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Slow down
For those drivers who are addicted to speeding in and out of shopping
center parking lots, including that large bread truck Monday, June 19,
take a moment to consider how you would feel if a child or an adult
ended up as your bloody hood ornament.
It would become an everlasting nightmare for the victim and you.
Instead of 35 miles per hour, try 10 to 15.
Bill Davis
Hood River
Honor Memorial Day
My word, Leonard Kitts, you certainly did get out of the wrong
side of the bed the day that you wrote your article of June 24.
It might have been good to type that up and reread it a couple of
days later to see if you were still as angry! Other than the fact
that I never expected to see so many negative (and grandiose)
adjectives and adverbs in one piece of work, I found it hard to
know where to begin to have a discussion. In fact, I came to the
conclusion that a discussion or a conversation about the democracy
in our time or what to do about evil when it is in our face, is
not possible with you at this time.
I would like to make to observations however. The media that you
disparage as owned by the evil government, allowed you to express
your opinion using up about half of the editorial page of the Hood
River News as well as many other letters you have written in the
past.
Second, for someone who wants peace, your last paragraph sounded
more like someone trying to foment a revolution than create peace.
Peace requires listening to other peoples ideas.
The third comment is that Memorial Day is supposed to a day of
remembering those who gave up so much for all of us; remembering —
not politicizing You are included in that group and I thank you
for your service in a war in which our country stood against
another evil in another time.
None of us would be free today if we had let Hitler and his
friends have their way. It was also a chance to remember men like
Tommy Tucker, whose life was remembered in the editorial right
next to yours, and Christian Bagge who lost his legs and Jake
Simpson who also lost his life- and many whose names I don’t know.
Memorial Day is also a chance to remember others we love who have
died from other causes and other diseases.
I spent Memorial Day evening with many others taking flowers from
my yard to four much loved friends, including my husband.
Remembering them gave me a lot of joy. Next memorial day you might
try doing that.
Gerri Beal
Hood River
Recycle and reuse
Ugly roadside trash can last anywhere from months to hundreds of
years. If trash is buried in a land fill, trash will last much
longer.
For example, Styrofoam and plastic bottles, indefinitely; rubber
tires, never; a piece of rope, 3 to 14 months; aluminum can,
200-500 years; steel or tin can, 100 years; glass, never; wax
paper cup, five years; cigarette butt, five years; disposable
diaper, 300-500 years; plastic bag, 20 to 30 years; plastic
six-pack ring, 450 years.
What can you do? Hood River has a great recycling program. USE IT!
And even more importantly reuse plastic bottles, plastic bags,
plastic tubs, etc., over and over again. Don’t buy food in
Styrofoam containers, and avoid buying plastic containers, cups,
plates, Styrofoam cups and plates. I double bag my paper grocery
bags and use them over and over again. You can also make a big
difference by picking up litter in the Adopt –a–Road program by
calling the Hood River County Public Works Dept. at: 386-2616.
Please take action and recycle, re-use, and don’t buy cases of
plastic water bottles! And if you happen to be a litter bug with
no sense of responsibility, please take a few extra seconds to at
least dispose of your trash properly!
Teresa Webb
Parkdale
Withdrawal pains
As one who bitterly opposed our invasion of Iraq, I have
nevertheless remained skeptical about the wisdom of an immediate
troop withdrawal. In a letter to the editor last September, I
actually suggested increasing our troop strength by 100,000,
conditional upon a complete withdrawal within a year. That, I
hoped, might better stabilize the political situation and
facilitate the training of Iraqi forces.
I was surprised to read, therefore, an article that appeared in
the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs in May that advocated an
immediate troop withdrawal. It was written by Lt. General William
E. Odom (Reg.) former director of the National Security Agency
(and now a professor at Yale.)
Gen. Odom’s reasons for withdrawing now and not later included the
claim that a full-blown civil war between Sunnis and Shiites is
inevitable, and that our continuing presence is only postponing
its onset — as well as costing even more American and Iraqi lives.
His unsettling conclusion is that a relatively stable Iraqi
government and society can only come about after a civil war has
run its course and produced either a victor or two exhausted sides
ready to sign a peace treaty.
I remain unconvinced by the general’s argument, but also troubled
by it. The specter of an all-out bloody civil war that may include
genocide is appalling. But Gen. Odom speaks with enough authority
to warrant a careful evaluation by our current military and
political leaders. We desire so passionately for the new Iraqi
government to succeed in bringing stability and peace through a
U.S. style democratic process.
But is this desire simply prolonging the suffering and postponing
the inevitable?
I hope not. But we must listen also to those we don’t want to
hear.
David C. Duncombe
White Salmon, Wash.
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