LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.Byline: The Register-Guard Greenhouse deserves a medal Bunnatine Greenhouse (Register-Guard, Aug. 7) does not deserve the harassment she is receiving due to her objections to Halliburton's favored and possibly illegal government contracts. She deserves the Medal of Freedom Medal of Freedom highest award given a U.S. citizen; established 1963. [Am. Hist.: Misc.] See : Prize . After reading this article, I am outraged that Washington politicians believe they can get away with this kind of blatant bullying. I am awed at her courage to stand up to these "crooks" who are in power in our government. This extremely intelligent and capable woman deserves an outcry from the American people An American people may be:
Her moral standards and fortitude in the face of political bullying should be emulated. It makes a powerful argument in favor of human cloning Although genes are recognized as influencing behavior and cognition, "genetically identical" does not mean altogether identical; identical twins, despite being natural human clones with near identical DNA, are separate people, with separate experiences and not altogether if we could duplicate her courage and ethics and replace Washington politicians with people of her fortitude. SUSAN WATERS Eugene Corruption hurts U.S. in Iraq I appreciated the Aug. 7 story about "Bunny" Greenhouse, whose distinguished career as a contract watchdog is over because she testified that the Halliburton contracts represent blatant and improper contract abuse. Last year, the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority's own audit found that $8.8 billion was "missing" from the Development Fund for Iraq In May 2003, following the invasion of Iraq in March of that year, the Central Bank of Iraq-Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) account was created at the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the request of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Administrator. . A coalition official cited the body for lax stewardship. One of the main benefactors of these funds was Halliburton. Why hasn't the press and Congress investigated this? Power corrupts! Only a tiny fraction of the money allocated to rebuild Iraq has actually been spent for that purpose. This is one reason we are losing the battle for hearts and minds there. Should they spend your money on making Vice President Dick Cheney and his friends richer, or on ending the war? JERRY BRULE Eugene Founding Fathers were deists deists (dē`ĭsts), term commonly applied to those thinkers in the 17th and 18th cent. who held that the course of nature sufficiently demonstrates the existence of God. There is no dialogue between the Christian Right The term "Christian Right" is used by scholars and journalists, to refer to a spectrum of right-wing Christian political and social movements and organizations characterized by their strong support of conservative social and political values. and the rest of us in America. Instead, we all search our nation's history to uncover obscure quotes that support our written-in-stone points of view. Ralph Bates Bates , Katherine Lee 1859-1929. American educator and writer best known for her poem "America the Beautiful," written in 1893 and revised in 1904 and 1911. (letters, Aug. 3) cites our Founding Fathers and lobs a quote from the son of Congregationalist con·gre·ga·tion·al·ism n. 1. A type of church government in which each local congregation is self-governing. 2. Congregationalism missionaries - Supreme Court Justice Josiah Brewer - to try to convince the rest of us that our laws and institutions are based upon Christianity. Bates also declares: "Just as a house needs a foundation, so does a nation." My response: Thomas Jefferson, in an 1823 letter to John Adams, wrote, "And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a Virgin Mary Virgin Mary: see Mary. Virgin Mary immaculately conceived; mother of Jesus Christ. [N.T.: Matthew 1:18–25; 12:46–50; Luke 1:26–56; 11:27–28; John 2; 19:25–27] See : Purity , will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." Our Founding Fathers were deists - not Bible-believing Christians. They did not believe in the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus or the divine inspiration of the Bible. As for our nation's foundation, Harvey Wasserman sums it up best: "It is not the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments Ten Commandments or Decalogue [Gr.,=ten words], in the Bible, the summary of divine law given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai. They have a paramount place in the ethical system in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. that form the bedrock of American values. It is the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution. `If anything should be chiseled chis·eled or chis·elled adj. Made or shaped with or as if with a chisel: a finely chiseled nose. Adj. 1. in stone on our public buildings, it's the Bill of Rights." ROBERT SIMMS Eugene LETTERS LOG Letters received in past week: 130 Letters published: 62 What's on readers' minds: Still in the dog days for letter volume, though it picked up a bit from last week. This week's hottest topic was a debate about whether the United States was founded as a Christian nation. Coming in a close second was an interesting give and take on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perspective from Chinese- and Korean-American letter writers added depth and complexity to the debate. |
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