LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Salvage logging saves live trees

Last weekend I drove over the Santiam Pass and was sickened to see the thousands of acres of dead, fire-burned trees from the huge fire that happened several summers ago.

The trees are now rotting. Some are falling down, some have just the tops falling out. The debate to log or not to log burned trees continues.

I have two thoughts. First, last year's demand for lumber was about 17 billion board feet. Most of that lumber comes from live, standing timber that must be killed to harvest. What if there were a large volume of usable timber that was already dead? Wouldn't it make sense to harvest that first and leave the same amount of live timber living?

Second, I am hearing reports on how well burned areas (especially the Biscuit Fire) are rejuvenating themselves. Hogwash! If that were true, then why are logging companies required to replant all clear-cuts?

In the 1950s we tried block logging (logging one section and leaving the next one to reseed it). When that didn't work we tried helicopter seeding. When that didn't work we decided that hand planting of seedlings works best. No stripped land will recover by nature alone as fast as land that has seedlings replanted 10 feet apart.

Next time you drive over the Santiam, look at that rugged land and tell me how fast it will recover by itself. What is going to reseed it? Next time you buy a 2-by-4, remember that you could have saved a live tree if you had cut a burned one.

JIM CHAPMAN

Lowell

Sanity demands Iraq withdrawal

More than four years on, our continuing and ever-escalating presence in Iraq remains delusionally predicated on an assumption that our influence is stabilizing, and prevents both the metastasis of al-Qaeda and the metamorphosis of a civil war into a genocidal one.

But the American people are no longer buying it. Most now understand that which many had predicted in the runup to the war - that our presence has, in fact, created a nation-sized training ground for would-be terrorists, and ripped open a centuries-old sectarian wound which had been held only loosely together by successive dictatorial sutures.

Winston Churchill famously once referred to Iraq as an "ungrateful volcano." Leaving aside the question of whether an invaded and occupied nation should ever be expected to be grateful for its imposed misery, Churchill's volcano analogy has many decades later proven apt, and unheeded. We are today, as the British were then, no more able to "win" in Iraq than we are to defeat a flow of lava.

Tilting at lava flows, much like at windmills, proves only the height of lunacy. The eruption of sectarian violence in Iraq is now a cataclysm beyond any force of the bravest men and women to contain it. Our troops are becoming surrounded by a curtain of fire, and sanity is knowing that it's time to get them the hell out of the way.

TODD HUFFMAN

Eugene

Support health care reform bills

Are you ready for a better health care system? The American health care system can provide the best care available in the world.

Unfortunately, the emphasis on excellence has blinded us to the fact that about one in six Americans have no realistic chance to get that kind of care. As a result, the United States ranks with Croatia in overall quality of health care in the community.

In Oregon, we are three votes away from coming to grips with the problem of uninsurance. Two comprehensive reform bills (Senate Bills 27 and 329) have moved into the final stages of the approval process. May is the month to contact your legislators and urge them to action. As a group, they are on the fence on health care reform. It takes some courage to support a bold initiative, and it is we voters who can give them the support they need. A few dozen e-mails may do the trick.

Our legislators will also be hearing from those who want to keep things as is. SB 27 or SB 329 (or both 27 and 329, for that matter) will start the ball rolling. Either of these bills will provide a framework for public solutions to the problems of our health care delivery process.

Let your legislators know that you are ready for meaningful health care reform. Support SB 27 and SB 329.

FRANK N. TURNER, M.D.

Eugene

Green recall effort defies logic

Bob Hooker's letter to the editor on April 30 is perplexing, to say the least. It makes me wonder just what those trying to recall Lane County Commissioner Bobby Green think they are accomplishing.

First, Hooker is concerned about how much a recall election could cost taxpayers. Well, the May 2008 primary will be less than a year away by the time a recall election occurs. So why bother with a recall when the regularly scheduled primary election would let Commissioner Green's constituents decide if they want to keep him in office?

Second, Hooker describes in his letter the process whereby the four remaining commissioners would appoint a replacement if their recall is successful. That's where I become truly baffled by the recall effort. And I'm at a loss to try and follow the logic of where this is taking us.

Those trying to recall Commissioner Green have also indicated they intend to try to recall Commissioners Bill Dwyer and Faye Stewart. So on one hand they are so dissatisfied with Dwyer and Stewart that they want them recalled from office, but on the other hand they have the confidence and trust in Dwyer's and Stewart's judgment to do something as important as appoint a county commissioner.

Confused yet? Or, is it their intent to try to recall Dwyer and Stewart before they act on making an appointment? Then what?

I'm not about to support any recall effort that totally disrupts an already struggling Lane County government.

DEBI CREAGER

Elmira

Piercy's plea doesn't ring true

After reading Mayor Kitty Piercy's May 3 guest viewpoint in which she laments, "We respect our neighbors and meet with them regularly. We only ask for that respect to be mutual" in regard to Springfield's desire to rid itself of Eugene's "helpful influence" pertaining to urban growth boundary issues, I was astonished. Again.

Either Piercy has a short memory - or a twin. When Piercy says "we" are respectful, does she mean like when, as the mayor for all of Eugene (except, of course, the voting majority), she ignored three citywide votes supporting the West Eugene Parkway (and a strong "no" to other alternatives)?

Perhaps she was referring to when she and lame-duck Councilor David Kelly threatened to block favorite projects of their two "partners," Springfield and Lane County, if those two entities didn't go along with Piercy's demand to vote down the parkway project. I recall that Piercy later was quoted as saying, "Why can't we all just work together on this?" Why, indeed?

But Piercy did say that Harvard thinks we're swell here in Eugene. Of course, anyone who lives within 2,000 miles of Eugene knows that our City Council makes the Three Stooges look like the Three Wise Men. It's worth noting that Harvard is situated beyond that 2,000-mile perimeter.

Springfield, on the other hand, is much closer, and therefore, much wiser. People there understand that the less they have to deal with the likes of Piercy and her usual suspects on the City Council, the better off they will be.

DAVE FENNER

Eugene

Send a prayer Darfur's way

I understand that there are plenty of issues to focus on in our own country, and I, too, am very interested in getting those resolved.

However, it dumbfounds me that it seems every day there is another article about the outrageous genocide taking place in Darfur, and no one seems to believe anything is in order but a passing glance.

I'm not suggesting anything radical or crazy. All I'm asking from those who aren't already taking some action is this: Will people please send a prayer their way? They need it now more than ever.

SHAYLA LACY

Eugene

Advice for president, Congress

It was Georges Clemenceau, twice prime minister of France, who represented his country at the Versailles peace conference at the conclusion of World War I, and who declared that "War is too important to be left to the generals."

ARTHUR MOKIN

Leaburg

Is that the sound of laughter?

As I sat in my hot tub last night, sipping Pendleton whiskey and puffing on a Swisher Sweet under a big moon, I could hear a faint chuckling sound wafting in from the east.

I took another sip and it hit me. How ironic that President Bush would veto a bill that contained millions in welfare cash to Lane County, in Oregon. I had to wonder if he had been logging onto Al Gore's Internet and reading the letters on this page.

I slowly slid to the west side of the hot tub and chuckled back.

DON RICHEY

Eugene

Avoid piecemeal development

Good cooks know that thorough planning is essential for a successful meal. It's also essential for successful weddings, vacations, careers and downtown redevelopment.

Piecemeal strategies such as the one presented by Beam Development will not give Eugene's downtown the vitality needed to succeed in drawing tourists - a clean, healthy and available industry.

But do not hand KWG Development Partners the carrot without stipulations. Covered walkways, or porticos, are the architectural necessity to invite year-round foot traffic, as are benches, planters, greenery and free parking.

Plan ahead, Eugene; plan for a successful party!

ALICIA WHITE

Culp Creek