LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Need for school kits continues

One year ago, the Darfur Coalition and Our Saviour's Lutheran Church were working on assembling school kits for Darfur and other Third World countries.

With the assistance of the community at large, the Darfur Coalition sent out more than 1,000 school kits and Our Saviour's sent out 722 school kits through Lutheran World Relief.

Our Saviour's Lutheran Church is again working on Lutheran World Relief school kits, with a goal of 500 kits to be assembled and sent overseas. We will make as many kits as there are supplies available to make. Our Saviour's, a small congregation of mostly retired people, and the Saturday Saints, a group of developmentally disabled adults, work very hard on this project every year, with church people sewing school bags and purchasing school supplies to fill them.

The need for school kits continues year around, and there are always organizations that would greatly appreciate your help in addressing this need. School supplies are now on sale at very low cost in local stores. Help is also needed in sewing, sorting, filling and packing filled bags for shipping.

Our Saviour's will be assembling school kits in mid- to late September. The date will be publicized as soon as it has been determined. We would welcome involvement from the community in this project.

For more information regarding supplies or participating in this project, please call Our Saviour's at 343-0415, or the LWR School Kit Coordinator at 517-4104.

CECILE BETZER

School kit coordinator

Our Saviour's Lutheran Church

Eugene

Jesus' only cause was kindness

My wife and I will not be signing the new petition to stop civil rights for gay people.

We fear more the mind-set of those who feel they must impose their will on others through law or the lack thereof to sound politically correct for their peers.

Why would one go to a church that pressured you into a cause? Jesus had no cause other than to spread human love and kindness through empirical understanding. He had no agenda on sexual orientation, racial segregation or politics at all. The only time this great man ever lost his temper was against the money-changers who would do and say anything to usurp power from the church.

We suggest that people ignore anyone who seeks to act out their self-righteousness for motives known only to them. Live and let live!

DAN WOODMARK

Eugene

Ethanol fuel hoax is a disaster

Ethanol as an automobile fuel takes more energy to produce than it yields when burned in a car engine, thus we spend more money to lose energy.

We subsidize ethanol by more than 50 cents a gallon, and we burn lots of oil and coal to make it. The farming needed to produce ethanol causes needless topsoil erosion, and the entire production process increases global warming.

The only way to end the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming is through mass production of fission nuclear power plants producing clean hydrogen fuel. The ethanol scam is a political hoax designed to make Midwestern corporate farmers rich - and thus gain their political support - while starving the poor.

Chicken prices have doubled and milk prices are skyrocketing. United Nations food agencies say their cost for basic foodstuffs has doubled due to the massive corn harvest wasted on ethanol production, and the United Nations can no longer afford to feed the world's starving peoples.

You cannot run cars on food products and expect to feed the 6.7 billion people we now have on Earth. Food cost-based inflation will speed up the bankruptcy of our Social Security system due to automatic cost of living index increases.

The ethanol fuel hoax was a disaster born out of political calculation, not scientific analysis.

CHRISTOPHER CALDER

Eugene

Cardinal Mahony belongs in jail

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, leader of the largest Catholic archdiocese in the United States, belongs in prison for his complicity in priest sexual abuse of minors over many decades.

By covering for the criminal priests under his supervision, transferring them to other parishes and failing to report them to authorities or warn parents, he was guilty of perpetuating abuse. There are hundreds, if not thousands, more victims than would otherwise have been the case if he had not been an accessory to these horrendous crimes against humanity and instead had done the moral, right and legal thing.

But don't expect him to get his due. His infamous colleague, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, did the same thing - covered for criminal priests for decades - and he was promoted to a high-level post at the Vatican.

I expect that ultimately Mahony will experience the same fate, while the victims he helped create will lead troubled lives, a further legacy of corrupt Catholic leaders.

GARY CORNELIUS

Eugene

Why can't drivers slow down?

Bill Liljeroos (letters, July 16) should know that I am an avid cyclist.

I also have three vehicles registered in my name and pay Oregon state and federal taxes. Even if I didn't, I still would have the same rights to the road as he does.

To answer his question, roads always have been built for transportation. Before cars were invented, walking, riding horses and bicycling were how the roads were used. After the invention of the automobile, everyone had to learn to get along and share the road. Obliviously, Liljeroos has not yet evolved.

I'd recommend that June Turner's best choice (letters, July 16) when encountering an unsafe passing situation involving a bicyclist would be to slow down until it is safe to pass. That way, she would not have to kill anyone.

Why is it so difficult for a very small percentage of the population to slow down and drive safely, respecting all other lives?

RUTH MILLER

Eugene

America close to being fascist

I want to publicly thank Sens. Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden for voting with the majority of Americans to end the war in Iraq.

The Bush administration's illegal war of aggression for oil and regional power has taken the lives so many innocent men, women and children. It saddens and frightens me to live in a country where the voice of the people is being ignored by Republicans who continually vote yes for war and no for reducing health care costs or increasing the minimum wage or advancing stem cell research.

We all must get involved in whatever way possible to end this war and recover our own democracy. We must bring back habeas corpus, end torture, end warrantless spying on our own citizens and fraudulent elections - to name a few of our derailed rights. In my 64 years, this is the closest I've seen America come to being a fascist country.

LESLIE E. HUNTER

Eugene

U.S. known to abandon allies

Sen. Hillary Clinton's request to the Pentagon for Iraq withdrawal plans highlights our well-deserved reputation for abandoning allies, ignoring other's tragedies and failing to respond to significant attacks.

During the Cold War, examples would be crises in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala, Cuba and Lebanon. More recently, notoriety surrounds apathy towards Somalia, Rwanda, Uganda and Sudan.

Muslims of the Salafi-Wahhabi heresy take encouragement from U.S. failure to defend Iranian embassy sovereignty and lethargic responses to 15 subsequent, major terrorist attacks under four presidents. They understand the self-congratulatory righteousness we embrace when finding comforting failure within elegant foreign policy models for necessity, proportional response, multilateralism, redeployment and exit strategy.

Before the Senate unanimously confirmed Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, this Princeton Ph.D. provided a splendid dissertation for using classic counterinsurgency tactics, tactics consistently victorious when not politically subverted by letters such as Senator Clinton's. We cannot remind Iraqi allies and enemies of repeated achievements adopting comforting failure, when moderate constituencies seeking consensus on tough political issues must maintain their courage against those who would commence negotiation with butchery.

All statements must emphasize disengagement procedures as Iraqi and U.S. governments agree favorable conditions exist. Only then can the Salafi-Wahhabi jihadists understand that we intend to persevere in this first campaign of a generational conflict against them.

NOLAN NELSON

Eugene

Grocery workers in negotiations

Albertsons, Safeway and Fred Meyer grocery workers are in negotiations for a new contract.

After five months of negotiations, the employers have refused to even discuss most of the issues facing their employees today, such as health care beyond the first year of the contract, wages and sick pay. They have offered more than 40 economic take-aways and refused to consider removing even one.

Your grocery workers work hard and have not had a pay increase in four years. Please let them know you support them and want them to have a fair shake.

TRACY PAINTER

Eugene