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Letters to the editor: ACH auxiliary needs volunteers Needed! A few good men and women to spend about 3 hours a week helping others, having fun, and ending up feeling very good about yourself. In these times of budget cuts, the need for community volunteers has never been greater. Organizations, schools, and hospitals could not continue to provide the necessary services in our community if it were not for volunteers. Our hospital has a wonderful group of auxiliary members who provide over 14,000 hours of service each year. However, they are in need of more volunteers to be able to continue and expand their services. Especially needed are men or women who are physically able to do quite a lot of walking while assisting patients and families in same-day surgery. There are also less physically demanding opportunities. For more information, call the auxiliary office 482-2441 ext. 472. I enjoy volunteering because Ashland Community Hospital is a wonderful place to work�and I have fun. Mavis Cloutier, Ashland The fish are fine Editor's note: This is a response to articles on the feeder fish deaths at the Schneider Museum of Art. The exhibit closed Saturday. As I entered the Schneider Museum I saw a clean fishbowl with clear water, gravel and a plant. As I observed the art exhibit presented by Professor Shawn Busse, it reminded me of my own working life being a cube dweller myself. I liken the fish in the bowls to all employees, separate yet together in our daily struggles against seen or unforeseen peril of daily living. As a hobby I am a fish breeder and I can tell you from experience these fish were in clean, cool water with plant cover to hide in. The fish would follow me as I walked around the exhibit like mine at home do because they have been conditioned to know that humans will feed them. Based on my observation I believe the fish to be as happy as fish can be. The fish do not need to worry about where the next meal is coming from, their water is clean and the lighting is proper for these fish to know the difference between daylight and night. If Professor Shawn Busse's art was intended to cause us to ponder ourselves, animals or the earth in a different way than usual, he has succeeded. I believe that is what we want our professors to do, challenge us to think for ourselves. I do not see animal abuse in Professor Shawn Busse's exhibit. Norman McCallum, Hillsboro It smells like war It seems fitting that the doublespeak we see and hear daily in the media goes way beyond what was described in Orwell's "1984." We're two decades further along now on the road to unreality. Even though people are still being killed, and despite the report about Iraqi guerrilla attacks from Capt. John Ives of the 3rd Infantry Division in Fallujah, about "military-type attacks," we still refer to U.S. military operations as taking place "after the war." Why are journalists using the administration's tricky terminology? If it looks like a war, smells like a war, acts like a war, and feels like a war - let's be honest - it's a war. Diana Morley, Ashland Guest forum: New farmers market riding their coattails By Sara Hammond Trail I appreciate the attention the Daily Tidings gave the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market's search for a new site this spring. Your articles helped spotlight our organization's desire to find a site suitable to the growers market, and the community's response focused on the park as an answer. The skating rink was offered to RVGCM early in our search and we appreciated the compromise the Ashland Parks Commission was willing to make to include our market in the park. The skating rink at 40 booth sites would have filled with growers by this time of year. As our group is growers and crafters, we looked for a sight that might include more of our group. The Windburn Way site was our dream, but not in the eyes of non-commercial ventures in the park which some of the park commission felt bound to. At that point, we returned our focus to the original site for which we had sought a conditional use permit , the National Guard Armory, in an effort to provide a venue for our farmers to sell their crops which were beginning to come in. The Armory site and the folks there have made us feel welcome and desirable. We had not, however, given up hope of keeping a dialogue going with the Ashland Parks Commission with some other ideas such as running the market as a fund raiser or offering to steward that portion of the park we would like to use for five or six hours a week. Our subsequent manager change received an equal amount of coverage as Sean Wolfe followed the developments. Although the change was a source of interest and thus newsworthy, it was an emotionally charged transition period for our group. Change is always difficult Sean agreed with me on the phone. Now with Ms. Bierbower's attempt to create a new market in the skating rink, the word "rival" was used in the headline. I have to say that there can be no comparison between the as of yet non-existent entity she may manage and might be called the Lithia Market versus a market which has been in existence for sixteen years offering a great array of organic vegetables, tasty treats, health products and quality crafts to Rogue Valley area visitors and residents. The new market is definitely a ride on the coattails affair. I fear Ms. Bierbower's success would overshadow our group's ongoing attempt to have a market in the park as a whole. I fear if the market didn't fly it would over-shadow any future considerations for markets in the park. I fear that it will cause division in our group and not because a farm is large or small, but because the spirit of the group is not moving towards a market for us all. It may in fact cause the rivalry Sean speaks of and that would be a shame for the whole community. Thank you for all your journalistic help. Editor's note: Sara Hammond is with Elk Creek Gardens in Trail. AFN: A raft doomed to drift By John Gaffey Ashland Regarding the Tidings' editorial on AFN, "Thinking for the long haul," what choice do we have? It's not as if the non-believers amongst us can just hop off this ship of fools and wade ashore. The AFN is a raft we've all been put on by long gone visionary leaders, doomed to drift wherever the latest and greatest, prudent business plan takes us. Anyone who has read the business pages in the last two years knows America has laid tens of thousands of miles of unused fiberoptic cable in the past decade. The AFN comprises about twelve miles of that. The national projections for the ability to shop at mind-numbing speeds on the Internet were vastly overrated, over-hyped and over-built. The truth is, Ashland couldn't give away the AFN, even if it decided to. So, yeah, we're in for the long haul. The huge chuckle about all of this it that fully half of the AFN subscribers use it to watch TV, not blitz the info highway to infinity and beyond. Police, fire, sewage and now "The Three Tenors," and all secured by the taxpayers' assumed willingness to rescue the city's credit rating if Ashlanders go elsewhere for TV service. The only benefit that I ever heard from the AFN was the projected ability to synchronize the traffic lights on Siskiyou Blvd.; put the Volvo on cruise-control, the feet on the dashboard and glide unimpeded the length of town. Maybe that'll be re-addressed in this next financial plan. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. 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