Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 12:00 am
Headed downtown? Leave dog at home
Spring is here and I'm looking forward to attending the dog show that used to be the Saturday Market.
If I get there early, perhaps I can make off with some fresh greens before that black Lab has a chance to shove his muzzle into the pile.
After that, I'll stroll up to the canine toilet that passes for the Corvallis riverfront in hopes of finding a spot to rest that is relatively scat-free, then it's off to Robnett's where I'll try not to trip over Mummie's Precious while searching for light bulbs.
You have probably guessed that I don't love your dog. I'm sure that there were some that didn't love mine, which is why I didn't parade him around public places.
The downtown is not a good spot to show off your pet. Please be a considerate neighbor and walk your pooch someplace else.
Joy Hagler
Corvallis
G-T's error offers bad history lesson
The caption for the photo of a steamboat on the Willamette River on page A2 of the April 5 Gazette-Times claims it to be a scene from "the mid-1800s."
The four American flags on the boat, however, clearly show 49 stars on each. The 47th and 48th States admitted to the union were New Mexico and Arizona in 1912.
No wonder many are so ignorant of our history, geography, and other subjects, when the only newspaper in town provides false information.
Or could it be that people at the G-T don't know that each star on our flag represents a state of the union?
Ellen T. Drake
Corvallis
South Corvallis gets new ballot drop box
I just noticed the ballot drop box on South Third Street. This is great news for folks like me who live in South Corvallis.
The blue box was installed in the Lincoln parking lot a few weeks ago.
Previously, there was no place to drop off ballots in Southtown, a fact which I realized a while back when the Third Street bridge connecting South Corvallis to downtown was closed.
I had my ballot but no stamp, and it was time-consuming and difficult to get my ballot turned in.
When you stop by the basement of the courthouse to get registered by April 29 to vote in the primary on May 20, be sure to say thanks to County Clerk James Morales and County Elections Supervisor Jill Van Buren for helping make voting that much more accessible to those of us who call South Corvallis home.
Kriste York
Corvallis
Small Social Security benefit still a benefit
I am sorry that Margarite Cunningham ("Laughing and crying about Social Security," April 9) is having a hard time. But I don't understand why she is mad at Social Security or accuses me of being "naive."
Cunningham says she is receiving a benefit from Social Security.
Would she be better off if Social Security did not exist and she was receiving no benefit?
She seems to think her benefit should be larger. Perhaps it should.
But if benefits were larger, the tax would have to be higher.
The enemies of Social Security will talk fast and wave their arms and say private plans can do better than Social Security.
But they have never shown a plan that passes detailed examination. And if they had one, they would not have to keep telling the big lie about a Social Security "crisis."
With a little luck you can make more on your investments than Social Security, but Social Security is insurance in case your luck doesn't hold out.
Currently more than half of people over 65 rely on Social Security for more than half their income.
That should give you some idea of the chances you will be glad you kept your Social Security.
Dale Coberly
Corvallis
Social Security not rising with inflation
Margaret Cummings' letter is correct that few people today can survive only on Social Security. This is because Social Security checks are rising less than actual inflation.
In plain English, if current increases continue for 30 years, the Medicare deduction alone will consume the entire check of somebody receiving $700 today. Nothing will be left for food or drugs.
Social Security check increases are calculated from the Consumer Price Index, which increased only 2.76 percent compounded annually between 2000 and 2008.
However, the monthly $96.40 Medicare deduction has risen 9.84 percent annually and the new prescription drug deduction now averages $27.93. (Official government figures with percentages calculated using a Hewlett-Packard HP-12c financial calculator)
The conservative Business Week magazine (Feb. 25) quoted the wealthy hedge fund manager William A. Fleckenstein saying, "the CPI is a cheat in the way it's calculated."
The only liberal talk radio station receivable in Corvallis (Air America KPOJ 620AM) has accused President Bush of rigging the CPI to justify tax cuts.
Since 1998, my actual essential bills have increased at twice the CPI. Inflation is real.
Thomas Kraemer
Corvallis
Don't overlook Palestinian tragedy
This is the time of year when institutions frequently recall the horrors of the Nazi holocaust against European Jews.
OSU ordinarily sponsors such programs and Corvallis' Friends of the Library is offering a holocaust literature program for young readers.
May I suggest that institutions broaden their vision and include in their concern the Nakba, the ongoing 60-year tragedy of the Palestinian people?
For more than a half century this beleaguered people suffered loss of all but a fragment of their native land, their farms, much of their water, their olive groves, their homes, their freedom to Israeli occupiers. And their catastrophe continues.
The 750,000 people who fled incursions of armed bands into their homeland in 1948 largely remain impoverished refugees in foreign lands.
Those who clung to their ancestral homes live as prisoners, hemmed in by walls, by occupiers' roads they cannot use, occupiers' laws that don't protect them, more than 500 checkpoints that control their coming and going.
We may grieve for past injustices, but to close our eyes to the present mammoth injustice - indeed, to participate in it as a nation - makes hypocrites of us all.
Jeanne Riha
Corvallis