LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Gas tax defies common sense

We were disturbed after reading the article regarding the proposed mileage tax (Register-Guard, Oct. 31). The new tax contradicts common sense.

While we appreciate the concerns addressed in the article, we would even go further to suggest another argument that was not dealt with in the piece itself. Although the tax would increase our state's current revenue, it would cancel itself out in the long run. It fails to take into account the cost of environmental damage and health problems that would arise from such a measure. Ironically, this added financial burden would fall on the shoulders of the taxpayers.

We all share responsibility for our country's dependence on oil and the ecological degradation that continues to endanger our future. However, some of us have already taken steps to alleviate the situation by choosing fuel-efficient vehicles that release little or no harmful emissions. This action should be encouraged, not penalized.

By eliminating the incentive to make such a decision, taxpayers would ultimately end up paying more to remedy the consequences of the enormous gas consumption and harmful emissions of the very cars the new tax encourages.

In order to face these consequences, the government would have to tap into our tax dollars. It makes us wonder: Wouldn't it be more effective to prevent the whole scenario in the first place? We choose our own vehicles; it's about time that we choose to accept responsibility for their effects on our health, our planet and our economy.

NATALIE STAFL, student

Sheldon High School 

and 15 co-signers

Eugene

Only humans evolve spiritually

The article "Chimps show no signs of altruism" (Register-Guard, Nov. 2) provides a useful clue that evolution deals with more than mere physical evolution.

Homo sapiens (you and me), so far as we know, are the only species evolving on a spiritual level. Some of us are closer to the chimps in that we value self-interest to a far greater extent than we value the well-being of strangers. This sort of "me first" behavior is found on almost every page of the daily newspaper.

Perhaps we will be more understanding of greed and selfishness when viewed as behaviors of less evolved human beings. The good news is that we can become more sensitive to the needs of others in our lifetime.

We truly are our brother's keeper.

THOMAS E. GILBERT

Eugene

Bush manufactured flu crisis

As the Bush administration continues to be exposed as the uncontrolled criminal enterprise that it is, the president now thinks he can divert the citizens' attention from his administration's anticipated indictment proceedings by sounding the emergency alert against avian flu.

Though he did admit that there was no immediate threat of bird flu in the United States, he declared a national emergency and indicated he would ask Congress for $7.2 billion. However, this emergency comes a week after the Senate passed an $8 billion spending bill on flu and disease prevention - a much-needed shot in the arm for national health, which had been stripped of its budget just like the Federal Emergency Management Agency was.

Of course, the Bush allocation throws in a little gift for his friends at the billion-dollar drug corporations. He never acts on behalf of the public interest alone. Protections for drug companies against lawsuits brought by working families in the event the vaccines end up killing people were incorporated into this emergency health measure. What a joke!

Combine the good old-fashioned scare of a influenza pandemic with a really scary Supreme Court nomination, throw in a little kickback to the pharmaceutical industry and you've got all the makings of a great reality show/horror movie. Now erase your minds and go back to work.

Contact your congressional representatives and weigh in on some of these extremely important issues that will affect us for generations to come.

LAUREN REGAN

Eugene

Gender can be mixed at birth

Ron Richey states in his Nov. 2 letter that, "You're either male or female."

I'd like to argue that he is mistaken in this notion.

You may be thinking, "What's this guy talking about? What else can there be besides male and female?"

The Intersex Society of North America reports that anywhere from 1 in 1,500 to 1 in 2,000 children born are intersex, or what most people commonly refer to as a hermaphrodite.

These are people who may have a variety of issues, including ambiguous genitalia, both male and female re- productive tissue, or genitals that do not match the individual's chromosomal sex.

Approximately 1 in 1,666 children born have neither XX nor XY sex chromosomes. These individuals do not fit into the typical male-female sex binary, so saying that one is either male or female and nothing else leaves out the thousands of people born intersex.

In response to Richey's condemnation of sex reassignment surgery, he should know that many intersex children are assigned a sex after birth, often arbitrarily due to ambiguity. So why shouldn't we let people reassign themselves?

For many people, surgery is the only solution to a conflict between sex and gender identity. Transsexualism is not an abnormal way of life.

KURT SEVITS

Springfield

Send Bush to peace studies

So Duncan Murray (letters, Oct. 29) thinks that one path to peace, as he puts it, is to send the likes of Kim Jong Il, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, et al., to the University of Oregon Peace Studies Program so they can learn to sing "Kumbaiya?" Great idea! And while they're at it, maybe they can hum a few bars of "Give Peace a Chance."

But I would suggest adding a few more bloodthirsty thugs to Murray's Peace Studies class list - for instance, Osama bin Laden. Remember him? And how about that Hugo Chavez character from Venezuela, the one that holier than thou TV evangelist Pat Robertson wouldn't mind assassi- nating?

And go ahead and throw President George W. Bush - to my knowledge the only major world leader in the last few years to launch a full-scale, un- provoked attack on another nation - into that gang as well. Or just throw Bush out period. That would be a cleaner solution; he isn't much into reading and studying anyhow.

In any event, I would suspect all of these individuals could learn much from the Peace Studies Program.

As to Murray's further comment that "the first function of government is to provide and preserve public safety," I couldn't agree more. So bring the troops home from a ruinous and tragic occupation of a foreign country that posed no real threat to us and let them actually protect our own borders.

Seems as if we used to have a full-strength National Guard for such matters.

PAT VENTURA

Eugene

Unions help protect incomes

The Register-Guard's Oct. 20 editorial commented on the continuing trend of corporate executives taking the lion's share of the wealth created by our nation's productivity, while the bottom 75 percent have experienced declining incomes.

Remember the movie "Gangs of New York?" That movie is a great example of why unions formed in this country - to provide mutual aid for survival. It's a different time in history, but we still find ourselves hoping our employer will treat us well. But when we form an alliance with others, we can balance the employer's power.

That is called solidarity. It is not so different from the kind of homeland defense we have recently been asked to support. It is standing together.

I now belong to the Home Care Workers Union, SEIU. Before we had a union we made $5 an hour. Now we have an hourly wage of over $9, paid health insurance, workers' compensation insurance, some vacation pay and a way of resolving grievances. Not only have we been able to improve our lives, but we have defended the needs of our clients as well.

So when you go shopping, look for the union label. When you go job hunting, look for the union job. If there is a union where you work, join and become active in it. You will gain many skills.

Support for unions could reverse the news we keep hearing about the rich getting richer while everyone else struggles for the basics of life.

JENNIFER SNYDER

Cottage Grove

What era offered moral clarity?

With his letter of Nov. 2, Ron Richey returns to the editorial page to decry the moral anarchy caused by those who support equal rights for transgendered people, the rights of homosexuals, abortion, secularism and liberal- ism.

Richey clearly believes the morality that supports such ideas to be a decline from some period of moral clarity. Unfortunately, Richey does not provide us with any indication as to when this time of American moral clarity may have been.

Was it the 1970s, when women worked for radically unequal pay? When sexual harassment, discrimination and second-class status were seen as a natural part of the workplace for women?

Was Richey's mythical time of moral clarity the 1950s, when millions of black Americans were denied basic rights by their state governments?

Would Richey return America to the 1930s, when the majority of Americans lived in poverty and the nation debated whether capitalism was an inherently flawed system?

How about the 1890s, when the U.S. Army and state militias massacred working men and women for walking off their jobs?

Surely, Richey would not advocate the return of antebellum America. Surely, this is too much for even Ron Richey to stomach.

So give us some guidance. Liberals have led America into moral anarchy. Which era of American history should we look to for moral clarity?

DAVID CECIL

Eugene

Base gasoline tax on I.Q.

Regarding the proposed miles-driven gas tax plan: I have a better idea. What drivers pay should be based on I.Q. The lower your I.Q., the more you have to pay. That way, the knuckleheads who came up with this asinine plan would have to pay for it.

JERRY BERG

Noti

LETTERS LOG

Letters received in past week: 149

Letters published: 60

What's on readers' minds: Letter volume dropped in this election week, but debate over the West Eugene Parkway remained the top letter topic. Writers continue to disagree strongly over the wisdom of the parkway project, and resentment is high among some that the Eugene City Council now opposes a project twice approved by voters. On the national front, the war in Iraq, the U.S. policy on torture and proposed spending cuts in Congress that would hurt the poor drew multiple letters.