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Letters to the Editor: In the name of peace, stop the hostile protesting Have you tried going to downtown Ashland lately? Chances are it wasn't a very PEACEFUL experience. I just came from there. Anti-war protesters yelled in my face and forcefully tried to get me to accept their handouts. Police officers were hanging around, having to baby-sit the situation instead of being able to give their full attention to outside dangers. In other cities there are riots going on with people getting hurt and resources being misused. The message of PEACE loses its credibility when communicated through hostile means. Josh Harvey, Ashland The 'Economizer' is the answer to fire hazard reduction Hooray for the Economizer! The mobile small log mill featured on March 24 by Vicki Aldous saws logs between 3.5 inches and 11 inches in diameter into dimensional lumber, creating useful by-products from authentic hazardous fuel reduction efforts in our fire-suppressed and logged low-elevation forests. Committed environmentalists, like the administrative director of the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, use the Economizer on their own land. The Economizer creates products and jobs. A win-win technology. Federal land managers and their bosses in Congress, who control over 50 percent of lands in the Rogue basin, should invest in this technology (Mr. Walden, are you listening?). Acquire a few portable mills and deploy them around the region to offset fuel reduction costs, and/or give "salvage" rights to private contractors who perform fuels reduction work on public land. I guarantee fire hazard reduction projects with firm 11-inch diameter limits on trees to be cut will never draw a legal challenge. This is so easy. Jay Lininger, Ashland Guest Forum: 'Citizen warrior' can put his uni back in mothballs By Al Bodin Ashland It is with considerable hesitancy that I reply to a passive aggressive commentary of Gerry Mandell (3-21-03) who "can't think of a better place to live than this oasis of relative peace, abundance and unsurpassed opportunity." But, I cannot let this senselessness go unanswered. Might I suggest firstly that in Mandell's tirade he remind himself that we were not "blessed with the right to speak �" We had a revolution to obtain these constitutional rights and those of us who treasure these rights must continue to fiercely resist those of the ilk of Bush and Ashcroft in order to preserve them. Ashcroft is determined to transform our country into a fascist state by eradicating our freedom of speech and civil rights. Might I suggest that you read the intent of the contemptible Patriot Act. Please tell me how you can possibly be enamored by our first appointed president - yes, not elected by the majority of voting citizens - knowing the following: Our predicted deficit for 2004 (plus the invasion) is expected to be 1/2 trillion dollars. Our grandchildren will be saddled with this. Our leader has cut the Title I (aid to disadvantaged children) by $10 billion. Almost 40 percent of Bush's first tax cut went to the richest 1 percent. My guess is that wealthy elitists got close to $53,000, most of the rest $289. The number of Americans without health insurance rose by 1.4 million in 2001 up to 40 million today. In two years, the U.S. had the highest rate of bankruptcy cases in history, increased 213 percent since your Bush came in. Requests for emergency shelter increased by an average of 19 percent in 2002, the largest increase since 1990. 1.3 million more Americans slipped below the official poverty line in 2001. Medical care rose at a rate of 5.1 percent during the first 11 months of 2002. Unemployment climbed to 6 percent - highest since 1994. 1.7 million jobs have been lost since January 2001. When your Bush took office, unemployment had reached a 40-year low of 3.9 percent. Bush unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the Kyoto Treaty, an international agreement to reduce greenhouse emissions. In 2002, the EPA warned in a report to the United Nations "of significant effects on the environment from climate change". Bush dismissed the report suggesting nothing to deal with heat-trapping greenhouse pollution beyond voluntary action by industry. Yeah! There's something surreal about the fact that the U.S., the richest, most powerful nation in history won't, not can't, provide a basic public school education for all of its children. We'll spend hundreds of billions of dollars on an oil-powered misadventure in the Middle East. But Dubya, our "leave no child behind" president won't scrape together the money for sufficient textbooks and teachers throughout our country, including Ashland. My information is acquired from facts. Dispute them if you will. I still feel that Dubya is a pathological liar. Your explanation that his lies are "a change of perspective rather than an attempt to deceive" sounds absolutely ludicrous to me. You speak of the United Nations as consisting of members who are "dictators." If many are, and most surely most are not, are you aware that we have supported, trained, financed and armed many of these vicious dictators like Hussein, whom we gave weapons of mass destruction in the first place, including stock of Anthrax and E. Coli? I applaud your wish to become a "citizen warrior" (whoever they are) and that you will protect our hapless population from a country that is unable to sustain its own people, no less attack us. I feel so much safer. But, Mr. Mandell, Hussein did not attack us, we invaded his country. So, you can safely put your uniform back in mothballs for the time being. Inventing Dubya By Isaac Walker Ashland Considering the number of lies, of every variety, that Dubya and his gang have used in selling war to a skeptical American public, no one should be surprised when those dubious "weapons of mass destruction," which have long eluded the U.N. inspectors, actually turn up in Iraq. To our draft-dodging but war-loving president, their existence is absolutely necessary to justify his illegal, immoral and insane invasion of Iraq. As Voltaire famously said about God - if he did not exist it would be necessary to invent him - so with the Bushies and weapons of mass destruction: If WMD don't exist in Iraq, it will be necessary to "invent" them. No, I'm not making this up. You can check this story out in the Washington Post (Mar. 29): Though U.S. forces are already scouring as much of the countryside as they can for WMD, they've come up empty-handed so far. Since they don't trust the weapons inspectors who were working for the U.N., they've resolved to go it alone. But to make sure the job gets done right, they "are said to be negotiating contracts with private companies" which might hire former U.N. inspectors - and, if I may pause here a moment for emphasis - put them under U.S. command. Well. No surprises now, for sure, especially if you're an experienced Bush-watcher. With that good old American corporate know-how, plus non-union, highly-productive employees who appreciate which side their bread is buttered on, the job will get done, promptly, one way or another. If the company has to secretly haul in WMD and hide them, and then dramatically reveal them before the cameras, so be it. It would be a small expense, hidden deeply in some obscure chink in the mountainous defense budget. And the story of such an operation would be as unlikely ever to see daylight as any of the thousands of other sordid tales hidden from us in this disastrous blunder of a war. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -