How ironic to see the article on the captive zebra foal underneath the controversial issue regarding the captive deer “Snowball.”

Are we using a double standard when it comes to the Earth’s wild animals?

Why is it permissible to keep African wildlife as pets while it is illegal to keep American wildlife in captivity?

Both Zoe and Snowball will always be wild animals at their core and both could cause dangerous situations while mature some day. These animals are tamed but not domesticated.

If Bucky is Snowball’s son, how was she able to conceive this fawn?

I hope we can leave wildlife in the wild and use our compassion for our domestic animals. There are so many in need of good care.

Irma Kapsenberg

Corvallis

U.S. workforce’s pay shrinking every year

Several recent news stories state that the gross domestic product has been rising, as has worker productivity. In fact, these stories proclaim that American workers are the most productive in the world, by a wide margin.

Although it would be interesting to see the figures on productivity per unit time, because Americans work more hours than workers in any other industrialized country, with no guaranteed vacation time, unlike those others.

Yet household incomes have been stagnant or declining. Either these GDP and productivity figures are wrong, or Karl Marx was right (in stating) that capitalism works to concentrate income and wealth in the hands of the few owners and managers of capital.

Instead of relying on the corporate-owned mainstream media that, through spin or omission, doesn’t tell the whole story, let’s look at the numbers they don’t include and decide for ourselves.

According to the latest data, from 2001 to 2005, all the income growth in the United States has gone to the top 5 percent, while the bottom 90 percent had a 4.2 percent decline.

The corporate tax share is just 7 percent today, compared to 33 percent in the 1940s.

Unearned income — capital gains, dividends and estate taxes, is taxed at a far lower rate now than it was 30 years ago. Yet for workers, payroll taxes have increased 25 percent since 1980.

A two-income family today has less disposable income than a one-income family had 30 years ago.

A middle class wage-earner or small business owner supporting the neoconservative tax agenda is like a chicken supporting Colonel Sanders.

Ted Daum

Corvallis

Signed letters still valuable to forum

The Sept. 17 Gazette-Times editorial, “We love mail, except for ‘turf’ letters,” explained why printed letters were required to be signed, unlike anonymous online comments. Perhaps the newspaper editors were too modest to take credit, but a well edited and signed letters page is still valuable in the Internet Age.

Instead of “out sourcing” jobs overseas, Internet sages believe “crowd sourcing” will eliminate even more jobs. Yes, encyclopedia editors should be worried by the crowd writing Wikipedia for free, but editorial skills and reputation still matter for credibility.

Prior to the Internet, letter writers were held accountable for their words. Yes, anonymous gossip has always been around, but the problems gossip creates are being magnified by the Internet.

In the 1970s, the Gazette-Times published both a name and street address after every letter. I don’t recall when or why the street address was dropped.

The Gazette-Times used to publish a few anonymous letters once each year. In 1976, the anonymous letter writers viciously attacked gay women in Corvallis who wanted to get married. The beleaguered editor finally cut off the discussion (For more history see gazettetimes.com archives: Sept. 13, 2005, “30 years later, views of gay issues same”).

Thomas Kraemer

Corvallis

Editor’s note: We’re not sure exactly when the policy about publishing street addresses changed, but it was done out of concern for the personal safety of letter writers.

Secularism foreign to Founding Fathers

Sir William Blackstone, English jurist, lecturer, and member of Parliament, was cited frequently by the founders of this nation in their writings. Blackstone’s best-known work, “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” became the basis of university legal education in England and North America.

According to the 2007 Encyclopedia Britannica, “Commentaries” was “a handbook of the law for laymen” and “after the American Revolution the ‘commentaries’ was the chief source of the knowledge of English law in the American republic.”

Blackstone, like Baron Montesquieu of France, had considerable influence on the thinking of the founders as they wrote the Constitution. In a manner similar to that of Montesquieu, Blackstone expressed his conviction that all law has its source in God. The founders agreed, and this religious view of law was at the foundation of the government they established.

Those who insist that the founders gave us a secular government should name the secular writers on law and government consulted by the founders. Who were these secular writers and what foundational secular ideas did they give to the founders?

The source most often cited by the founders was the Bible. Deuteronomy, because of its emphasis on biblical law, was referred to frequently. If the founders were intending to establish a secular government, why did they give so much time and attention to a religious book — Deuteronomy?

David R. Prichard

Corvallis

New concerns arise from truck explosion

Does anyone else have the same feeling of dread that I have after reading, on the back page of the Sept. 11 Gazette-Times, that an ammonium nitrate truck exploded in Northern Mexico after a highway crash?

After our beloved president has decided to allow Mexican trucks, unfettered by federal transportation regulations, far into the United States, we should get used to reading articles such as this.

Added to that, the fact that this move takes away work from American truck drivers, and we have a potential recipe for disaster.

Rebecca Stillwell

Albany