LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Heat won't alter chlorine gas

Under the headline "Chlorine gas used in Iraq attack," by Kim Gamel of The Associated Press (Register-Guard, March 18), it was reported that, "Although chlorine gas can be fatal, the heat from the explosions can render the gas nontoxic."

Although the first clause is true and exposure to chlorine can be fatal, the main stem of the sentence is untrue: Heat cannot render chlorine nontoxic. Chlorine is an element. Although thermodynamic changes involving heat can change its physical form, it will still be chlorine and possess those chemical properties characteristic of chlorine. This includes toxicity.

If inhaled at room temperature, chlorine is considered immediately dangerous to life or health in concentrations as low as 30 parts per million. Perhaps the reporter meant to say "heat and the explosion."

In the chemical environment of an explosion, some chlorine could react with hydrogen to form hydrogen chloride gas, which has an IMDL threshold of 100 parts per million by volume, or with carbon and oxygen to form phosgene, with an IMDL threshold of 2 parts per million by volume. The chemical environment of an explosion is not likely to produce wholly nontoxic products from chlorine.

My concern with such misinformation is that chlorine is widely available and can be possessed by persons unfamiliar with its chemistry. This article makes it appear that chlorine could be rendered nontoxic by heat, combustion or explosion.

PAUL ENGELKING

Professor of chemistry

University of Oregon 

Eugene

Put drug addicts into prison

Hooray for Joe Ferguson (Register-Guard, March 22) removing hypodermic needles from our parks. I invite my socially conscious friends to join him.

I also invite my tightfisted Lane County friends to open their wallets, vote for the county income tax and insist that the money be used to get these hapless, destructive, misfit addicts into prisons and work camps for a year, so they get through detox and perhaps function in life instead of littering with their deadly trash.

TED BROWN

Eugene

Nonviolence saves big bucks

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates the ratio of cost of violence to cost of prevention to be 7-to-1. By my calculations, a U.S. economy based on violence prevention and peace-building eventually could realize an annual peace dividend of $1.2 trillion.

The Illinois Center for Violence Prevention estimates direct and indirect costs of interpersonal violence in the United States at $425 billion per year. The president's 2008 budget proposal includes $666 billion in current military spending. Adding $425 billion to $666 billion yields $1.1 trillion.

Using one-eighth of that for prevention, $136 billion, could save the U.S. economy $955 billion. We would still have $530 billion for defense, more than three times the combined military spending of Russia, China and the six rogue states.

The need for a huge military machine would decline rapidly as world desperation, the root cause of violent conflict, is regarded seriously. An annual investment for 10 years of $59 billion would provide shelter, health care and AIDS control, as well as eliminating starvation and malnutrition for everyone on the planet.

As the need for a military declines, the interest on the national debt attributable to military spending and the costs of veteran benefits ($300 billion) can be added to the peace dividend, totaling $1.2 trillion annually.

It makes "cents" to establish a cabinet-level Department of Peace (House Resolution 808). If Americans can risk complete incineration of the planet with thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, certainly we can find the courage to open our fist.

DAVID HAZEN

Eugene

County tax unfair to retirees

The Lane County commissioners just don't get it.

Their retirement accounts are exempt from the proposed Lane County income tax, but they want to tax individual retirement accounts. All of my retirement savings are in IRAs. I suspect many others are in the same boat.

Even with the possible enactment of the tax, I still will pay a considerable amount because I am not yet drawing on my retirement accounts. I will never vote for the tax until they resolve this inequity.

When will they get the message?

BILL STOEBIG

Eugene

HPV vaccine worth considering

Parents who believe that vaccinating their daughter against human papillomavirus can promote promiscuity need to think about a couple of other events. If that daughter is raped by someone carrying HPV, should she also have to suffer cervical cancer? What if she has the bad luck to marry a man who carries it?

I'm sure you could find grieving parents all over the world who wish there had been a vaccine for their dead daughters.

KRISTEN JOHNSON INGRAM

Springfield

Finish what we started in Iraq

My husband and I seem to be in the minority - again. We were adamantly against the Iraq war from the start.

The United States forced this war on the Iraqis. Many thousands of Iraqi people have died, while several thousand of our people have died. Their infrastructure is damaged or destroyed. Their lives are a shambles. Their government is not yet ready to run the country with strength and justice.

Do we accept responsibility for all this? I don't hear this being talked about. To leave without stabilizing the country will cost us much more than finishing what we started will cost. We cannot make Iraq a perfect, Western-style country - and we shouldn't try to. But we must help them prepare to govern themselves in their own way.

So we have two strong reasons to finish what we started. One is our own long-term self-interest. The other is our responsibility for causing this mess. Are we really a nation of values, or just one of shortsighted self-interest?

BARBARA DARE

Lorane

Homophobia divides church

I was very pleased with the beautifully written and well-balanced article by Jeff Wright, "Unsettled times for Episcopalians" (Register-Guard, March 16). He did a lot of skillful interviewing.

I am a retired Episcopal priest, now living in Eugene. My family and I are members of the Church of the Resurrection, which Wright featured.

The parish I served for 24 years was in Fallbrook, Calif., and under the current rector they have left the Episcopal Church to put themselves under an African Anglican bishop. The remnant of loyal Episcopalians has been locked out of the church buildings and is taking legal action to regain the property.

To me, the whole issue is simply dumb homophobia and not even biblical literalism, since everybody, everywhere picks out of the Bible what they want and there is plenty of terrible stuff in there that everybody rightly ignores - for example, the penalty of death by stoning of a bride who is not a virgin on her wedding night, and stoning for blasphemy, violation of the Sabbath, adultery and filial insubordination. Why not ignore the bits about homosexuality?

I also think that there should be no problem with gay marriage. What damages the institution of marriage is all the news of the multiple marriages of celebrities and of so many having children without being married. I wish the media would stop reporting this.

Wright has understood and done a great job of reporting about us Episcopalians.

The Rev. DAVID H. FENTON

Eugene

Age helps to identify a person

James Jacks asks in a March 17 letter why reporters include the ages of people in stories rather than say, weight. At the risk of taking a facetious question too seriously, I'll suggest an answer.

A one-minute Internet search turns up at least six James Jacks between the ages of 26 and 72 living in Oregon. Age is a basic part of the identity of each of them.

If I see James Jacks, 31, in a news story I know instantly he's not the James Jacks who went to high school with me in 1949. If I see James Jacks, 165 pounds, I have no clue.

If our letter writer is an older gentleman and a younger James Jacks gets arrested in a drug bust, the elder Jacks may come to appreciate the value of having the age of the rapscallion included in the news report. It will save a lot of explanations to his friends.

Furthermore, as a reader I identify a bit more with people closer to my own age. They are likely to have had more of the same life experiences.

All of the stories are interesting, but I find I'm increasingly attracted to those about geezers.

DAVE EMERY, 75

Eugene

Dead animal left in the street

I called the Lane County Sheriff's Department on March 17 at 1 a.m. to report a dead animal on the street in front of my house. I found out that I had to call the sheriff after playing phone tag, which was itself frustra- ting.

The dispatcher told me that animal control does not pick up dead animals; public works does. She also informed me that since it was the weekend it would be Monday before anyone would pick it up. If someone from public works picked it up on the weekend, it would cost overtime.

I have lived at my current location for 10 years and this is the first time I have called for county assistance on such a matter. I have paid about $10,000-plus in property taxes and the one time I need help, I don't get it.

I say that smaller government is best. Lane County can lay off all its employees as far as I am concerned.

W. JOE LYON

Eugene

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