OSU coach’s hiring was overdone story

Congratulations to the OSU athletic department on their successful search for a basketball coach.

I know that the contributions from all the Beavers in the area were of great help to the search committee.

However, these stories on the search for a coach should have been placed in the sports or business section, where they belonged, rather than being the lead story for four days in a seven-day period.

Granted, the choice of Barack Obama’s brother-in-law does impart some added newsworthiness, but, come on people, get a life.

This is escapism bordering on obsession. We should be focused on electing a new president who, instead of lying to and damaging the country, will help the U.S. regain some respect in the world.

We should be thinking about the problems of the economy and the plague of greed that is ruining civil society.

We should be attending to the broken health care delivery system.

We should be providing our children with a first-class education, instead of worrying about the Pac-10 standings.

Perhaps the new coach will bring OSU the academic focus of the Ivy League as well.

Just think, coach Robinson will be paid more than his brother-in-law should Obama win the presidency.

Kind of puts it in a different perspective, doesn’t it?

Martin R. Mulford, Corvallis

Corvallis Matters supports Raymond

Corvallis Matters endorses Jeanne Raymond for Ward 7 city councilor.

Jeanne’s positions on the issues — especially sustainability — make her the obvious choice. What we and Jeanne mean by “sustainability” is ensuring that we don’t use resources faster than they can be produced and giving our grandchildren the same chances we had.

Corvallis Matters’ goal is long-term sustainable economic and environmental prosperity while protecting social equality and justice.

In coming years Corvallis will see higher oil prices, greater impacts from global warming, a growing, aging and more diverse population, and changes in national and international economic patterns. The challenges will be great so we need to consider carefully the long-term effects of our decisions.

Jeanne is well aware of the need to examine every city policy for its impact on sustainability, not only obvious areas such as energy conservation, land development and transportation, but how the city does almost everything.

Jeanne supports local business interests and will work to ensure that economic growth benefits all — business, seniors, students, the homeless and the hungry. She sees cultural diversity as a benefit and will work to ensure that all are treated equally and with dignity.

These views provide a framework for dealing with the challenges our city will face in coming years.

We support Jeanne for City Council because of her long participation in local affairs, her many volunteer efforts in the community, and her approach to issues critical for our city.

John W. Foster, Board member, Corvallis Matters

Congress wants to bail out speculators

Norman Thomas, the four-time Socialist Party candidate for president, stated in a 1947 OSU convocation that the reason he was not running in the upcoming election was that both Republicans and Democrats had become more socialistic than he felt was healthy for the nation’s future.

It took me a long time to understand his fears. There is nothing more seductively appealing than the thought that a rich country has an obligation to support its less fortunate with subsidized housing, money, medical care and food in a type of pay-as-we-go socialism.

The problem Thomas must have foreseen is that socialism can be destructive to those individual attributes of character necessary for a democracy to function — namely, individual responsibility, obligation, duty, pride in accomplishment and consequences.

In addition, Thomas had to have foreseen that no nation can afford socialism where benefits are unrelated to the economy and where some benefits shift responsibility for an individual’s poor decisions to society at large.

Naturally, ever more laws must be passed to restrict such bad individual decisions and a little more individual freedom is lost.

Congress thinks government should bail out speculators from Wall Street to suburbia, but this just another face of socialism where a few individuals are trying to shift fiscal responsibility for their possibly illegal “offshore” activities onto the taxpayers.

Perhaps we should bail out speculators, but let us do it with full knowledge and understanding of why the controls and laws didn’t work.

Robert Nelson, North Albany

Hillary resorting to fear tactics of past

As a feminist, I would like to vote for a woman candidate, but not this one.

Hillary Clinton’s history energizes her opposition and media will waste time discussing Bill Clinton’s return to the White House, their undisclosed tax returns, and the imperfections of the first Clinton presidency. The Clinton focus is on the past.

Ms. Clinton led a failed attempt at health reform where she met behind closed doors with insurance representatives and not physicians. Her style wasn’t collaborative, inclusive, or inspiring.

Ms. Clinton was unprepared for a primary campaign challenge. In desperation to stay relevant she has tried the fear tactics of the past, citing her experience in Washington that will keep us safe.

Yet, with her experience she still voted for, and supported the Iraq War, and recently voted for listing the Iranian National Guard as a terrorist group, providing an excuse for expanding war.

The latest disappointment is her claim to remember being under fire in Bosnia when she visited with her daughter. I can’t imagine a parent with their child getting confused about whether they had people shooting at them or not. Clearly this was lying for political advantage.

I will vote for someone who is inspiring, who faces challenges with honesty, and who can lead other positive candidates to Congress to reform the character of our national discussions.

We need a president who can maintain their principles and focus in a struggle, who can lead the nation back to its better nature. We need Obama.

Toni Hoyman, Philomath