Memorials: An alternative

I read your article regarding roadside memorials on your Web site with great interest. It was well written and informative.

Your readers would benefit from the knowledge there is an alternative to displaying a roadside memorial on public roads or right of ways. The National Memorial Registry (www.NationalMemorialRegistry

.com) is Internet based and offers, free of any charge, the opportunity for any individual to dedicate a memorial location to a loved one.

With the help of our extensive database of mapping software, a person can dedicate a specific address, site or location in honor of, or to validate, the life of an individual that has an influence on their lives. Every memorial dedication is displayed on our maps for the world to view.

It is a well-known fact that many individuals need to experience the grieving process through the display of a roadside memorial. All too often, local jurisdictions are regulating this practice. Some are limiting the time a memorial can be displayed, others are banning them. Some jurisdictions have regulations regarding the placement of memorials but local enforcement is not done, often by choice to help the grieving family.

Please let your readers know about this alternative.

Robert Sergent, Spring, Texas

A magnet for offenders

As a life-long resident of Albany, I am saddened that it has come to the point that we can't even let our children play or ride bikes in front of their own home.

My family often lends a helping hand to the less fortunate. But it has come to my attention that the Helping Hands Homeless Shelter goes to the Oregon State Penitentiary at least once a month if not more and recruits felons getting out of prison to come live at their shelter here in Albany, so they can get more funding. Often targeting sex offenders that are getting released.

When questioned if Hugh Hile, the man who is alleged to have kidnapped and raped a 7-year-old girl, lived there, their representative said no even though he is registered as living there. I myself do not believe this.

OK, just for fun let's give them the benefit of the doubt. So what about the 14 other registered sex offenders that are registered as living there?

Are you going to tell me they don't live there either? The new Oregon State Sex Offender Web site lists the 700 most-likely-to-reoffend predators in Oregon, 40 of whom live here in Albany. That is 17.5 percent of these predatory sex offenders live in our town.

We wonder why drugs and crime are on the rise in our city. A lot of it has to do with Helping Hands Homeless Shelter recruiting the criminals to come live in our town. It is time to take a stand and say no more.

It is time to cut Helping Hands Shelter off where it hurts, with our pocketbooks. Until they stop recruiting at the prisons, we need to stop funding them.

Heidi Womack, Albany

Disparage Israel and duck

Seems as if Ed Hemmingson (Mailbag, Aug. 2) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agree on the destruction of Israel.

Bill Koenig in his book, "Eye to Eye," asks what do these things have in common: The 10 costliest insurance events; the 12 costliest hurricanes; three or four largest tornado outbreaks; and the two largest terrorism events in U.S. history?

The answer is all these major catastrophes and many others began on the same day or within 24 hours of U.S. Presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush applying pressure on Israel to trade land for peace or security or calling for a Palestinian state.

Israel has always been the apple of God's eye. Anyone who advocates harm or disparages Israel does so at extreme peril.

Careful, Mr. Hemmingson, you are playing with the big kids now.

John Penrod, Lebanon

Surgery by volunteers: Silly!

In response to Ms. Kelly's suggestion (Mailbag, Aug. 10) that veterinarians could "train" volunteers to perform spaying and neutering procedures in order to reduce the population of cats in our area is, quite possibly, the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.

What next? Do we ask a surgeon to set aside a couple of evenings to "train" volunteers to perform bariatric surgeries since our country has the highest rate of obesity?

How many people would opt to have a "volunteer" perform a tubal ligation or a vasectomy on their loved ones since this is basically the same procedure a veterinarian performs on our animals? I, for one, will stick with the licensed professionals.

Kathryn Surles, Lebanon

Denial and the meth scourge

Re: "Don't blame us for her fate" (Aug. 3):

I am a little flabbergasted myself at some of the readers who are able to rationalize and twist my previous letters in an attempt to dismiss themselves from any blame. It's that type of denial that enables the meth epidemic to continue.

Saying that meth addicts are not nice people is ludicrous. Addiction is not nice. People do bad things when they are addicted to any drug, but as a human being they are not what you might call a "bad person."

Some of the meanest, most manipulative and deceiving people I have ever met have not been addicted to anything that I could see. I have also had drug addicts in the past help me with a gift for my son's birthday, listen to me when I'm sad, and give me a ride when I ran out of gas.

The things I did for Rachel are between me and her. I do not recall ever saying in any of my letters about how the community should help drug addicts. I said we all need to give recovering drug addicts a chance instead of pushing them down every time they make an attempt to join the community as a productive member of society.

What I mean by this is being more open to hiring recovering drug addicts for a job regardless of criminal history, let them volunteer in the community, and stop the mandatory driver's license suspension so they can look for a job and take their children to the doctor when they're sick.

Most people have the idea that a meth addict lives in poverty, lives in a rundown and trashed house, and commits heinous crimes. This is simply not true. Everyone knows a meth addict. Just like practically everyone has an alcoholic in the family. Meth addicts can be the poverty-stricken individual stealing from neighbors to get more drugs. But they can also be the pretty soccer mom with three kids and an SUV who attends all the PTA meetings.

Meth addiction knows no boundaries and does not discriminate. So I ask again, what have you done for an addict in recovery?

Morgan Jones, Albany

Make it a peaceful place

I am glad to see that Ken McDaniel (Mailbag, Aug. 10) is trying to make a better life for himself. It's a long time coming. I sincerely wish him the best.

I hope that Morgan Jones (Mailbag, Aug. 1) is doing the same. For me her letter about how hard her life is now is better read by children as a reason to stay away from drugs and crime in the first place.

My main point of this letter is Rachel Soto and people complaining about her "memorial."

I deal first-hand with the effects of drugs and crime, as I am adopting my second cousin due to a drug and crime situation. So I am not just casting stones here.

The fact is this Rachel Soto did not clean up her life. Rachel chose to go beyond what any citizen, on drugs or not, should do. And she paid the ultimate price.

Because Rachel did not clean up, you can be assured that there are people going to this place where Rachel died that usually have more on their mind than just visiting. Such as jumping into a neighbor's boat. There are a lot of children in that neighborhood. Why, as Morgan put it, should they live in a gated community to keep their kids' bikes and the parents' boats or whatever else safe?

So how about those of you who insist that you have some place to go and remember Rachel go make a place for her? A peaceful place, not a place where she chose to make a very bad decision.

Monroe Davis, Albany