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Your spam discussion (7/31 cover story) missed a big part of the story. E-mail providers, attempting to block spam, are also blocking legitimate messages, with sometimes serious consequences. A mailman who throws away bags of mail because they contain "too much junk mail" will soon be in prison. Yet e-mail providers are doing the same thing to us, perhaps exposing us to terrible risks. Friends made on the Internet often don't exchange phone numbers or street addresses, and if we don't hear back, the friendship will die. The Internet's value to entrepreneurs providing useful products and good jobs is being threatened by businesses being unable to get messages to even already interested customers. Health care providers use e-mail to exchange information about patients, and if a message is blocked, effective treatment may be delayed. What can we do? We must support only solutions to spam that don't involve the destruction of legitimate messages. Service providers should be required to obtain fully informed consent from account holders to block any messages from reaching their accounts. Meanwhile, individuals should contact their service provider and ask if suspected spam messages are being destroyed (what you don't want), or being sent to a bulk folder where the user can check for mistakes (what you do want). If the former, consider getting another provider, or at least give everyone you communicate with an alternate way to contact you if messages don't seem to be getting through. Your well-being may depend on it. Lee Young PURE POPPYCOCK Who is Rep. Pat Farr (R-Eugene) trying to fool? During the floor debate and vote on HB 5077 (the K-12 education budget), Farr stood in support of the bill. He stated twice that it was a "responsible" budget. He also stated that by voting for that budget he would not be caving in to the pressure of his caucus leaders. He then filed a vote explanation trying to downplay his support for an inadequate education budget and stated he had to vote for the bill to move it. That is pure poppycock! Farr should have withstood the pressure and demanded a fully funded budget from the House. Farr continues to claim to be a moderate, but his floor speech and vote supported the conservative right of his caucus. It is too bad that he did not stand up to his caucus leaders and vote against the bill. He should have done his job and not caved to the pressure of his caucus leaders. Farr should not have passed the buck or expect that the Senate would do his job. On Aug. 5, he voted for the Oregon Department of Transportation budget, which eliminates the Cascades passenger train service in the Willamette Valley. If Farr really wants to be a moderate, it is time for him to stop just talking like a moderate and start voting like one. He needs to stand up to the conservative members of his caucus and not enable their demagoguery views. Floyd Prozanski NOT SO CLUELESS I must take issue with your recent article "DeFazio & Wyden: Clueless Lobbyists?" (8/7), which suggested that Congressman Peter DeFazio and Senator Ron Wyden were misguided in thinking that the Bush administration's efforts to impose a tariff on Hynix may undermine its Eugene plant, where 1,000 people currently work. While it is possible that tariffs on Hynix imports could encourage them to increase production at their Eugene facility, the fact is that this site is already one of the company's most productive and best-equipped. We don't need artificial tariffs to encourage them to produce here. What we need is to make sure the company as a whole has the resources to continue to invest in upgrading their products and facilities so that they can stay ahead of the competition. The proposed tariffs are largely in response to lobbying by Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, who is trying to obtain a competitive advantage for the Micron facility in his state. It is only appropriate that Sen. Wyden and U.S. Rep. DeFazio, along with Sen. Gordon Smith, have weighed in on behalf of a besieged company with a strong Oregon presence. I personally want to thank Wyden and DeFazio for taking the time to testify before the International Trade Commission on this matter. I also want to thank EW for finally acknowledging the major economic contribution Hynix is making to our community. Jack Roberts
SHABBY TREATMENT Oregon citizens: Please ask Gov. Kulongoski to direct his attention to the deteriorating labor dispute in the Oregon University System (OUS). Higher Education state employees are being treated shabbily compared to other state workers in the Department of Administration Services (DAS). The Kulongoski administration dealt with DAS workers in a mutually respectful and constructive process, and a tentative agreement will soon be approved. Sadly, university employees are assaulted with unacceptable contract proposals that weaken our rights. Chancellor Richard Jarvis would slash seniority and layoff protections in the current contract. Please ask the governor why OUS is attacking the workers who keep the seven university campuses operating smoothly. Union (SEIU) negotiators have agreed to economic parity with the proposed DAS agreement. Yet the chancellor rejected our proposal and refuses to delete insulting take-away language. In the DAS agreement, part-time workers get fully covered health insurance, but university part-timers will pay outrageous premiums. Yet part-time university managers enjoy fully paid health coverage! Higher education workers are now in strike preparation mode! If we are pushed to strike the first day of classes in September due to hostile OUS proposals, the blame for the shutdown of campuses will rest squarely on Chancellor Jarvis! Join me in urging Kulongoski to become personally involved in the OUS labor discussions before the situation worsens. Please call, fax or email the governor! Phone: (503) 378-4582; fax: 378-6827; or e-mail via www.governor.state.or.us/contact.htm James Jacobson FEED HUNGRY TABLES I say kudos to UO President Frohnmayer for his bully promotion of a new basketball arena to replace Mac Court. His continued, aggressive promotion of the athletic program should convince all true believers that UO is in good hands. The benefits of promoting these athletic programs are many: They give students an appreciation firsthand of our dynamic free market system, they instill a deep respect for cutthroat competition so important to our capitalistic system, and they provide an antidote to and relief from the liberal claptrap students are assaulted with daily in the classroom. Dave's deft hand at managing the liberal bias at the university has been remarkable. Just a few years ago he appeared to kowtow to a small group of complainers who had camped out in front of Johnson Hall to protest Nike's so called sweatshops. But instead of confrontation, he did an end run around them and in the process brought a righteously outraged Phil Knight back into the fold. And unlike our other president, Dave doesn't need handlers! Clearly, this proposed facility is a winner. For one it gives the university an opportunity, as Dave put it, to put "some bread on a whole lot of tables in Eugene-Springfield that have been pretty hungry." It also means that those generous contributors now being organized by Phil will get the most bang for the buck by the UO Foundation's plan to create a non-profit to build the arena. This strategy will relieve all those sub-contractors of having to offer union wages to their workers. And to those snivelers who might complain that the $130 million of private money raised could better serve other university programs during tight budgets, I say let's get with the agenda! Educating our university students will only get in the way of preparing them for their future role managing the underclass in this country, just as Phil has so ably done overseas. Peter Ferris
THE SONS ARE DEAD? I just went out on the Internet to see for myself what our government is passing off as evidence that Saddam Hussein's two sons Odai and Qusai are, indeed, dead. After careful examination, between the published before and after pictures, there was no way that I could visually conclude that the allegations of our government are true. I must say, that a 10-year-old with an Instamatic camera could have taken better quality photographs. It would have helped if a professional photographer were to have taken full frontal and side views, and then have them compared, side-by-side, to similar views when the two men were alive. Unfortunately, the angles and quality of these morbid pictures are such that no definitive conclusion can be made, particularly, if I were an Iraqi citizen fearing for my life from retributions from these two henchmen. I am gravely disappointed, and equally concerned, that our government is acting so irresponsibly and pitifully, as to think that such a poor quality effort would suffice to prove to the Iraqi people that these two purported thugs are dead. I cannot help but think that our government is once again trying to deceive us, and the rest of the world, to possibly enhance the public opinion polls of our own homegrown illegally elected regime. William A. Fleenor SAVE THIS SAFE SPACE Before the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) removes the median and trees down the middle of Franklin Boulevard, will the city and LTD first hold a community forum on how pedestrians and bicycles will be safely accommodated? There is a preexisting problem of conflicts between pedestrians and cars along Franklin, especially at the intersection of Onyx where students are being seriously injured regularly (Oregon Daily Emerald, 11/4, 2002). While the city is busy studying nodes, could it be missing the wider picture by not seeing how the freeway-like Franklin BRT plans will sever connectivity between neighborhoods drastically? Allowing for a design that would preserve the entire median would let LTD avoid compounding the pedestrian and bicycle safety problems. Outside the new Lillis Complex, the university planners have installed what they refer to as a pedestrian refuge on 13th in the middle of the street. It would be wise if these planners could see past the core of campus to its edge where along Franklin a very useful pedestrian refuge faces removal. Bryn Anderson
BUSH: THIEVES' PET? I've always been interested in how children grow from being so similar at birth to being so vastly different as adults. One area of personality is the amount of self-direction a person has. Some children are not secure in their own identity and they allow themselves to be controlled by a bully or a gang because they want to be loved and accepted, and the bad boys or girls will entice them with promises of glory or riches. All manner of things can distort truth and make a person vulnerable to pursuit of false happiness. Sometimes the weaker person will be duped into perpetrating a crime and the bullies laugh behind his back, enjoying their power and someone else's stupidity. I think this is what happened to George W. Bush. For whatever reasons he took the bait when Kissinger, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft, Cheney, Rumsfield, et al offered him power and a share in their riches. He listens to them while they fill his head with ideas about what he should think, say and do. He has said very little to us that wasn't a prepared speech. He's been used by a gang of people because he has the looks and smile and phoniness that so many of us (I use the term lightly) bought into. He's the emperor with no clothes on and the truly bad people are laughing all the way to the bank. Come on everyone, let's show the world what we Americans can do besides waving flags and consuming more than everyone else. Let's start by getting rid of the crooks in Washington. Bernadette Bourassa
TWO TAX IDEAS Oregon is the hungriest state in the nation. People with disabilities are dying. Corporations are getting huge tax cuts. The state government is short on cash. When the economy was good, instead of saving the extra for tough times, it was given away, and still is being given away. The only interest in Salem for raising more revenue is a sales tax. But you can do something. You can contact your state senator and representative and tell them you want something on the special election ballot in September to raise revenue. For those of you who do not know who your representatives are, you can call the Lane county elections office at 682-4234. If you have internet access go to www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/findset.htm I have two suggestions. I am not including a corporate tax here because the Republicans would never let it get to the ballot. My first suggestion is a tax on all credit card purchases. This is like a sales tax but because credit cards are a convenience, it is a voluntary tax. My other suggestion is a state school tax. It could be like a property tax except the rate you would be charged would be based on your income. That way, if your income was low you could not get taxed out of your house. It is important to press our legislators to let us increase our taxes. Also, there are initiatives in the works to increase corporate taxes. Stay tuned. Anand Keathley
DRUG CRAZE I am wondering what, beyond spending $400 billion, the current legislative effort to provide a prescription drug plan for seniors really accomplishes. The cynic in me says that, with the 2004 elections looming, it is essentially about the Republicans wanting something compassionate and conservative to crow to their constituents about, and — on the other side of the aisle — no Democrats left behind. The fact is that savings from the current proposals are inferior to what can already be obtained by individuals with a simple web search for Canadian pharmacies or a bus trip across the border. It is illegal to import prescription drugs, but the reality is, don't ask don't tell. Simply legalizing the reimportation of U.S. manufactured drugs would bring more relief to our nation's taxpayers and geriatric lawbreakers than the convoluted proposals in process. But the larger question is: Why can other countries control drug costs, while the U.S. cannot? And the answer is: Big Pharma. Our representatives' votes are bought and paid for by the industry. With courage and a little mentoring, our legislators would be able to control prescription drug prices and negotiate volume discounts as is being done by our much smaller neighbor. And we would save $400 billion. Benton Elliott
WHAT TO BELIEVE? The World Trade Center was leased less than two months before the "attacks" of Sept. 11 to Larry Silverstein who then controlled both the maintenance and security departments. He immediately began to replace security personnel and work on the subterranean level of the trade towers. After the towers collapsed, Silverstein demanded $7 billion from insurance companies. Do steel structures collapse from fire? Check the physics involved for yourself. Did the buildings implode in a fashion consistent with common demolition practices? Interesting. At a risk of venturing outside the range of permitted discussion on the subject, there are a number of coincidences I'd like to hear more about. Why is it that all four hijacked planes were 80 percent empty on that particular morning? And why, again, were no military jets "scrambled" to intercept the "off course" planes, as is customary? And what about that Israeli company (Zim) that hastily broke their lease and evacuated the WTC one week before the "attacks"? What about "building 7"? And it just doesn't make sense that Flight 77 didn't nosedive into the center of the Pentagon from above, but instead did an improbable 270-degree hairpin circle around the exterior of the Pentagon a few feet off the ground at 400 mph to hit the only part of the Pentagon that was evacuated for renovation. Coincidences? I'm not sure what to believe any more. But I think it's also interesting to note that most of the SEC's investigative records of Enron (big news just prior to the "attacks") were stored in the World Trade Center at the time it went down. Don Schneider
RAGE FOR THE RIVER While reading Mariel Alexandre's letter (6/26) on the sorry state of Oregon's waterways, I was overcome with a sense of despair, which deepened into rage. For too long, the wishes of the working classes for clean water have been ignored by the greed-fueled corporate interests that dictate our civic enforcement of our clean water laws has caused the Willamette to become a cesspool of heavy metals and other persistent toxins. At what point will our leaders wake up and realize that their mandate comes not from corrupt industrial interests, but rather from the will of their constituents? Certainly, these industrial polluters provide some jobs, but these come at the expense of commercial fishermen and tourism industries who once thrived on the banks of a fertile river. It is time to rise up and tell industry that we want our rivers and streams back, that the destruction of the land is too great a price to pay for a nickel off at the market place, that we will endure their underhanded manipulation of our fine democracy no longer. It is time for our representatives to throw off the shackles of corporate investment and see to it that our laws are enforced and the public is well served. Tom Denton
VOTE TO IMPEACH I have joined with the more than 250,000 people who have called for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Co. at www.VoteToImpeach.orgThis campaign, initiated by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, has drafted articles of impeachment for introduction in Congress and is gaining great momentum around the U.S. Why, I ask, is the current administration so mean spirited, secretive and devious? Sincerely, a U.S. citizen for 46 years, Jozef Siekiel-Zdzienicki
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