Citizens' demands are Council business

In your July 10 editorial, you challenged the appropriateness of the Corvallis City Council's resolution in support of a federal Department of Peace and non-violence. I appreciate your newspaper's concern about "taking the Council's limited time away from local issues" through such matters, but your contention that the City Council is not "meant to be that forum" wherein local residents can air their concerns is troubling.

Yes, there is an issue about how much of the Council's time should be taken up with "non-local" topics, and foreign policy is clearly not within the city's span of control. But the right - and duty - to petition our government dates at least to the days of Dr. Benjamin Rush (one of the Founding Fathers cited in your editorial) in town halls throughout the colonies. Who better to speak for citizens than their locally elected representatives?

Personally, I want the City Council to do more than to worry about potholes and pay raises because a healthy civic life is much more than that. And to this specific resolution, how, pray, is petitioning to change the bellicose nature of the current federal administration not a matter of local interest? From where else do the sons and daughters in uniform who die or are maimed in reckless, ill-planned adventures come?

Should the Council get too far afield from "local" matters, the voters will let them know.

Bud Laurent, Corvallis

'Peace Department' wasteful bureaucracy

Please add my strong support to the July 10 editorial, "The City Council has enough to do at home."

The support from the Council was given for HR 808, which establishes a new cabinet level department. The new Peace Department would add more bureaucracy to an overloaded government. It was introduced by "impeach-them-all" Dennis Kucinich, who spends hours of Congressional time with this type of activity.

This is comparable to the time spent by our own City Council on this matter. All of us are for lasting peace in the world, but not all of us are for this bill and to have the Council represent the position of the city when the city has not had any opportunity to consider the matter is outlandish. The do-gooders who pressured the Council to act on their personal feelings is out of place. The citizens of Corvallis may not necessarily support the establishment of a Peace Department and to have that opinion sent to our congressional contingent as if we do is completely ridiculous.

Ted Langton Sr., Corvallis

Council's business extends beyond city

The July 11 editorial questioned the wisdom of the City Council for spending time on matters beyond their jurisdiction ("City Council has enough to do at home"), in this case the matter of world peace.

Certainly the Council should tend to business close to home, but what kind of a society would we have if all paid attention only to matters of the hearth, and left matters beyond to others? That's really the question here.

Take for example the matter of our cobbled-together health care system (that) folks are beginning to figure out doesn't work. Council members, and their constituents, probably all want to be healthy and would benefit from a health care system that produces healthy Council members and constituents. It's becoming clear that such a system will take a national effort to create. Should the Council be silent about the fact that we don't have such a system?

Maybe the editor would prefer that the Council, and its constituents, tolerate such a health care system, without protest, until it silences them.

Robert G. Gourley, Corvallis

Court's gun ruling muddled meanings

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution contains only 27 words, but it appears that the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court found that too many to deal with in their June 28 decision on bearing arms. By considering only the last 14 words, " … the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," their decision was self-evident.

Do you suppose the preceding words, "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State … " were placed in the administration as a whim? I don't understand P.M. deLaubenfels' statement in his July 10 letter, "Militia, military are not the same thing," that "The Supreme Court didn't overlook it (the initial 13 words) at all."

Perhaps, my criticism of the Supreme Court is premature, for early reports may have overlooked some crucial points yet to be revealed in its written decision - that I've heard fills over 100 pages-which Mr. deLaubenfels may have accessed. Certainly, it doesn't take that many pages to state the self-evident.

I can't help speculating on what those crucial points might be. One that appears most probable, by the omitted reference thus far to a well-regulated militia, is the requirement that those who wish to keep and bear arms must serve in a militia as required at the discretion of proper authority. The outcome should be very interesting.

Mike Wolf, Corvallis

Bush is wrong to support hospice cuts

Recently the Bush administration has started to attack hospice (end-of-life care), and the concept of hospice.

My experience with hospice has been when they took care of my father, Joseph Hambro, and also now as a hospice volunteer. Hospice encourages life by having their patients enjoy life within their capacities.

The (hospice volunteers and staff) take them fishing, provide harp music, counseling for the family, supplies for the patient, 24/7 help, pet visits, respite visits, compassion and caring. They also give grief counseling for the families. These are only a few of the many services that hospice does. They take care of the whole family, and not just the patient.

To cut any services out of hospice, to me, would be inhumane. This is a vital, compassionate service that is desperately needed by all of us.

Regina Berman, Corvallis