Letters in the Editor's Mailbag.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Kids lose in privatization 

The Eugene School District is currently deciding whether or not to privatize the food services departments in local schools. The question of privatizing various areas of the public sector is complicated and has many facets. I would like to focus on the smallest and most important aspect of this debate: your child.

I work in the kitchen of a Eugene elementary school. I have been there two years. The cook I work with has been with the district almost a quarter of a century and at our school for over eight years. We know your kids, and they know and trust us. We are vested in our school and truly care about providing your kids with nutritious meals that give them the power to learn.

We make it our business to know who has allergies and to what. We strive to maintain a scrupulously clean kitchen and adhere to every food safety regulation. We are a part of our school's team and work with teachers and administrators to make your child's learning environment the best it can be. This connection will not be possible with an outside company whose only objective is to make a profit.

I am very concerned that your children will be the biggest losers if privatization gets a toehold in our schools.

DEBORAH A. CATER

Eugene

The rhubarb prayer

All the recent talk of war has reminded me of my rhubarb plants. Yes, all 20 of them.

Years ago I lived in a community that was almost a mile high in elevation. I lived there for 11 years. The winters were frigid, and sometimes the late spring and early summer were as well.

I had these beautiful rhubarb plants that I would fuss over and enjoy, but every year a terrible frost would stunt their growth, causing them to turn black. I could never seem to enjoy a rhubarb pie with strawberries or make some of my other favorite rhubarb desserts.

One late evening I was wondering to myself how I was going to protect my rhubarb from the frost that was expected to arrive in the late hours of the morning. I decided to pray.

I prayed and asked God to protect them. I was most surprised to find my rhubarb was not touched by the frost, but just one foot from my rhubarb patch on all sides were blackened plants that the frost had destroyed. Yes! God had protected my plants. If there was any question in my mind about God and his mercy, well, let me tell you that it melted away with all the rhubarb and strawberry pie I enjoyed that summer.

I am going to pray that God protect our nation on all sides from any attack, just as he protected my rhubarb from the frost.

PAMELA CARMICKLE

Eugene

Grim memories of Reagan era

"Reagan's good heart shaped life" by Trude Feldman of the New York Times (Register-Guard, Feb. 9) on President Reagan's birthday startled and shocked me, and caused me to remember, as a journalist, a 1988 event in the Nicaraguan revolution.

Four women calling themselves the "Mothers of the Martyrs" asked if they could tell me their stories. All had lost loved ones killed by U.S.-trained and -supported Contras who were clandestinely funded by President Reagan and Oliver North, the infamous U.S. Marine colonel.

One woman, who lived with her husband and 12-year-old daughter in a small country shack, had left their daughter at home to travel on foot several miles to barter for groceries. On their way home, seeing their shack on fire, they ran. As they opened their gate, they saw their daughter's head on the gatepost and a hastily scrawled note, "Bienvenidos! La Contra!" (Welcome! The Contras!)

JERRY COPELAND

Florence

It's your money, not state's

Some Oregon Democrats are apparently giving serious consideration to balancing the state's budget by what feels very much like fraud to me. Their plan, using flimflam to subvert the will of the voters and close the state's budget gap, surfaced earlier this month.

State Sen. Tony Corcoran, D-Cottage Grove was cited in the Feb. 8 Register-Guard as the point man for a plan that would increase state revenues and balance the budget by eliminating income tax deductions and credits. He and his cohorts have re-characterized these tax code provisions as "expenditures," as if they were the same as actually writing a check for something real. By this twisted logic, all of your money belongs to the state, and whatever portion they let you keep is a "government expense."

I've seen lots of different cheap tricks used as an excuse to rape and pillage taxpayers, but this takes the cake. Oregon voters rejected Measure 28 by a wide margin. Part of the message they were sending to Salem was that they want smaller government. The other part was that they don't trust state government. With elected representatives pushing ideas like this, it's certainly no wonder. Just what part of "no" don't they understand?

Changing the law to eliminate existing deductions and credits to raise more money is not re-ordering the state's expenditures, it's raising taxes, pure and simple. Just how dumb do these clowns think we are?

GARY CONLEY

Eugene

Use dams for hydrogen

I appreciated Jack Robertson's fine Commentary article (Register-Guard, Feb. 16) regarding use of hydroelectric power to produce hydrogen fuel. Although his article dealt with Columbia River power, the same principle would apply to all hydroelectric power plants. That is, when demand is low, use excess electricity to power electrolyzing machines to produce hydrogen.

The technology exists now to wean ourselves off the need to import foreign oil. As a bonus, we can have reasonably priced, non-polluting fuel while creating jobs in a new industry. Just do it.

KEITH KRAFT

Florence

Hydrogen idea impractical

Jack Robertson's Feb. 16 Commentary article about using Columbia River hydropower to produce hydrogen left me with disturbing questions: Doesn't electricity consumption in the Northwest already exceed the capacity of hydroelectric resources in the Columbia system?

The Northwest already uses nuclear, coal and natural gas plants for over 30 percent of our electricity. Diverting hydroelectric resources to hydrogen production would increase the use of natural gas for electricity production. Electrolysis is about 50 percent efficient and natural gas generating plants are about 40 percent efficient; therefore, achieving a 1 British thermal unit reduction in gasoline consumption would cause a 5 Btu increase in natural gas consumption. How can we export energy if our consumption exceeds our production capacity?

The 9.4 million residents of Washington and Oregon each use about 442 gallons of gasoline per year. Without considering efficiency penalties, this amount of gasoline has an energy value equivalent to 152.3 million megawatt-hours of electricity. The total output of the Columbia River hydroelectric facilities is only 140 million megawatt-hours per year. If we diverted all of our hydroelectric capacity to the production of hydrogen, we couldn't even power all the local cars, much less export hydrogen to help our regional economy.

This proposal does not produce new renewable energy; it simply shifts existing hydroelectric resources from electricity to motor fuel.

JIM BALL

Eugene

They're hard-working people

In response to Ron Jantzen's Feb. 18 letter asking how much money the state spends on services for illegal aliens, I have a feeling that the state of Oregon spends a lot more money housing, insuring and supporting documented, legal "aliens."

The next time Jantzen sits down to a meal, he should take a look at his plate and consider who picked his vegetables and processed and packed his pork chops. These "illegal aliens" are proud, hard-working human beings who are willing to work jobs that many of our own able-bodied, documented citizens wouldn't dream of performing.

MARENA ANSPACH

Eugene

Save medically needy program

The vote on the medically needy program should be above politics, appearance or issues such as public distrust of government. I applaud the bipartisan effort in the Oregon House of Representatives to pass a temporary funding measure for this program and to preserve state police protection.

I plead with the state Senate and the governor to think of how many Oregonians will be saved through the state-federal medically needy program. These folks are not just numbers or statistics. The budget cuts in this program have already cost some people their lives and are beginning to cause chaos for police, citizens, hospitals and other health-care providers.

Those who have lost services include grandmothers and grandfathers, sons and daughters. Some folks have no medicine and no shelter; others are individuals who are physically or mentally incapacitated, and who are not connected to any of the dwindling number of support systems and have no one to advocate for them. Each person's situation is different, but many are in dire trouble.

This truly sets the stage for a biological underclass. Are we saying that money is so tight that we cannot afford to keep alive our most vulnerable citizens?

PAULA MORGAN

Eugene