LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Alternatives aren't the problem

David Factor's commentary (Register-Guard, March 6) made me wonder: What I have done to deserve ridicule as a Star-Belly Sneetch? And what has the Eugene School Board done to be threatened by a lawsuit?

We chose Eastside School because its program best matched our children's needs. We have no desire to cream students from neighborhood schools, nor are we elitist.

We have supported our school because we are impressed with the extraordinary efforts of the teachers, administrator and staff. We feel no malice toward Parker Elementary and are happy to find ways to benefit both schools (e.g., the recent upgrading of the playground).

Those who have spoken before the school board to defend alternative schools have also applauded Superintendent George Russell's goals and many of his recommendations. Testimony has cast doubt that alternative schools are responsible for inequity in the district and has shown that student transfers to neighborhood schools share just about equally in removing students from other neighborhood schools. These transfers and internal resource decisions can influence class size as much as enrollment caps.

Alternative schools are not the problem, but rather an important part of the solution. Recommendations on current alternative schools can be reconsidered in conjunction with future decisions on school boundaries, closures and construction.

It is time for the board to be courageous and to rise above emotional appeals and blatant threats like Factor's.

DAVID SOKOLOFF

Eugene

Evolutionary science is evolving

"Those who cavalierly reject the theory of evolution as not adequately supported by facts seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all."

Those are the words of Herbert Spencer from his 1852 essay "Development Hypothesis." In the 153 years since, creationism has only gotten a fresh coat of paint, disguised as legitimate science and picked up a name change: intelligent design.

But hey, who's kidding whom nowadays? Intelligent design proponents suggest life is too complicated and must have been designed by an outside force. Of course, the answer hinted at is God.

Science, however, isn't about end-all, be-all answers. What we have here is ignorance in the face of vast evidence collected and refined for many, many years. It's pretty much back to the Greeks attributing thunder and lightning to Zeus.

To just say God created everything is a cop-out. It answers nothing.

Phares Gilchrist (letters, March 7) is right. We shouldn't just arbitrarily choose our past. We should seek out the evidence and base our conclusions on that. We should not dismiss all theories simply because they challenge the status quo. The science behind evolution is evolving and as time goes on, it will be modified to reflect the information acquired from the field and from lab work.

But leave the theological dogma to church and stop trying to push it as science.

ROLAND MULLOCK 

Springfield

Where is outrage over torture?

If we must pay with our tax dollars for the misguided and brutal war in Iraq and our continued military presence in Afghanistan, why should any of our money support torture of prisoners?

Why, if we bow our heads in honor to slain soldiers and are moved to tears at the sight of amputees and the mentally disfigured returnees, must we accept as well the news that those detained in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo are regularly subjected to torture?

Military leaders, the Department of Defense and our president can no longer deny the facts. Yet they do. Congress, so distracted by partisan interests, lacks the guts or willingness to stop torture.

We civilians, armed only with words and the conviction that torture under any flag is profoundly wrong, lose heart. The voice of reason fades with the photos and even ardent pacifists suffer battle fatigue. Where is the public outrage today?

PATRICIA W. CHRISTGAU

Eugene

Here's a liberal tax proposal

Since we all are diversified here and love the schools and new taxes, I have some ideas for some new taxes:

All smoke shops (head shops) should have a tax for all pot-related items, such as pipes, bongs and the like. We can have a tax on Oregon Country Fair tickets.

There could be a tax on all organically grown and natural products sold in Oregon. We can tax all Volvos, Volkswagens and Saabs.

Any registered Democrat should, of course, pay an extra fee. Bicycle commuters could pay an annual tax. All protesters should have to pay a tax to gather, and this fee would help defray the cost of police overtime.

All hemp products should be taxed, and the Green Party should pay an annual tax as well.

I am sure if the good liberals stepped up and endorsed these taxes, our schools would be in much better shape. It's time for liberals to put up, as they have been speaking up for higher taxes forever. They should get to the table and pay like the rest of us.

MARIE LARSON

Eugene

Columnist must love executions

Regarding "Death penalty decision a judicial 'train wreck,' ' (Register-Guard, March 6): Has there ever been an execution that columnist George Will did not like?

In his grim, Eastern elite arguments in favor of the death penalty, he has decided to confuse everyone by employing the word "minority." But he admits that five of the nine Supreme Court justices, certainly a majority, voted to prohibit executions of those under 18. Using Will's own numbers, the reader can add 18 states to 12 other states to obtain a total of 30 states that already prohibit such executions.

Will attended Dr. Howard Elementary School in Champaign, Ill., arguably the best elementary school in the Champaign-Urbana area in that era. But does he recognize that 30 states constitute a majority of the 50 states?

Will is piqued that Justice Anthony Kennedy and his four colleagues may have misinterpreted the "cruel and unusual punishments" terminology in the U.S. Constitution. If Will is so keen on the printed letter of the Constitution, why does he not use his national podium to denounce the U.S. war against Iraq as unconstitutional and, hence, illegal because the U.S. government violated Article 1, Section 8? It clearly requires Congress to declare war.

Could it be that, in Will's mind, the executions going on in Iraq under the euphemisms of "collateral damage" are just as attractive to him as the executions of 17-years-olds in his own country?

LEO W. QUIRK

Corvallis

Discontent bred school choice

Neighborhood schools, and not alternative schools, caused the school inequity and achievement gap that exists today.

Parents and teachers formed alternative schools because of discontent with the educational methods of neighborhood schools - frequently, their indifference to meeting the needs of gifted students. No substantive changes were made in neighborhood school programs to attract parents, and over time more alternative schools were formed.

Since then, achieving students with involved parents have become concentrated in alternative schools, and neighborhood schools have been left with most of the low-income, special education and non-English-speaking students.

I was one of those parents who was driven away from my neighborhood school by the inflexible, one-size-fits-all educational model that it offered. Although I am grateful that I found a school that offered a more individualized education, I had to sacrifice any possibility of my children walking to school and having neighborhood playmates.

Today's problems were caused by the school district's failure to respond to what its constituents wanted. This lack of responsiveness continues, and it led to the development of several charter schools that are also portrayed as stealing achieving students from neighborhood schools.

The focus should shift from blaming alternative schools to viewing them as models for the solution. Give consumers what they want, and they will not need to look beyond their neighborhood.

KRISTIN KING 

Eugene

Property assessments unfair

I appreciated the March 3 editorial about the $4.2 million in property taxes that goes uncollected in Lane County due to outdated information on property values.

Lane County should hire additional personnel to assess properties and bring records on property values, and thus tax levels, up to date. The county's 9.8 percent share of the $4.2 million would pay for at least five more assessors. It also seems that the recipients of the remaining $3.8 million - school districts, cities and other branches of government - would be motivated to contribute funding toward correcting the problem.

Another part of a solution is for the county to put to use information that it already has available. Whenever a home is sold, a deed of sale is recorded and the market value of a property is available. Each year in Lane County, home values climb 5 percent to 15 percent, and more than 4,000 homes are sold. But these increased values are not reflected in people's tax bills.

Too many homeowners are paying less than their share of property taxes. If property tax payers whose homes are more accurately valued knew what other taxpayers are not contributing, they would be outraged at the inequity.

I hope that the newspaper investigates and reports on this issue in greater depth and thereby alerts taxpayers to the nitty-gritty details. Taxpayer awareness and pressure might motivate the county to correct the problem.

PAUL SCHULTZ

Eugene

Eugene has poor public image

The reasons that Eugene suffers severe economic uncertainty are both obvious and disturbing. Basically, working people don't want to move or invest here. Why? Because the word on the street is that the political climate is unhealthy for business. Eugene is known around the country as a no-growth community that fails to support its downtown businesses.

Another negative perception of our city is one of high drug use coupled with an inability to keep criminals incarcerated due to jail overcrowding, a definite red flag to any potential new business looking to relocate in Oregon.

Lastly, it doesn't help our civic image to lose a world-class hospital to our opportunistic neighbors east of Interstate 5. The future taxes and revenues lost by our City Council are staggering, yet they've all been re-elected.

Much of our problem is self-inflicted, stemming from a voting majority that doesn't want a good economy. In fact, our current city leaders invest far more energy on issues like diversity, gender confusion and the closure of successful school programs.

The Register-Guard could easily report on why our economy suffers and offer ideas and solutions to the problem. Are the editors afraid of ruffling feathers on the City Council or is the newspaper philosophically on board with this destructive anti-capitalist agenda?

WILLIAM M. EDDIE 

Eugene

LETTERS LOG

Letters received in past week: 191

Letters published: 64

What's on readers' minds: Local issues dominated discussion again this week as multiple letters debated school choice in the Eugene School District, the deadlocked labor negotiations at the Lane Transit District, the best use for the Eugene Water & Electric Board's riverfront property and the death of a well-known homeless woman, Victoria "Hatoon" Adkins. On the national front, the ongoing dispute about whether to include study of the so-called "intelligent design" theory in science classes alongside evolution prompted the most letters.