Factor in all categories of joblessness in reports

The unemployment rate only tells a partial story about the employment situation in our area. The percentage tells us that a certain number of people lost jobs and are entitled to collect unemployment benefits for six months.

The number does not include those who have exhausted their benefits and still don't have work, those who never qualified for unemployment to begin with and have no work, those who can only find part time work but want to work full time and those who took whatever job they could find even though it doesn't pay a living wage. It also doesn't include individuals who commute to Salem and Eugene because they can't find adequate work here.

The well-educated population of Corvallis hides the underemployment that exists here. The New York Times listed Corvallis several years ago as No. 1 in the country for advanced degrees per capita.

Benton County also has about 30 percent of the college degrees in Oregon. Competition is fierce for any job opening, with often up to 100 applicants per job. Many people have to settle for work that doesn't use their education or expects them to use their education but underpays them for their work. We need to acknowledge the problem of underemployment in Corvallis and develop more job opportunities and better salaries so that those who want to work can find it easily and also live on their wages.

Nancy Haldeman

Corvallis

No church/state separation mentioned in Constitution

I would like to respond to the Nov. 25 letter by Wendy Haber of Alsea, in regard to clarifying the Constitution.

The Constitution does not say anything about the separation of church and state. It just states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof -." In other words, Congress can't make any laws putting one religion above another.

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, said "We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." I don't think James Madison meant for moral foundations to be separated from the government judging by this. He meant for the country to not put one religion's beliefs above another religion's beliefs and for the United States to not establish a state church like the Church of England was for England.

Josh Nelson

Corvallis

Latter Day Saints do not discriminate against women

My husband and I recently learned that some letters have been printed criticizing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Wendy Haber's Nov. 25 letter, "LDS church's tax status in question," claimed the church discriminates against women, and also implied it promotes abuse toward women and young girls.

As a woman, and as a member of this Church, I couldn't disagree more. The Relief Society of the LDS church is one of the largest and oldest women's organizations on Earth. We have our own voice, and we use it.

In fact, we always have. The women of our church were some of the greatest promoters of women's suffrage in history. And the men supported us. Orson F. Whitney, one of our apostles, not only fought for a woman's right to vote, he helped write it into the Utah constitution. Brigham Young, our church president then, said: "Now, sisters, I want you to vote also, because women are the characters that rule the ballot box."

As far as the Equal Rights Amendment goes, our church opposed it because it saw past the false advertising. The ERA would have required women to be drafted into combat whenever men got conscripted, taken away Social Security benefits for wives and basically ignored any real difference between men and women.

And let's face it; we are different. Anyone who has read "The New Feminine Brain" knows that we women, unlike men, are right-brain dominant in most areas of our lives. And we should be glad!

Jill Taylor

Corvallis

2008 vote showed hope, courage of U.S. voters

Annette Mills' excellent Nov. 26 letter affirms that the recent election breathed new life into our democracy. However, the numbers of new voters are less impressive to me than the thoughtfulness and courage of this year's voters.

There were Hillary Clinton supporters who felt disappointed - if not outright angry - over Barack Obama's nomination, yet despite their profound sense of loss, they supported her opponent.

There were Republicans who saw Barack Obama as an elite tax-and-spend liberal - and whose parents and grandparents and grandparents before them had voted Republican - and yet they followed the injunction to "put county first" and voted for the man they thought was most qualified to be president, a Democrat.

There were many "Reagan Democrats" who had supported George Bush in two elections who had the humility and good grace to say, "We made a mistake." There were people like the man from Levittown, recently interviewed by the New York Times who said, "For a long time, I couldn't ignore the fact that he was black, if you know what I mean. I'm not proud of that, but I was raised to think that there aren't good black people out there. I could see that he was highly intelligent, and that matters to me, but my instinct was still to go with the white guy." He didn't.

Hats off to all of you. You bring tears to my eyes and restore my faith in our country and faith in our collective capacity to grow and change

Seth Bernstein

Corvallis