LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Was ELF sign planted as a scam?

There was an alleged Earth Liberation Front sign near some torched McMansions. Was the sign for real?

In the late 1800s, technology was advancing fast and factories soon were out of date. Some factory owners would increase their insurance, torch the factory and blame it on workers. The owners got an up-to-date factory and eliminated disgruntled workers - two birds with one stone.

A modern, fictionalized version of arson-for-insurance is the movie "Save the Tiger," in which a factory owner feels his only option is a fire. Jack Lemmon won the best actor Oscar in 1973 for his portrayal.

"Redlining" is an unscrupulous bank practice that denies loans in designated areas. Redlining long was denied, then admitted.

Seattle police had undercover officers in the 1999 World Trade Organization demonstrations, which turned into a riot. Although the police denied having agent provocateurs and agent saboteurs, photographs show some undercover officers had rocks in their hands. The same was true in Quebec.

Builders and bankers are very desperate now, and arson is cheap. Getting rid of environmentalists is an extra big plus.

An old business joke was: "I heard your factory burned down."

"That's next Thursday."

Perhaps "ELFing a property" (torch and blame) is a new business joke, slogan and scam.

David Hoffman

Eugene

U.S. must grant Iraqis safe refuge

Thousands of Iraqis have worked alongside American forces in Iraq. Now, their association with American forces has put them at a huge risk for retaliation. Yet those who seek refuge inside the United States are finding it nearly impossible to gain entry.

Our government recognizes the moral obligation we have to help these brave men and women and has set a goal of admitting 12,000 Iraqi refugees during this fiscal year. But to date, we have admitted fewer than 2,000, and there are no signs that the situation will improve.

It is clear that what is needed is presidential action. The first President Bush helped to evacuate refugees from Kosovo, and President Clinton evacuated more than 6,000 from Iraq in 1996. Those two presidents showed that this can be done effectively and safely.

The current administration must now follow their lead.

Matthew Stone

Springfield

Drop liberal-conservative labels

When I read Ed Russo's story headlined "South Eugene dominates city committees" (Register-Guard, Feb. 19), I was more saddened by his characterization of liberal and conservative wards than I was by the revelation that residents of Wards 1, 2 and 3 occupy 65 percent of the seats on six major city committees.

Several letter writers have chastised the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce for using the liberal and conservative labels. That honor goes to Russo and the editorial writer who said "the most reliably liberal councilors are from southeast Eugene, while the most consistently conservative councilors are from the northern and western parts of the city." The chamber's report doesn't include these labels; The Register-Guard supplied them.

Who's a liberal and who's a conservative? More importantly, why does it matter?

Many baby boomers identify themselves as socially progressive and fiscally conservative. That sounds like a blend of liberal and conservative thought. That also sounds like people who can't be pigeonholed. How should we characterize these people? In my opinion, we shouldn't.

In Eugene, we often use labels that separate us. In my 33 years in this community, I've found more similarities between us than differences, yet we seem to focus on the differences rather than what we share in common.

Maybe we need a way to describe the vast majority of people who call Eugene home - friends and neighbors. Let's drop the labels and start working together. Eugene deserves at least that much from each of us.

Let's make our hometown proud.

Liz Cawood

Eugene

Berggren raise shows disconnect

I awoke one recent morning to a 28-degree temperature outside. I turned up the thermostat and opened The Register-Guard.

Recession is upon us, gas prices are through the roof and the cost of living generally is rising to unaffordable levels for middle income folks. The Iraq debacle is costing us in the trillions and, oh well, life goes on. What can we do about those folks in Washington anyway?

Then I see, locally, that Eugene Water & Electric Board is giving its general manager a 4.5 percent raise! Where will the madness stop? How can we afford to keep paying while our incomes keep falling behind expenses?

I guess Randy Berggren and his EWEB buddies don't have to worry about these things.

Tom Clark 

Eugene

Memoir outrage is hypocritical

Again with Peggy Seltzer, aka Margaret Jones, author of "Love and Consequences," American literati are crying their crocodile tears. This is a rope-a-dope, Catch-22 game that readers should wise up to.

The literati make their living by showing how fiction is true to life. Then they turn around and shriek when so-called true stories turn out to be fiction. What does it matter at a time when less than 50 percent of the U.S. public reads one book a year? If someone can tell an engaging story, then she is a writer.

All writers lie. Isn't it time for the moralati to grow up and leave those of us who are still reading alone, instead of recalling "false memoirs?"

It's just another form of censorship when books are "pulled from bookstore shelves." Books are not "products" that can be harmful merely because of false advertising. Books are harmful if they are boring.

I would have been pleased to have Seltzer as a student in one of my philosophy courses at the University of Oregon, from which she falsely claimed a degree (which is not a lie I support), because she is a writer, she has imagination and she is capable of speaking in the voice of others.

Naomi Zack

Eugene

John McCain is a Bush clone

America tortures, even though it seldom results in truthful confessions. Desperation results and the victim will confess to anything that will stop the torture.

According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantanamo's military commission (and a conservative), the legal process at Gitmo is manipulated by President Bush's appointees to shut off any possibility of acquittals. Davis' boss, the current overseer of the trial process for the Defense Department, told Davis outright, "We can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off?"

This White House answers to nobody. It's incredible that no laws, precedents, generally accepted authority and behavior applies to them. They spy on Americans, break our laws at will and then ignore our outrage.

When called to answer questions from members of Congress, whose responsibility it is to question suspect behavior, White House officials ignore, lie and deny it. Even when federal courts overturn their actions as unconstitutional, they don't care - or owe anyone an explanation.

Except they do. They owe us, America, an explanation, because they work for us. It's not enough to say, as a sociopath would, "I didn't do it, not my fault, somebody else is to blame."

John "Me-Too" McCain is running for president. He agrees with Bush on every illegal act (but torture). America is better than this. We are a moral people. Please think hard before you continue Bush's legacy, and America's demise, by supporting a Bush clone such as McCain.

Norma Townsend

Roseburg

Fantasy won't fix county budget

Well, we don't want the Western Oregon Plan Revision, and we don't want to make the county budget whole with a tax.

What will we do then? Form a search party and look for Rumple-stiltskin to spin some straw into gold?

I agree that the federal government should pay something for its land holdings in Lane County, but my agreement will not make the government pay. The brutal reality is that what for us is the rice and beans we need to live, to the government is a handout, a handout that many in Congress are not willing to support.

So, folks, do we let the county jail be reduced to 12 beds on July 1, 2008? Do we stand idly by bemoaning the lack of government checks while Lane County Public Health is closed? Or do we dust ourselves off and figure out how to finance our bare necessities ourselves?

Commissioners Bobby Green, Bill Dwyer and Faye Stewart were courageous enough to do just that in spite of the political repercussions, and Commissioners Pete Sorenson and Bill Fleenor were not. When you next vote, do yourselves a favor and vote for action and not for rhetoric.

Meanwhile, I've spent as much as the county income tax, which I voted for, would have cost me over the course of four years on a German shepherd and better locks. I just don't foresee my fellow county residents wising up.

Ruth Maura Atcherson

Eugene

Down a long dark road in Iraq

It's been five horrific, bloody years. Those of us who tried to stop the war before it started, failed. Most of America seemed certain, at that point in time, that our country was doing the right thing.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is attributed to Samuel Johnson. Let's assume, for the moment, that we actually invaded Iraq to save it. Most thinking people who have sifted all the information available would agree that this is an immensely naive assumption.

How have we done over the past five years? Perhaps the best authorities are the people who have had to try and live through this: the Iraqi citizens themselves. Poll numbers tell us that more than 75 percent of Iraqis feel that they are far worse off, less safe and more oppressed now than during Saddam Hussein's regime. Sixty-five percent want an immediate pullout by the United States.

What have we done over the past five years? By all accounts, excepting the manufactured lies of the militarists and profiteers, we have created a living hell on Earth at the place where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet. The suffering that U.S. taxpayers continue to fund is incomprehensible.

Where have we gone over the past five years? As a nation, we have gone a long way down a very dark road. We now know - if we listen to the people we purported to save - where that road leads.

There is still time to turn back.

Vip B. Short

Eugene

Locate hospital out of flood plain

Why is McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center determined to put its new hospital in the flood plain near PeaceHealth's new hospital?

Or on the flood plain of the Riverfront Research Park? Can't it find a site on higher ground that would be available without a boat if we were to have a historic flood capable of wiping out the flood control dams that protect these areas now?

Has no one any memory of such floods of the past, such as the one of Dec. 2, 1861, that wiped out Champoeg with waters 55 feet above the river's summer stage and 7 feet deep on the margins? With weather globally becoming more violent year by year, the Eugene-Springfield area needs a hospital on high ground.

Remember what happened to the hospitals in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina's flooding?

Grace Runyan

Eugene