Teen hangout needs to be cleaned up

I am writing a follow up to a previous article addressing the issue of teens hanging out on the corner of 13th and Pierce.

Parents, do you want to hear what your kids are up to everyday?

Today while walking up to my front door I overheard a young lady talking about how drunk she was. It was 1:35 in the afternoon.

I overheard another kid asking what was in the bottle. The respondent said alcohol.

I witnessed the driver of a red and white old Chevy SUV drive off drunk.

A couple of days ago I walked out to my car to find half of a smoked joint laying in the middle of Pierce.

My and my neighbors' yards look like landfills with all the littering going on.

The trash can placed out there by the faculty does nothing to help.

Seriously, Corvallis High students, faculty, and parents, take some responsibility for yourself and your kids.

The police seem to not care anymore about complaints.

This is ridiculous and is making me very disappointed in our community and the kids that are being raised in it.

Kelliann McCune, Corvallis

Bush's budget plan threatens our future

President Bush unveiled a $3.1 trillion budget plan for fiscal 2009 that will leave deficits of more than $400 billion by next year.

The plan omits several costly features, including tens of billions of dollars of the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that could drive the deficit higher than the president's estimates.

In 2004 the deficit hit a record $413 billion. The federal debt will have climbed to $9.7 trillion by the time Bush leaves office, a rise of $4 trillion during his administration

Interest on the debt next year will total $260 billion, about what will be spent by the departments of Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Justice combined.

The Defense Department will benefit most from the new plan. It would continue Bush's first-term tax cuts beyond their 2011 expiration date, at a cost to the Treasury of $635 billion through 2013.

Among the programs Bush would eliminate are food programs for poor children, research assistance to manufacturers, career and technical education grants, weatherization assistance, community development grants, graduate medical education at children's hospitals and a public housing revitalization program that the House just overwhelmingly reauthorized.

I urge anyone concerned to write to his or her representatives. Voice opposition to the approval of the latest sabotage of the American people by Mr. Bush. It isn't Democrats or Republicans; it is citizens being involved on a grass-roots level. If you care, get involved or we're doomed.

Terry Thayer, Philomath

Primaries look like a demolition derby

We are in the midst of the presidential primaries, more often than not compared to a horse race when in fact they are now more of a demolition derby with the breathless big media bloviators obsessing over which one of the endorsement-plastered entries will get the best gas mileage.

While there is obviously an audience for spectacular car-crushing feats of raw power, we, the more thoughtful souls on the sidelines, wonder if anything worthwhile is gained besides that big bombastic NASCAR or Whatever-Cup hoisted by the winner of the substance-challenged race come November.

Leo de Vogel, Corvallis

Not too late to halt global warming

John Jones (Letters, Jan. 30) perpetuates four myths about global warming. Details of the myths commonly cited by global warming skeptics can be found by Googling "global warming myths."

The facts surrounding the four myths that Mr. Jones cites are:

1. Global warming did not stop in 1999. The strongest El Nino on record indeed made 1998 very warm. Global average temperatures dropped back to 1997 levels after that El Nino subsided and have since continued to rise. The global average temperature will soon surpass the record high of 1998.

2. There is no discrepancy between satellite and land-based measurements of temperature. As summarized in a 2006 report by the U.S. Global Climate Change Science Program, previously reported discrepancies no longer exist because errors in the satellite and land-based measurements have been identified and corrected.

3. The global average warming signal has not been compromised by temperature records from urban areas. As reported in 2003 in the Journal of Climate (p.2941), no significant difference is found when these records are excluded from the global average.

4. The global warming signal is now outside of the realm of statistical uncertainty.

It's time for Mr. Jones and his fellow naysayers to stop perpetuating myths and join the 71 percent of the U.S. population that understands that global warming is real.

It's not yet too late to implement strategies for the U.S. to reduce the CO2 emissions that are accelerating global warming.

Dudley Chelton, Corvallis

Old-growth forests should be preserved

Letter writer Robert Gourley criticized Jeanne Riha for describing the proposed massive harvesting increase of native old-growth forest stands under the BLM's Western Oregon Revision Plan as "desecration."

Our Coast Range old-growth forests are some of the oldest, biomass-dense, species-rich, moist, welcoming, and most-productive forests on Earth. They should not be plundered to finance society's endless revenue demands.

For some, older, natural forests are living monuments of the power, majesty and strength of God's creation or Mother Nature's unspeakable beauty, complexity, and fertility - as in a cathedral, wonderful or awe-inspiring. Destroying that could easily qualify as desecration ("violating sacredness"). Sacredness is in the heart of the beholder.

Gifford Pinchot, "father of American forestry," used similar language to describe the reckless, disrespectful slashing of America's original forests 100 years ago.

WORP's dramatically ramping up of old-growth harvesting today is really no different. Reforestation is but a paltry, even deceptive excuse for destroying something irreplaceable, reducing a wide range of future synergistic possibilities for society and nature - then planting hundreds of evenly spaced Douglas fir seedlings per acre, and calling it "forestry."

To start practicing responsible forestry, overstocked second-growth stands sorely need thinning. Start there. Clean up our messes first, like we tell our kids.

Gifford Pinchot personally developed his forestry education, wisely tripled national forest lands, and counseled foresters to show great respect for the public as professional stewards of public lands or private forests affecting all.

Chris Foulke, Corvallis