LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Cartoon demonized Arab people

The Jack Ohman cartoon (Register-Guard, Dec. 2) that depicts maniacal Muslims behind "the photo op" at Annapolis mindlessly panders to our national propaganda campaign to demonize Arabic and Islamic peoples.

This contemporary iteration of anti-Semitism undoubtedly accounts for the profound public indifference throughout America to the massive death and destruction we have inflicted on the nation and people of Iraq, a 16-year genocidal assault beginning with the Gulf War, violating the most elemental human decency.

Martin Luther King recognized that a moral crisis must be aroused to secure human rights for all people - not just white, Christian or American people. But this requires empathy with "the other" as fellow human beings deserving safety from military attack, freedom from foreign occupation and preservation of their history, culture, infrastructure, economy, institutions and families.

Demonization blocks empathy. This same propaganda blitz is currently evoking paranoia and fanning the smoldering fires of threat to assault Iran, a culture that has neither attacked, invaded nor occupied anyone for some 300 years and has had no serious imperial ambitions since the Persian Empire.

The imagery associated with Palestine is especially ironic since it is Israel that is the invader and occupier with the power, the weapons, a 40-year track record of far greater violence and human rights abuses in the conflict and therefore most of the responsibility for permitting, negotiating and implementing a just, honest and realistic solution.

The only honest representation in the cartoon is that of (understandable) Islamic anger.

Jack Dresser

Springfield

Prichard nails downtown issues

Hugh Prichard's Commentary piece (Register-Guard, Dec. 2) highlights the problem we have in getting anything done in downtown Eugene.

I, for one, would like to see developments like the Tate or Newman's Fish market downtown, yet sadly, they don't meet our restrictive code requirements.

How many businesses do we need to relocate north to Coburg Road to see we have a problem? One only need look to the north at the vibrant downtown development in Corvallis and Salem to see an alternative path.

I see the recent vote against downtown redevelopment as a repudiation of city priorities and a vote of no confidence in the current council's plans and deliberations.

I would suggest a way out is to simply get out of the way and allow alternative paths for the private sector to develop creative options that will bring housing and retail back into the heart of our city.

For those who insist on hanging on to our present unworkable codes, I simply say: judge the results. We don't need more community planning or process to see Eugene's code is producing exactly the results in downtown we are getting. Most, I believe, would prefer the results we see in Salem and Corvallis to the mud holes of downtown Eugene.

It is time to try something different. Leadership sometimes means stepping aside and letting others create.

Bruce Mulligan 

Eugene

Keep sexual predators in prison

I don't have any sympathy nor empathy for the sex offenders who have difficulty finding a place to live (Register-Guard, Dec. 2).

They created this problem for themselves when they decided to selfishly force sex upon their victims. The daily worries that these convicted molesters and predators go through are nothing compared to the life-long suffering that their victims and loved ones have to endure.

Anyone classified as predatory, likely to reoffend or who has victimized minors should never be released from incarceration anyway, in my opinion. This housing hardship dilemma is all the more reason to keep these perverts in prison where they really belong.

G.S. Warren II

Springfield

We're fighting for our existence

I read every day the tirades of those against our country's efforts to combat terrorist activity in the world and against the efforts of our president to that end.

I have lived through the Great Depression and World War II. I served in the Oregon National Guard and U.S. Air Force during the Korean conflict. I saw our country humiliated by the left-wing radicals and protesters during the Vietnam War.

Now we are in a war we had better not lose or radical Islamic terrorists will either enslave everyone in the world or kill us if we resist. These protesters just don't seem to understand that.

The United States has never been in a war like the one we are engaged in now. The United States has never gone and butchered people just for the sake of butchering them. Yes, there have been mistakes made. However, many of these have been caused by those wishing to embarrass our military people and cause hard feelings among those we are trying to protect.

Yes, there are those in our military who have not behaved as they should have, but they are a minuscule percentage of those serving their country and, again, they are sometimes provoked into acting in a way not approved of by civilized mores.

It's time people woke up to the realization we are fighting for our very way of existence. In other words, they had better start getting it.

Oral R. Robbins

Eugene

Fur clothing causes suffering

With continual advancements in textiles, fur on clothing provides no enhancement to warmth but rather serves only as adornment. At what awful cost is such frivolity? It is at the terror, pain and suffering of animals.

In the United States, it is illegal to import, export or sell items with the fur of domestic dogs or cats, and only garments exceeding a price of $150 are required to have contents of fur of other animals identified in advertising or labeling. According to the fall 2007 newsletter by the Humane Society of the United States, an investigation by HSUS was conducted on the fur trim of coats sold by some of the largest retailers and fashion designers in the country.

Of 25 coats tested, the fur on 20 of the garments was identified as raccoon dog and three domestic dog. The fur on the coats was falsely labeled as raccoon, coyote, rabbit or faux.

While on an undercover assignment in China, HSUS investigators filmed the skinning alive of a raccoon dog by fur traders in a market. China, with virtually no animal welfare laws, is one of the worlds largest exporters of so-called "budget fur." It is estimated that 1.5 million to 4 million raccoon dogs have been killed in China for their fur, which is largely used as trim on hoods and collars and is evidently ending up in this country.

Consumers can help reduce such cruelty by making purchases with a conscience.

Betsy Gabriel

Blue River

Nothing wrong with Bergin story

Why are so many people in the Eugene area so upset about the article that was written about Dr. Patrick Bergin (Register-Guard, Nov. 25)?

The newspaper writes articles about different people in different situations all the time. I have read several long articles on people who were going through difficult situations, and I thought they were very interesting and often heartwarming or heart-breaking.

What is any different when it is a doctor going through a difficult time? Doctors are just people like the rest of us, and it is good to remind people of this once in a while.

I didn't think the article was tabloid-like at all. It was just a story of a man who lost a lot, due to the wrong choices.

Claudia Craig

Charleston

City has money for street repairs

When I read about Eugene's latest plan to raise taxes in order to address our backlog of street repairs, one question comes to mind: "What part of `no' don't you understand?"

Voters are simply not convinced that their tax dollars are being spent effectively, and we believe the city owes us more accountability before raising taxes to cover basic expenses.

As a former citizen member of Eugene's budget committee, I can tell you that the money is there. What is lacking is the political will to cut non-essential city services in order to fund our baseline responsibilities of infrastructure and safety.

This means shutting offices and laying off city staff.

Part of the problem may lie in our city charter, part in the demands from unions to preserve wages and benefits for government workers. But the real problem, in my opinion, rests with a mayor and City Council who are simply too absorbed with nonessential issues and efforts.

While our financial condition has deteriorated, the mayor and council have added staff for pet projects, spent millions dreaming up a new City Hall that nobody wants to pay for and laid down a nice chunk of change speculating on downtown real estate by signing purchase options which will most likely expire worthless.

The solution to our poor financial condition and inability to fund basic services will indeed come at the polls. The change will come in November when the mayor and several of our so-called progressive city councilors stand for re-election.

Richard Gaston

Eugene

Rice compiles shameful record

In her recent column "Annapolis unlikely to salvage legacies" (Register-Guard, Nov. 30), Maureen Dowd was incisive but too polite in describing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Since March 19, 2003, Rice, along with others in the Bush administration and in Congress, has been a war criminal and should be referred to as such. In Bush's first term, Rice, as national security adviser, dismissed the effects of the harsh military occupation of Palestine by the Israelis.

She ignored Osama bin Laden's threats and, along with the entire membership of the $45 billion per year U.S. intelligence boondoggle, was surprised when a few Arab murderers killed 2,973 innocent people in the eastern United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

Her path to war-criminality began when she publicly predicted the appearance of a "mushroom cloud" arising from nonexistent Iraqi nuclear weapons and otherwise strongly advocated the U.S. military invasion of Iraq in violation of the United Nations' Charter.

As secretary of state, Rice refused to restrain the Israel Defense Forces from ravaging parts of Lebanon for as long as the IDF desired in 2006. In short, Rice has been both incompetent and vicious.

It would be callous not to applaud any effort to achieve a peaceful settlement in the Palestinian lands. But it appears that war criminal Rice's chances of success there are about the same as the chance that war criminals Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger could have achieved peace on their terms in South Vietnam in 1973.

Remember what happened there?

Leo Quirk

Corvallis