Life teaches us some funny lessons along way

I’ve learned that growing old, at least to a certain point, is not so bad. The trade-offs are fair. I no longer can run a marathon, but I realize any reasonable person wishing to travel 26 miles would drive.

I’ve learned that the more radical and outrageous your religion, the more clothing you’re required to wear.

I’ve learned never to kill someone to get to heaven. Those 72 virgins are probably nuns.

I’ve learned that with proper marketing, you can sell anything. We all know soccer’s not really a sport, yet they’ve sold it to our children.

Or, the station wagon. Want to sell a new one? Just call it a “crossover vehicle.”

I’ve learned that Christmas has been so corrupted, we now have crazed grandmothers fighting over stupid dolls and crushing people to death to get one, then escaping in their crossover vehicles.

I’ve learned it’s much better to be a banker than a manufacturer. We toss a few gazillion to a banker, no strings attached, yet make the manufacturer grovel for a pittance.

I’ve learned that in spite of our bad examples, some of our kids have gleaned the true meaning of Christmas after witnessing several recently donating all their toys to those less fortunate.

Last but not least, I’ve learned that if I keep my opinions politically correct, no one will write in to tell me what a jerk I am.

Rex Bennett, Philomath

Let’s get something for our bailout dollars

Despite most Americans being against it, sounds like Congress is going to approve some sort of Big 3 auto industry bailout anyway. But Congress is just going to give them money. How about we actually get something for the billions? Congress has given billions to banks and insurance companies and what have we received in return? Nothing as far as I can tell.

Let say the automobile industry is going to receive $25 billion. At $25,000 per vehicle we could buy 1 million cars.

Let’s place an order for 250,000 fuel-efficient cars (at least 30 miles per gallon) from Ford, Chrysler and GM.

That’s 750,000 cars from the Big 3. Then let’s buy another 150,000 fuel-efficient cars from the foreign auto manufacturers with production facilities in the U.S., (Honda, Toyota and others).

Then the last $250 million would be used to buy 100,000 Toyota Prius hybrids. This last purchase will send the message that real fuel efficiency is important.

This plan will put money in the hands of dealers, parts suppliers and assembly line workers who in turn will spend the money on clothes, food, rent and education. We don’t know what the auto executives will really do with the money.

The problem then will be who gets these new cars. That’s a solvable little problem. For starters I’ll take myself out of consideration for a new car. But my brother Pat is in a position when he could use help with a new car.

Bob Hazleton, Corvallis

How can we tolerate the modern Holocaust?

I remember as a young girl asking my mom how could people have let the Holocaust happen.

“We didn’t know it was happening,” was her reply. Something about that answer made me uncomfortable, preferring to be informed and ready to speak out.

Recently I’ve been wondering if my children would some day ask me the same about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. “Why did no one come to the aid of 1.5 million people imprisoned, hungry and many of them sick,” they might ask. “Where was the public outrage?”

One and a half million people are kept in a concentration camp, literally being starved to death while the world stands by watching. One and a half million are not numbers; they are people like you and me, and 60 percent are children.

Terrorism is defined as punishing civilians in order to force a change in politics. As such, this is the biggest act of terrorism since the end of World War II. It is also a war crime and a crime against humanity as defined by international law.

Of course, there are other large-scale human disasters happening at the same time as the crisis in Gaza.

But no other government is given $8 million a day like Israel’s is. Without U.S. funding, Israel could not afford its brutal occupation, the illegal settlements and the collective punishment and imprisonment of the people of Gaza.

So whose responsibility is it to speak up first and loudest? Isn’t it us, who are allowing it to happen, day by day, with our tax dollars?

Valori George, Corvallis

Examine real cause for rise of global terrorism

The ridiculous Dec. 3 analysis by Tim Rutten regarding the “real target of terrorists’ rage is modernity” is so simplistic that it might just find receptive ears among those who have little or no knowledge of the foreign policy implemented by our government and some European countries, especially Britain and France in the last 100 years.

Like President Bush and other demagogues before him, the pathetic official line has been “The terrorists do these awful things because they hate our freedoms and progress.”

There is absolutely no question that Muslim terrorists have committed despicable acts against innocent civilians.

However, how many of us know what our government and its allies have been doing to Iraqi and Afghan civilians in the last 25 years? Is the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians by our bombers, tanks and cruise missiles not an even more despicable act? Is it that our killing methods are more “civilized”?

Have we forgotten that the same Afghan Muslim extremists were Ronald Reagan’s “freedom fighters”?

How about looking at the roots of the problem? How about telling the truth to the American people about what our government’s real role in the Middle East and other parts of the world has been? How about openly telling us what the plans of the big oil and gas companies in both Iraq and Afghanistan are?How about the big pipeline plan from Kazakhstan through Afghanistan and Pakistan? How about the fact that Hamid Karzai is a former top Unocal executive?

Mario E. Magaña, Corvallis