Letters to the Editor

A few weeks ago the Source reported on the status of Bend's last independent video store, Westside Video. I was reminded of the importance of such small businesses when my daughter and I recently rode our bikes to Westside Video to rent a movie. Locally owned businesses such as Devores Good Foods, Ranch Records, The Book Barn, Westside Video and others add diversity, independence and flavor to a commercial market that could soon be made up of nothing but sterile, national chains such as Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble and other big box stores.

When you placed "Third Street Moses" in the paper, did you take into consideration:
* The individual's history and who he is.
* The fact that he did not consent to his photo being taken.
For those of us who are familiar with this individual, it is disappointing that the Source would lower itself to mocking.

When I saw that Bend Living had released its first "green issue" last month, I must say I found a great deal of irony. When you have a magazine that mainly deals with a) the burgeoning resort communities that cut down our beautiful landscapes, b) small boutique stores downtown that ship in their overpriced imported goods from who knows where, c) advertisements for seven local car dealerships, and d) generally, in my opinion, encourages unnecessary, excessive consumerism, you have to chuckle a little when they release a green issue on more than 150 pages of thick, glossy paper.

Do we really need to domesticate another wild species? Is keeping a herd of pet elk as cute and harmless as it seems? Consider this:
Chronic wasting disease (mad cow disease for deer and elk) has been spread from elk farm to elk farm and sometimes from elk farm to wild elk in over a dozen states in the last 15 years. CWD is always fatal, and you can't even tell if an animal has it until it dies. Meanwhile, it's contagious for two or three years or more before the animal dies. It's nasty, and the risk to our wildlife is too great to contemplate.
Saskatchewan spent $20 million eliminating CWD from 38 elk farms. Wisconsin has spent over $12 million trying to eradicate CWD from its white-tailed deer herds. These are taxpayer dollars.

In December 2007 I got an e-mail from the folks at MoveOn.org asking if I would be willing to deliver a petition (signed by over 900 residents of our congressional district) to Congressman Greg Walden. I am not a joiner, and I don't agree with everything MoveOn says, but I resisted my own reluctance and agreed to do it, because I believed in what the petition said.
MoveOn sent me the names of several other people in our area who had agreed to meet at the congressman's office on Dec. 13.
I called the congressman and reached his receptionist, who told me the office would be closed that particular day. I asked her if they would agree to at least have one of the staff stop by the office and receive the petition on behalf of the signers. She said, "No."

The reason Hillary Clinton has such negative image problems is that when she was the First Lady in Little Rock she helped pass legislation to improve the ailing state school system and extend education for 4-year-olds. This hit the big boys in Arkansas right where it hurt them most, in their pocket books. Their hatred of her became vitriolic and they formed a Republican committee to taint and discredit her image.
While our homeless veterans and mentally ill are eating out of garbage cans to survive, right-wing Christian radio has spent millions to billions of dollars duping hard-working Americans to vote time and again with the wealthy, who are laughing all the way to their banks. Newt Gingrich suggested to Rush Limbaugh and other mean-spirited conservatives to repeat "words" like sick, pathetic, welfare, crisis, traitor, cheat, steal, bizarre and radical over and over to brainwash their audience. Let's not forget that during this time Newt was having an affair and served his wife divorce papers while she was recovering from her illness. Read Molly Ivins' books, god rest her witty soul. I am so sorry that she is not here to witness what is happening.

Your sidebar on people who don't pay taxes exemplifies the incredible job of brainwashing our society has undergone.
No one should be paying federal income taxes.
The 16th Amendment was never properly ratified.
The Supreme Court had previously ruled a central bank was unconstitutional prior to the creation of the current Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. Since the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified the IRS is illegal. There is no law that says we the people have to pay income taxes.

Good morning H. Bruce Miller
Again, you write us a thriller
With St Patrick's Day here
You criticize the beer
But like your comments it's all filler!
In this case, the cup lied to you, and you believed it. What kind of comparison is this when you have no consistency or baseline to your measurements?
A: You're comparing pints with different "head" on them. A half inch of head is damn near three ounces in one of those "shaker" glasses! Forget your geometry classes?

To those of you who felt we somehow dishonored our military by demonstrating for peace outside the recruiting office on Valentine's Day, I ask you to take a closer look at what you hold sacred.
I personally cringed when I heard a young military man give an interview about the first days of the war in Iraq. He described how they welcomed our troops as heroes. The streets were calm and the mood was one of thankfulness to those who came to "liberate" them. "It was a bit disappointing", he said "because we joined up to see some action."
We are sending our young vulnerable men and women into a war where it is unclear who is the enemy. They make decisions that are often immoral. They leave full of feelings of pride and nationalism, proud that they are brave enough to face the evil that is trying to destroy our country! Often, very often, they come home mentally and spiritually wounded. There are a record number of suicides among our military.

We all know that the political leaders raise the gas prices everywhere throughout the nation and people still go along with it like a herd of sheep. I have been here in Bend for a year and a half coming up from that overpopulated state to the south. The majority of residents here in Bend who do not need the auto have a simple yet effective alternative to spending money on their motorized chariots.
Pick up a bike, support a good bike shop that really is involved in the community, lose weight, save gas, help the city of Bend with pollution, etc.
I work in a grocery store here in Bend and constantly hear people complain about being overweight, they pay way too much for gas to operate their five-ton trucks … duh!!