Preserve the wild in Silver Falls State Park

Silver Falls State Park deserves more national recognition, but I am concerned about the kind of infrastructure that is associated with national parks ("National treasure," Jan. 13).

I expect the feds would want to increase usage of parking lots, stores and campgrounds.

The park is more than beautiful waterfalls with a backdrop of trees. There are portions of the park which few people visit and are a haven for wildlife and precious native plants.

A few years ago, I was part of an effort to catalog signs of cougar, bear and other wildlife in the park. Our tracking party was successful in finding signs of cougar, black bear, bobcat, gray fox, coyote, elk, deer and more. We also encountered birds like the northern spotted owl and northern pygmy owl.

The springtime wildflowers are great. Silver Falls is one of the best places to see corydalis blooming, an uncommon native plant.

Perhaps it's OK for Silver Falls to become a national park, but its pristine wild character should not be impacted at the expense of increasing parking lots or visits to gift shops.

Don Boucher, Corvallis

Excursion train to coast a good idea

Random comments on recent articles in the Gazette-Times:

• Morris and Lynn Walker wrote about the development of the excursion train from Corvallis to Toledo ("A rail in the making," Jan. 5).

How about reviving that excursion train? Run a passenger excursion train to the coast a couple of times of month. Involve a boat at the other end to take passengers to the Newport bayfront.

It would be great idea during the Newport Wine and Seafood Festival. The Corvallis-Newport Excursion Train could be the designated driver. The Economic Vitality Partnership should look at an excursion train as a business option for Corvallis.

I would love to be able take a train ride through the Coast Range. When can I book a ticket?

• I disagree with Walt Schmidt on when Cloverland Village lots sold ("Father knows best," Jan. 7).

Cloverland Village was completely developed by the time I arrived in Corvallis in 1968. Edgewood Estates, the Sunrise Addition and Timberhill were the areas that grew explosively when HP moved to town in 1976.

• I thought the new tan recycling carts were going to be constructed of recycled material. I assumed that meant 100 percent recycled material. Turns out they are only 20 percent recycled material. Why wasn't more recycled material used to construct the carts?

• The interior ceiling of the Whiteside Theater is a magnificent piece of history and art. According to David Dodson, the developer was going to preserve that part of the interior ("Developers abandon Whiteside," Jan. 4). The brick wall on Fourth Street is not attractive. Making the Whiteside into a museum to preserve the ceiling seems like a great idea!

Louise Marquering, Corvallis

Do we need more second lieutenants?

During the Nevada Democratic debates, the candidates were asked if they were in favor of requiring ROTC to be offered by the top 10 elite colleges.

The colleges, starting with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, etc., do not now have ROTC programs. The students at these elite schools apparently are not eager to become second lieutenants.

All three candidates answered that they would request these schools to offer ROTC or have federal funds cut off. With endowments in the billions I don't think this is much of a threat.

Only John Edwards went on to state the case for support of those who do offer to serve their country in the armed services. More money for medical care for the wounded, help for those families of reservists, called away from their jobs for years who serve at lower pay than they need to support their families. Help for those with PTSD and their families.

The problem is not more second lieutenants from Harvard but who is going to help pay the utilities for the lower ranks.

George Novak, Corvallis

Sensational stories don't belong in paper

"Just out of jail, man kills wife, self." "Man throws toddler from overpass to his death." These are the headlines of two side-by-side articles that appeared Jan. 19 in the Gazette-Times.

What is happening here? We can get this type of news about these horrific events in California or Honolulu from any supermarket tabloid.

G-T editors, please,spare us these human tragedies which we know are part of the human condition and continue to concentrate your news on items of local or worldwide relevance.

All of us recognize the cost of local reporting but with the plethora of information now available to us all, if we are going to read about things far distant from the Heart of the Valley from national news feeds, let's hear something either inspiring or newsworthy and stop offering us the sensationalism of human misery.

Ron Spisso, Carol McWilliams, Alsea

Access to health care should be a right

Recently a reader wrote that Americans do not have a constitutional right to health care.

This may be so but the Declaration of Independence stated we do have a right to life and the pursuit of happiness.

It is hard to have rights when one is dying from lack of health care access and affordability.

I know of cases where people could not afford health care and put off diagnosis and treatment so long that they were incurable by the time they sought health care.

In another community in which I worked, a patient with a fractured thigh bone was not treated and kicked out of intensive care, with only a walking cast, due to his inability to pay for his care.

It is time for our country to provide fair, universal health care for all Americans.

Please check out the Physicians for a National Health Program Web site, www.pnhp.org, for ways to support health care rights for all.

Charlotte Drost, R.N., Corvallis