Posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 12:00 am
OSU campus offers architectural gems
Kudos to Oregon State University for pursuing the formation of a historic district.
The campus encompasses a priceless trove of architectural treasures that deserve to be maintained and preserved.
Buildings today are rarely built with the ornamentation - inside and out - many older buildings boast.
I would like to thank the administration at OSU for exercising responsible stewardship of these public
assets and developing a plan that will rehab, preserve and showcase these treasures. And, of course, the unique stories embodied in each structure - of people, of discoveries, of events - will thereby also be preserved.
There are more than enough architect
ural details on campus to fill a veritable handbook of ornament and building styles.
Next time you have an hour to spare, head over to OSU and admire the wrought iron on the south side of Kidder Hall, the amazing brick octagon building behind the east gre
enhouses (boasting their own elegant little entries), the stunning symbols at the west entrance to Gleeson, the exquisite grilled windows at Plageman Student Health Center, the half-timbering of Shephard Hall, and on and on and on.
Of course, I'm not brea
king out the champagne until the final nomination forms have actually been filed with the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C.
But for the first time in a long time I am hopeful that one of Oregon's great cultural treasures, the lovely and histor
ic OSU campus, will be around for generations to come.
Tammy Stehr, Corvallis
'Better life' creates some big problems
Paul F. deLespinasse ("Immigration is new front in quest for civil rights," As I See It, Jan. 24) reasons "entering the country without per
mission violates no genuine law."
I agree. But I disagree that the 12 million human beings (and their ever-increasing numbers) who enter this country without permission should be given the wide-open opportunities for "the better life" they seek.
From my e
xperience, the mind-set of "illegals" is every bit as distorted as many of its American counterparts.
I'm generalizing here, but let's be honest. The better life people talk about usually translates into the goal of becoming hyperactive participants in ou
r consuming and polluting way of life. Those who are very lucky reach the peak of American perfection - winning the lottery, or otherwise transforming themselves into rich celebrities.
Mr. deLespinasse asks: "Will people in 2048 look back at our current a
ttitudes toward 'illegals' with the same bafflement as we now look back at pre-1968 racial attitudes?"
My guess is that the poor unfortunates in 2048 will be too busy trying to clean up the horrendous messes we leave behind, while they frantically search f
or any resources we haven't used up, to be concerned about our attitudes toward "illegals."
The immigration problem is only one of the issues caused by the corporate global empire. How we deal with this monstrosity is how future generations will view us.
Robert Simms, Corvallis
Whiteside a dreary, featureless building
Please help me understand why Corvallis should forever be stuck with the dreary, featureless and forgettable structure known as the Whiteside. This defunct building does not need preservation.
It needs reincarnation.
I recall a da Vinci Days keynote speaker James Howard Kunstler, author of "Geography of Nowhere."
He states that the "future will require us to build better places" and that the built environment should have beauty and soul.
If do
wntown Corvallis needs to be reinvented, let's keep structures that are worth saving and cherishing.
I propose that the Whiteside is not one of them.
Murray Lein, Corvallis
Scientific data shows no global warming
Global warming stopped around 1999.
Don't
believe it? Check out the satellite temperature measurements from the University of Alabama-Huntsville or the surface temperature records from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, the UN's preferred sourc
e for temperature data.
Both data sets show no significant warming for almost 10 years now.
So the answer to Dudley Chelton's question (Letters, Jan. 22), "How can any critical thinker doubt the validity of global warming?" is "By examining the data."
Mr. Chelton also declared that 2007 was the fifth hottest year on record globally. I wonder if Mr. Chelton would care to put error bars around those temperature estimates.
NASA declared 2007 as the second hottest year. CRU listed 2007 as the seventh warm
est year after predicting last January that it would be the hottest year on record. What did Mother Nature say?
2007 was a year of record cold in Southern Brazil. Santiago, Chile, experienced its coldest winter since 1885. Records for cold were set in Sou
th Africa. Australia experienced its coldest June ever. Sea ice around Antarctica reached its greatest extent ever measured, and remains 15 percent greater than normal even though it's currently the middle of summer there. At the other pole, Arctic sea ic
e coverage exceeded its 10-year average before winter officially began.
Add to this the many poorly sited official weather stations (see www.surfacestations.org) with temperature data compromised by urban heat island effects and critical thinkers certainly
should question the validity of global warming.
John Jones, Philomath
Immigration 'facts' are unsubstantiated
The debate over national immigration policy has prompted innumerable talking points.
These ideas are often presented as facts, unsubstantiated a
nd use what amounts to inflammatory language as in Barbara Story's "Immigration bill won't help Americans" (Letters, Jan. 25).
In the spirit of open and healthy dialogue, I offer a counterpoint to Story's Fact No. 5. She writes "… Hispanic immigration i
s an organized, well-funded movement … The goal is to reclaim 'La Frontera' …"
Counterpoint: Hispanic/Latino immigration is the migratory nature of humans striving to take control of their own fate and improve their lives.
Reclaim? The largest "
minority" of Hispanic/Latino immigrants already inhabit the American Southwest, i.e. "La Frontera" of Mexico.
What productive ends are served by promulgating "facts" such as these?
John Lopez Jr., Corvallis