LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Homeless acting more brazen 

It's nice to read in the Mailbag letters from the 14 co-signers who have compassion for the homeless.

In the past three weeks, since the brouhaha over Officer Randy Ellis' sign painting, there has been a new brazenness among the homeless in our west Eugene business area. Let me relate just one of several instances.

I appreciated the 911 operator who stayed on the phone with me and refused to let me hang up until police arrived. A drug deal was taking place outside our front door involving four homeless people. These people saw me on the phone, looked brazenly at me and surrounded my parked car. The officers arrived. The people scattered. The 911 operator and the two police officers are heroes and heroines to me!

The authors of the Jan. 28 letter suggest that the officers try homelessness themselves for a week, to be able to have compassion. I do not believe that I must receive a food box or sleep at the Mission to have compassion. We, who see these people every day, all day, can see their plight. I give regularly to the Mission and FOOD for Lane County, as does my employer.

However, to allow the homeless to act any way they wish is reprehensible, in my opinion. I have worked here for years without any problems with the homeless. These recent incidents tell me volumes about how the police have become villains, and the homeless the heroes. It's beyond my comprehension.

THERESA MILLER

Eugene

LTD loses millions each year

In reading the guest viewpoint from Susan Ban (Register-Guard, Jan. 27), a member of Lane Transit District Board: If it weren't so tragic, it would be funny.

She writes that the board is concerned about a $200 a month increase in each employee's medical costs. Let's put that in perspective.

Here is a company that has a $38 million yearly operating budget. It generates in actual earned revenue (fares) $4.5 million a year. This was reported in last week's newspaper. So on a yearly basis, LTD loses $33.5 million each and every year. This year they are adding $27 million in new purchases, for a total operating expense of $65 million, minus income of $4.5 million, for a total loss this year of $60.5 million.

So where does the rest of the money come from? You, the taxpayer. LTD will say, "That's not true. It comes from the payroll tax," as if the business does not pass that on to you. And the rest comes from the state of Oregon, like that money, too, does not come from the taxpayers.

My point: If you're losing $33.5 million every year, what difference is another million here or there? Just give the employees the raise, add it on to the money you're already losing and move on. We can just raise the tax rate and take care of it. There, problem solved.

DICK WALKER

Eugene

Stock market is like gambling

According to the dictionary, gambling is "to take a risk in order to gain some advantage." More precisely, according to Oregon Revised Statute, gambling means "that a person stakes or risks something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under the control or influence of the person."

That's clear to me, and this also makes it clear that playing the stock market is gambling. Truth in advertising would require that the reformed Social Security laws, as proposed by our leaders, would allow people to transfer a certain portion of their Social Security into a gambling account.

Why restrict people to this sort of gambling? I suggest that people be allowed to make their own decisions how best to gamble. After all, it's their money. Open up the possibilities to gambling on sports, in casinos and in the lottery.

One advantage of including the lottery is that state governments would enthusiastically support this reform, since they are strapped for cash and need all the income from the lotteries that they can get.

Now that I'm on a logical roll, I am wondering why Congress hasn't instituted a federal lottery. They could even claim that they'd use the income to help fund the No Child Left Behind Act, rather like Oregon's government claiming that the lottery will help fund education.

KENNETH A. ROSS

Eugene

Get religion out of government

Helen Kintner (letters, Jan. 23) begs us to be steadfastly vigilant in protecting our constitutional mandate of separation of church and state. This separation is not one-directional.

It is purely a religious concept that life begins at conception. It is a scientific fact that a fetus cannot live outside the womb earlier than 23 weeks.

James Madison, president and father of the Constitution wrote, "Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combine together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform."

Thomas Jefferson, president and principle author of the Declaration of Independence, said, "Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to steal, murder, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality."

Under our Constitution, I loudly defend your right to never be forced to have an abortion. Under that same Constitution, I loudly defend my right to believe in no God or another kind of God and act accordingly by protecting my constitutional right to keep your religion out of my government, my bed, my doctor's office, my brain and my womb.

PAT HADLEY

Eugene

Where is LTD accountability?

Has anyone noticed that you never get to vote on the Lane Transit District board of directors?

Who are the directors accountable to? Whenever a vacancy occurs, the LTD general manager sends a list of possible appointees to the governor and one is selected.

LTD board members are appointed by the governor? Where is the public input process and accountability?

CHUCK WALLACE

Eugene

U.S. needs more Alaskan oil

The Jan. 26 editorial questioned the need to produce oil on Alaska's north coastal plain and commented that Republicans usually put their trust in "big business" rather than "big government."

You could not be more correct.

As chairman of the House Committee on Resources, I am encouraging Congress to open Alaska's north plain for energy development.

The editorial's well-intended energy plan for tighter vehicle fuel economy mandates will cause manufacturers to raise their prices and will not solve our dependency.

Congress tried to curb America's appetite for oil in 1975 with CAFE mandates. Fuel economy may have improved greatly since then, but Americans are more dependent upon foreign oil today.

We import twice as much oil as we did in 1975, partly because Americans are driving farther and more frequently.

History proved "big government's" restrictions did not reduce our dependence. But domestic energy production can.

Some groups, such as The Register-Guard's editorial board, claim the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's north plain oil resources are insignificant. Median estimates predict it could replace Saudi Arabian oil imports for nearly 30 years.

Many misinformed groups do not realize the U.S. government explicitly set aside this desolate plain from the rest of the refuge in 1981 specifically to explore its oil potential.

Now, bureaucratic red tape is causing oil companies to send jobs overseas that could have gone to Americans. Congressional Republicans recognize we must promote American jobs and improve our national security, which is why we continue to encourage development in Alaska.

REP. RICHARD POMBO 

R-Calif., Chairman, U.S. House

Committee on Resources

Washington, D.C.

'Styrofoam Zack' is gone

Eugene won't be the same anymore because at 78 years young, Zack Zakon died Jan. 7.

There is a gap in the rainbow, a missing hue. Something integral has slipped away.

Don't look for the guy dancing in front of the stage by himself or in a circle of friends at Eugene Celebration, the Oregon Country Fair or countless other venues in and around the Willamette Valley, because he's gone.

No more gift of irrepressible spirit to swoop in on gatherings large and small.

Zakon worked as a school teacher most of his life, but he was also a dance therapist, a real dance therapist who held classes and seminars. He was just always on the job.

As devoted to the Earth as he was to dance, "Styrofoam Zack" recycled everything. He even wrestled the toughest of materials to reclaim and succeeded where others had failed.

Truckloads of Styrofoam left Sacred Heart Medical Center regularly, rerouted from the county landfill to facilities that turned the wasted into the useful. He once remarked, "I made a commitment to the environment. We're in a relationship, we're going steady."

Nothing slowed down Zakon for long, not even 14 near-death experiences including a rolled car, a ruptured heart and an aneurism. Diabetes was No. 15.

His first words to the woman who would become his bride were, "I want you to dance with me. Just look into my eyes and don't think."

As he danced with her that night, he danced with the world; unabashedly.

RODNEY BLOOM

Eugene