., with U.S.-Israeli citizenship. Every American politician of note has to proclaim servitude to Israel.

Despite all this and $5 billion of U.S. aid annually, Israel still spies on the United States. Since its inception in 1948, the violent acts of the Zionist state have largely gone unpunished - the assassination of United Nations envoy Folk Bernadotte in September 1948; the killing of 34 American crew members aboard the USS Liberty in 1967; bulldozing to death of American Rachel Corrie in 2003; and the continued massacres of Palestinians in their homes, refugee camps and villages.

With the rise of a universal historical consciousness, people the world over will not allow Israeli crimes to go unnoticed. And as recent U.S. public opinion polls indicate, we Americans are not far behind.

M. REZA BEHNAM

Eugene

Nursing isn't just another job

The article "Not every good job requires a degree" (Register-Guard, Sept. 27) implies that nursing has modest requirements for education. The minimum degree is a two-year associate of arts in nursing.

However, before one can enter the nursing program, there are prerequisites that take two years to complete. They cover such subjects as biology, anatomy, physiology, nutrition, sociology, chemistry, pharmacology and microbiology. The competition for entry into the program demands a high GPA and, unofficially, you need a 4.0 to even be considered.

Nursing schools must select the best candidates to produce the best nurses. Many nurses have a bachelor of science or master's degree in nursing and many have Ph.D.s.

Nursing is a profession licensed by the state. We deal with true life-and-death situations. We care for your loved ones and advocate for your rights as a patient. Our profession allows a choice of positions ranging from working in a doctor's office checking patients' blood pressure and temperature to working with hemodynamically unstable post-surgical or trauma patients.

When the level of care becomes more complex, additional certifications are required. Many states require up to 30 hours of continuing education credits before license renewal every two years. If we make a mistake, the patient dies. If the customer service rep makes a mistake, does anybody die?

Our profession also requires accountability, reliability and integrity. It does not simply need workers to fill the vacancies. Our level of education and training precludes our profession from being thought of as simply a job.

BARBARA CHENARD, RN BSN 

Eugene

President must earn respect

The Oct. 11 letter from Christine Kelsay is most puzzling. She feels that many Eugeneans are hypocritical, claiming to love diversity, tolerance, peace and love, and yet they rage, in apparent contradiction to those claims, against the president.

She claims we use "half truths, falsehoods, and pure hate ... against someone who is not their kind," and that "tolerance and diversity" should apply to anyone. Further, she feels that in this great democracy, we should simply wait until it's our turn at the elective process.

I guess we could assume that Kelsay is for the war in Iraq and would say that we must honor the dead (probably exceeding 2,000 by November) by sending in more cannon fodder. Who will be left to honor that last soldier when there are no more?

She apparently is comfortable with the monstrous debt accumulated by this administration, obliterating the surplus left by the Clinton administration; happy with the slow reaction to Hurricane Katrina while hundreds of people died; comfortable with the suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act, allowing outside no-bid contractors to pay as little as they wish to their workers in New Orleans, and is not concerned that President Bush may veto the $400-plus billion military appropriations bill because it now contains an amendment insisting that the military adhere to its own existing rules regulating torture.

Let it be known that I will respect the person in the White House when that person deserves my respect.

BOB THOMPSON

Eugene

WWII comparison doesn't work

I admit, the Oct. 15 letter by Patrick Du Gard made me think: Does he have a point? Does his argument for the Iraq invasion hold any water?

Alas, no.

A quick check of historical facts told me otherwise. America invaded Sicily in July 1943 as part of an Allied strike against German occupation. And although the Pearl Harbor attack happened in 1941, it took us until 1943 to finish research and completion of the atomic bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy. Had testing not gone well on those, our response to Pearl Harbor would have been a planned invasion of the Japanese mainland.

The comparisons made by Du Gard do not hold up. President Bush invaded Iraq under the guise of Saddam Hussein's threat of hidden weapons of mass destruction, which we all know now was a lie.

RON McINTYRE

Springfield