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June 19, 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels April 24, 2004 Appointments to planning raise concern Dear Commissioners Kupillas, Walker, and Gilmour: Because Congress has no plan to level U.S. population, Jackson County the state of Oregon, and the U.S. as a whole will continue to degenerate from growth. The U.S. is too big for our society to embody such desirable components such as intimacy, trust, and simplicity. We also continue to lose more personal freedoms from the laws, rules, and regulations a that are deemed necessary to keep people from interfering with other's peace, enjoyment, or safety. Please understand that more people adversely affecting each other is the main reason we need to have an ever more regulated society. Thus, it is important that when appointing Planning Commissioners that you choose people who understand these realities and who have the long term heritage of the county's residents as a whole foremost in their minds. We don't want people who favor short-term land speculators. Too often that rural dream home some nice couple must have for their lives to be fulfilled is placed on the market for profit soon after completion. For planning commissioners you want people who will protect residents in the county from adjacent development that would negatively impact their wells, other water sources, or farming activities. I do not believe that Elizabeth Fujas has these interests in mind. I believe she favors policies that would lead to more "martini farms', more partitioning, more traffic, and more conflicts, and interference with the maintenance of productive farmland. I do not believe she understands the realities of the effects of more development and sprawl into rural zones. Please choose people who understand that the rural nature of the county is fast eroding. Please choose people who are extremely conservative in allowing development. Those people are best for the long-term welfare of all county residents. Brent Thompson Ashland Prager's religion is out of place on editorial page We need to express our indignation that you continue to print the diatribes of Dennis Prager on your commentary page. Not only are we subjected to the religious harangues of a president who talks to God, we are more and more exposed to the spread of religiosity on TV and newspapers, abetted by the likes of Falwell and Robertson, as well as the insidious infiltration into our public schools and social services - at taxpayer expense. Additionally, the administration's bought-and-sold Congressional representatives have become the mouthpieces for the fundamentalist's cause as well. Indeed, Prager has the right to espouse his religiosity, but certainly not on the commentary page. It has no business being on that page. He and his sermons should be appropriately placed in your religious page along with church related news or views. Ashlanders, by-and-large are aware and enlightened people with an interest in writers who address current news in depth, of which we are sorely lacking. There are such noteworthy writers and columnists such as Solomon, Krugman, Scheer, Thomas, Oliphant, Hightower, Kaul, Cohen, and many, many more. We readers deserve and will applaud the change, because we are being deprived of the finest writers and investigative reporters available in the country. If you have a need to balance the Opinion Page, you might consider a moderate conservative journalist who's views at least maintain a modicum of logic in perspective. We understand that you want to keep the Tidings a local paper, but a number one responsibility is to also present national news that directly impinges upon our lives - such issues as Medicare, Social Security, environment, employment, the air we breathe, the water we drink, our president and cabinet lies, the truth behind 9-11, corporations who pay no taxes, exorbitant prescription costs, our troop casualties, why we are hated throughout the world, poverty, education, and most importantly, the fact that our democracy has become a plutocracy. As an aside, may we ask why you feature full page New York restaurants, valuable space that could be used with news that is more worthwhile? Al & Anne Bodin Ashland DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams