Posted: Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:00 am
Locally grown food goal is going too far
I was enjoying lunch at a local restaurant when I overheard a man at the next table tell the waitress to make sure that the strawberries he ordered with his cheesecake were not from California. He seemed absolutely numb to the fact that the lemon in his iced tea and the orange garnishing his plate could not possibly have been grown in Oregon. It's too cold to grow citrus this far north.
The idea of consuming what we grow is good, but have we carried it too far? I occasionally have a desire to eat bananas, watermelons, pineapple, mangoes, seedless grapes, kiwis, almonds, pistachios, olives and many other fruits, nuts and vegetables not grown in Oregon. Should we stop eating these foods because we don't grow them here? What about those peaches and nectarines our supermarkets provide in the winter? They are grown and shipped from Chile. I like having a variety of foods to choose from and when.
In the same line of thinking, how can we wear clothes that are made from cotton or silk? Why are we driving vehicles not manufactured in Oregon? And certainly, we should not heat our homes with liquid natural gas that does not originate in Oregon.
Oregon seems hell bent on become an isolationist state instead of a free trading member of the United States and the world.
Mike Williams, Corvallis
City should stop all the tree-cutting
Lately, almost every morning, there has been chain saw work going on in Northwest Corvallis because some schmuck - some vandal - sees fit to rip down another tree. It's always backed by a dumb, dishonest reason. People have moved into this neighborhood because of the quality of life enjoyed here, and trees within the area contribute considerably to maintaining this quality of life.
If you're a tree hater, move out. Don't vandalize your neighbors' quality of life or your community's quality of life just because you want to play "big man" by ripping trees out.
It's high time the City Council took some responsibility here and some action. To preserve what we've got, the council should lay down some law: Heavy fines for unneeded tree removal (big trees / big fine), fines for removing too many branches from large trees, allowing chain saw/wood chipper use only on certain days of the week, severe curtailment of a land owner's "absolute right" to cut anything down on his own property. They often can't be trusted and so should be saddled with a legal obligation to maintain the large trees on their property as a community obligation.
I asked the council to do something to protect this community's quality of life with respect to tree preservation - by way of laws - to ensure that there are no fewer trees in this area 40 years from now than the tree count we have now.
Andrew Sivetz, Corvallis
Similar name; very different opinion
I am writing this letter so that readers of the Gazette-Times know that I am not the Jim Ballard whose letter to the editor was published in the paper Monday, July 21. ("Ex-cops behavior was long tolerated"). I have had no contact with former Officer Dave Cox, nor do I know anything about his DUII citations other than what I have read in the Gazette-Times.
The other Jim Ballard's letter on the same topic that appeared shortly after Christmas 2007 caused me considerable embarrassment. I do not want acquaintances of mine thinking that I wrote either that letter or this recent one.
When signing "official" documents, I use my middle initial.
Jim D. Ballard, Corvallis
Dark TV, movies add to society's misery
The July 15 "As I see it" column by Paul Hochfeld, "Reasons why we're unhappy," was very good, and I agree with him on many things.
One of the reasons that we may be unhappy is because there are no uplifting or funny movies or TV shows. The new shows are all crime shows. The movies are all dark stories that bring out toys or games to go along with them.
Where are the writers of movies with laughter? One movie my husband and I recently saw was "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl." The story was good, and the kind one can bring all of the family to see. You came out feeling good. Let's have more of this.
Lorraine Woefle, Corvallis
In 2009, fire the entire Congress
A recent Gallup poll released the approval rating of Congress: 14 percent positive, the lowest ever since the poll was begun in 1974. By anyone's rating, a 14 percent positive approval rating is disgraceful, and progress on very important issues facing the country is simply not happening. Partisan politics, on both sides, take precedence over compromise and solving acute problems. Most of us hold passionate positions about "OUR" side - whether conservative or liberal and none of us wants "OUR" side to lose, so we reward the most strident on either side, and the stalemate continues.
I have a suggestion to remedy this dismal situation: Based on the dismal approval results, I believe all - that is everyone in Congress, regardless of party - should be told immediately that as of Jan 1, 2009, they will be relieved of their responsibilities. This will give them about five months to wrap things up and leave.
Special elections will be held in November 2008 to elect new representatives from each state. Each party may select who they want to run from each state, or individuals may elect to run independently. There will be no primaries. Those now serving, who are being sent home, are prohibited from running.
The newly elected representatives will be told that they will face the same fate if they cannot collectively command at least a 50 percent positive approval rating by July 2010. We continue to follow this process every two years in addition to, not as a replacement for, our current election processes.
Jim Martin, Corvallis