LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Paper isn't fair and impartial

I have been a Register-Guard subscriber for about 30 years and have generally accepted the fact it is a far-left liberal publication.

I have tried to accept the newspaper's liberal leaning as necessary to its acceptance in a university community, even though The Register-Guard may often be guilty of less than honest, fair and equitable journalism. No one needs to debate this observation. One only needs to profile the newspaper's editorial articles and quickly the obvious becomes evident.

What I find really repugnant is the audacity to state that "The Register-Guard's policy is the impartial publication in its news pages of all news and statements on news." If this was truly the policy, there would be equality in reporting of political issues. This is certainly not the case.

The statement continues, "On this page, the editors offer their opinions on events of the day and matters of importance, endeavoring to be candid but fair and helpful in the development of constructive community policy." One only needs to read a few of these editorials to quickly come to the conclusion The Register-Guard is not interested in being fair in its analysis of the issues. The editorials are skewed to the far-left liberal interpretation of all issues, with no regard to being "fair and impartial."

The editors would be more honest with the public if they would either change their stated policies to reflect reality or develop equality on political issues. They should not live a lie.

RON JOHNSON 

Lowell

Haste can contribute to crashes

My sister was hit by a car on her motorcycle at the intersection of Gilham Road and Crescent Avenue. She had a green light, and the van had the yellow flashing light. OK, people, that means caution, slow down, stop, look!

I see all the time people going through yellow and even red lights like there is nothing to it. Well, let me tell you, after my sister's two surgeries and maybe having to have more, there are consequences to such careless actions.

Slow down, please, and think when driving. If drivers think they are going to be late, they should try to leave earlier instead of being in such a hurry and not being careful about their driving.

But mainly I want to commend the skateboarders who raced to the scene from the skateboard park and held my sister's hand while waiting for the ambulance to come. Those boys were a great comfort to her, and I can't thank them enough for taking the time and caring enough to see if there was anything they could do to help.

YOLANDA LOUISE BOUR

Eugene

System Aiken defends is broken

I don't feel safer now that U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken has sentenced environmental saboteurs as terrorists.

The issue requires interpreting law with uncompromising fairness. Yet, with such corruption at our highest levels, justice feels tarnished.

Aiken found herself the defender of this democracy by proclaiming that "we will not tolerate acts of violence to affect public debate." She also said that she administers law, punishes crime, deters others, reforms offenders and protects us.

Offenders acted because they felt that public debate no longer had merit and was hopeless. Many Americans agree. With so much white-collar corruption, rampant lobbying, industry crafting government policy and wholesale contempt for laws that protect the natural world, the system that Judge Aiken defends is broken.

Decades of picketing and letter-writing campaigns have yielded little. While I don't condone their actions, they were born from inequity, frustration and fraud.

If Judge Aiken is to demand that we have faith in our present cultural/political system, then it must be held equally for all. Sentences have been meted and activists who destroyed property will spend decades behind bars. Corporate and institutional criminals are free under the same laws.

I wonder if Judge Aiken is also feeling a hollowness in the justice served. Her revered position has been reduced to a mouthpiece for the ruling class that protects its own and destroys dissent by labeling it as terror.

PETER SARACENO

Eugene

Vitalism mischaracterized

Recent local contributions to the perennial dispute over creation versus evolution have sought to address the philosophical aspects of the issue, but in so doing they have wrongly characterized the tradition of vitalism.

Starting from the apparent fact that all species have arisen through evolution, Jean de Lamarck, Charles Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould and others have propounded scientific theories to explain how this might have happened. Since there are larger ontological questions beyond the evidentiary bounds of science, vitalist philosophy stepped into the breach.

Vitalism, whose best-known proponents have been Henri Bergson in the Belle Epoque and Rupert Sheldrake in our own era, does resemble creationism in that it acknowledges the need for a causal principle to initiate and sustain the formative action all around us. However, it is in no way dependent on notions of "irrreducible complexity" and, in accordance with the open-ended patterns of evolution as discerned by biologists, rejects the idea of entelechy or specific planning in advance.

The "elan vital" is a Brilliant Improviser, not an Intelligent Designer. Bergson, in his great work "Evolution Creatrice," reveals that there is no contradiction between creation and evolution. He presents vitalism as a sensible middle course between the two implausible extremes: creationist idealism and materialist positivism. His thought is in fact more compatible with pantheistic or animistic theologies than with authoritarian orthodoxies.

KEVIN RUNEY

Eugene

Consider dog boundary training

No doubt The Register-Guard will have received many letters regarding the June 3 article about vicious dogs. Heated topics, our pets and boundaries.

Young Breann Roseberry and Delaney O'Donnell are ripe to learn why they were bitten and how to respect boundaries - those of animals and people. Unfortunately, the article shouted fear and punishment. Only briefly did it focus on resolution which, in my opinion, is education - not just for dogs and dog owners, but especially for those who know little about either.

Consider making mandatory boundary training for all involved parties: the dog, dog owner and victim. They pay educational fees that cover trainer fees, animal regulation, licensing, etc. Graduation could be that, for one week, the owner and victim tend after the cited dog together.

Noncompliance? It's a phone call from the class instructor. Repeated noncompliance? The dog is picked up and euthanized.

Punishment fees are cold, stoic, internalizing. Fear and resentment have no place to go. Give people something to do, a focus, and they'll get past it. Give them a chance to get back on the horse and ride it out!

KAETHLYN ELLIOTT

Eugene

Women deserve monthly choice

William Saletan's June 3 Commentary article argues that women are interested in suppressing their monthly periods to "satisfy ... others." Women will have individual reasons to suppress monthly periods, not all associated with menses and the men in their lives.

Many women experience monthly or semi-annual symptoms associated with the dramatic natural hormone cycles, including irritability and binge eating. I have tried for 15 years to suppress my symptoms of PMS, not to please the males around me but in fear of not appearing a liberated woman. Women of the 21st century can do anything men can do, right?

For me, it is time to admit it. I prefer my moods when my hormones are at the same level for several months at a time. I work in a job that demands patience with others on a daily basis. I do my job better when my hormone levels aren't dramatically rising and dropping every month. How is controlling these hormone levels to alter their effects on one's mental state any different than taking serotonin-reuptake inhibitors to alter brain chemistry during depression?

It is not for men that I wish to control the hormonal cycle effects on my brain chemistry, it is for myself. To each woman her own choice.

STACEY KISER

Eugene

Consider a medical Peace Corps

How about a medical Peace Corps? One of the most successful programs ever conceived by our government has been the Peace Corps.

What about a new program training people medically for providing much-needed care in poor and out-of-the-way places where the need is greatest? The program could provide trained personnel in case of any terrorist attack that creates mass casualties and chaos.

F.D.J. JOHNSON

Eugene

Jerry Falwell wasn't honorable

Helen Kintner (letters, June 3) is of the opinion that Jerry Falwell should be honored with respectful silence.

How one is remembered posthumously depends upon how that person lived their life, agreed? Falwell made a lifetime goal of perpetuating intolerance, hate and bigotry. How honorable is it to blame every ill of humanity on civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters? How honorable is it to declare, "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being"?

Leaving a legacy such as Falwell has is certainly not honorable unless, of course, you agree with him, which, fortunately, many do not.

MAYR MAKENNA

Marcola

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