Let’s remember abstinence

“Our home on planet Earth” is undoubtedly facing several crises. Attacking what many call Bush’s Gag Rule does not solve any of the problems we face.

Let us not lose our focus. Tomorrow’s children are not the problem. We are! We should not look at population growth, but population greed.

We are all bombarded by ads for fast food, fast cars, cheap sex and the like, which brings no gain for the ones who are here, and dims the hope for those coming tomorrow. We use up our resources and expect others to provide for what we now lack. We shove our responsibilities into the arms of the most fragile of human beings.

Abortion the answer to our global population problem? Are 3,000 lives (in the U.S. alone) snuffed out a day not sufficient? Genocide is never the answer. If we’re going to change social problems, we must change society. It has been reported that there are at least 200 million women who want to space or limit pregnancies but have no access to contraceptives. Killing our children is not the answer.

As thinking men and women, we should know abstinence (a 10-letter word) is 100 percent effective. Let’s not forget it. We lose our integrity and our humanity with every life that’s intentionally destroyed. This country, along with others, will not stand if this is our approach.

Caila Williams, Lebanon

No money for doctors?

An interesting article in the July 7 Oregonian tells us that the Republicans have introduced a bill reducing the Medicare payments to doctors by 10 percent. These are the same Republicans including Senator McCain who want us to remain in Iraq until the job is done (translation: for 50 to a 100 years) at a cost of about $8 billion a week.

Funny that the Republicans can find $8 billion to give to the Iraqis but not a dime for the doctors caring for our seniors!

Is there something wrong here? You bet! Keep this in mind when voting at our next election in November.

Allan Jay Silver, Albany

Against ‘corporate logging’

Assault with a deadly weapon? Chemical warfare? Eco-terrorism? What do you call it when a backward timber industry poisons rural Oregon families with routine helicopter herbicide spraying — contaminating livestock, organic gardens, water sources, even school children waiting for the bus?

Incredibly, the Oregon Department of Forestry calls it being “a leader in professional forestry.”

What kind of primitive state do we live in where it’s business as usual for a teenage girl waiting to catch the bus to school to have to be taken to the doctor for nausea, a splitting headache and pain in her spine, so corporations can continue their brutal practices of spraying herbicides on their clearcuts?

And who pays the costs of the medical bills — not to mention the costs of toxic and silted rivers and streams, landslides, dead salmon and global warming gases that are the casualties of corporate logging? The citizens of Oregon pay, of course — while the boom and bust timber industry keeps profiting from liquidating the natural world that keeps us alive.

Three things you can do to stop these crimes against nature and humanity:

Demand your legislators enact no-spray buffers around schools, bus stops and waterways.

Call to reinstate the harvest tax on Big Timber clearcuts to make up for their billions of dollars of property tax breaks.

Take a stand with rural Oregon’s Pitchfork Rebellion at a rally and free concert on July 27 in Portland’s Pioneer Square to celebrate the forests that give us life.

Josh Schlossberg, Eugene

Warning: stolen pup is sick

On Saturday, July 5, around 6 to 7 p.m., a puppy was stolen out of my yard. She is 8 weeks old, and is pure silver with white on her paws. Normally I would not be writing a letter about a stolen dog, but it is much more than that.

On Sunday, July 6, I found out that the pups have Parvo, a really fast-spreading, deadly virus for dogs, meaning that the pups I have and the one that was stolen have it and will likely die. I am trying to reach out and get a message to whoever took her that she is sick and needs medical attention or she will die if she hasn’t yet.

It is not right to steal from anyone, especially a living, breathing animal. However, the circumstances have changed and I am more concerned about the well-being of the dog, so please if you have her or know where she is, let me know, so we can save her life.

Cyleena N. Adams, Albany