Whiteside could be big downtown draw

The state Land Use Board of Appeals made the right decision concerning the Whiteside.

The city spent a lot of money on Madison Avenue. I love it. The east-care plantings are great.

Now imaging the Whiteside with an upper-story restaurant with no alley access to service it.

Some think parking is a problem now. Imagine what it would have been like with beer wagons and other vendors clogging Madison to serve a restaurant. How else except through a door on Madison.

Have Corvallis residents gotten so used to driving to Ashland, Eugene, Salem, Portland, even Seattle for cultural events that we can’t see the possibilities right here in the center of the valley?

The Whiteside will not be competition for the Majestic, the Dark Side of the multi-plex theaters. Rather, it will be a venue for film festivals that showcase the talents of amateur movie makers, classic movie festivals from a time when great movies were made without computer enhanced horror and mayhem.

And how about live music? There are people in this area who drive to the outdoor ampitheater at George, Wash., to hear modern religious music. This is a huge crowd draw.

These things and much more are possible — right here in the center of the valley — at the Whiteside.

Jeanette Arbogast

Corvallis

Save Whiteside for generations to come

I hope the following thoughts will at least provide a different perspective as to why the Corvallis community needs to save the Whiteside as a theater.

I grew up in Corvallis and at that time the Whiteside was a place of adventure — movies. It was not just another movie house, but a movie house with unique qualities that unfortunately viewers do not experience in the movie theaters today.

It had, and still has, character that I want to see preserved for its historical importance to our community.

The Whiteside was where I saw my very first movie — “Old Yeller.” The Whiteside was where my friends and I met on Saturdays to see the kiddie matinees. How many of you can remember when your date would spend the additional 25 cents to sit in those cushioned seats in the back of the theater? It was like flying first class.

I realize these memories are not part of many of you now living in Corvallis, but I know there can be a real appreciation for its history if only it is correctly preserved.

I want to see this theater be a movie theater again and not another strip mall. I want to see ownership by people who realize the theater’s historic value to this community.

Visit the Benton County Historical Society Museum in Philomath to see the beautiful exhibit telling of the Whiteside’s history. Then you will understand the need to save this theater for generations to come.

Kathy Herdt-Berbevin

Salem

Women’s basketball deserves support

I know the difference between men’s and women’s sports. I really do.

Mine is the first generation to dip our big toe into Title Nine. Discrepancies between the sexes in competitive sports are many. However living in a town during a season where anything positive about college basketball is scarce caused my guard to drop.

How disappointing to look for an anticipated big headline and great story on OSU women’s basketball win against the Washington State Cougars only to find it buried on page four of the Gazette-Times sports section. Page four?

LaVonda Wagner and OSU women’s basketball team deserve more for providing an engaging competitive spirit in an otherwise dismal basketball season.

I thought this was a paper that supports OSU sports. It is, just not equally.

Joni Quarnstrom

Corvallis

Should U.S. open its borders to everyone?

I will be very gentle with my response to Paul F. deLespinasse’s commentary piece on immigration law (“Immigration is new front in quest for civil rights,” Jan. 24).

I will pretend that I think he was writing tongue in cheek. He wrote: “Legislation prohibiting people from entering or living here merely because they were born elsewhere is no more a genuine law than were the rules that black people must ride in the back of the bus...”

We could send forth around the world the deLespinasse doctrine as our national policy. Probably we could get 25 percent, say, of the population of many countries to come here right away. That would be more than 250 million from China, and a like number from India, both of which have population exceeding 1 billion. At least 25 percent of those populations are very poor and very oppressed.

And a like percentage from Bangladesh, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia? And Brazil with a huge population? And another 20 or 30 million from Mexico?

We could run our population up to 1 billion, or close to 2 billion, as fast as the ships and planes could haul them here.

So surely you jest, Mr. deLespinasse.

Floyd McFarland

Corvallis

U.S. should rethink support for Isreal

I was elated when I learned that Egypt had allowed the Palestinians living in Gaza into their country for supplies.

President Mubarak honorably helped the Palestinians who are facing what media calls, a “humanitarian crisis” resulting from Israel’s latest lockdown of Gaza.

The Palestinians residing in Gaza live in subhuman conditions and are denied basic human rights. Since 1949, Palestinians have been corralled like cattle into smaller and smaller pockets of what was once their homeland.

The United States and Israel go hand in hand in allowing this to happen.

All of the Middle East is affected by the pressure exerted by Israel and the U.S. Today’s headlines reflect that, Egypt has deployed troops to push back the desperate wave of Palestinians who are struggling to survive in the Israeli prison called Gaza.

Under pressure from the U.S. and Israel, Palestine conducted a democratic election in 2006. It was a fair election. The elected party, Hamas, wasn’t who the U.S. and Israel wanted it to be.

Hamas has been labeled as a terrorist organization. In America, that label is used to desensitize the populace to the fact that innocent men, women and children are suffering and being killed.

It is time we seriously examine why we are the only country on Earth who unfalteringly supports Israel, to the tune of one third of our foreign aid budget — all of this for a country that is already one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Taylor Murray

Corvallis