What a relief!

Do you hear it? Aaaaahhhh - that long, wonderful sigh of relief. It is reverberating across this country from east to west, from north to south.

Hope is bubbling up all over America. This is how the country felt in the mid-1940s when the second world war was finally over. Those of you of a certain age remember it - everyone felt united in a common cause - and we were proud to be Americans.

Thank you to all the people, the young, the old, and in-betweens, who voted for the change we deserve. Now we can look forward with optimism with a great new leader who will work for all of us.

Nancy M. Long, Albany

Turnabout's fair play

May the Schonings be treated as well as their clients - the fees piled on fees, the lawsuits piled on lawsuits, the rotted floorboards and moldy roofs …

Thanks for some credible and incredible reporting!

We must first help the unfortunate families caught in the crossfire; then prevent others from "Schoning" our communities.

David Anderson, Corvallis

Human rights denied

I am pro-life. For years I didn't think about it. Then I saw a very premature baby struggling for its life in 1989. Without even realizing it, the image of her tiny body took hold in my mind and has been a growing, irresistible force over the years.

I am certain that viable babies are human beings deserving human rights. In discussions with pro-choice people, I sometimes ask them if a viable baby is destroyed, did a human being lose its life. Often their response is a series of deflecting questions for me on complex social issues. Sometimes they say something soothing like it's rare. Almost never is it a direct answer of yes or no.

Is the humanity of a viable baby really depending upon factors external to the baby? Is yours? And if I don't have the answers to complex problems, then these babies can't be human? Anyway, my lack of answers always seems to comfort them.

But there's no comfort for me as I am left with my certainty that viable babies deserve their human rights, but I live in a world where current law puts no conditions on their destruction other than one person's choice. Excusing it as rare is no comfort either because we're talking about a rare portion of over 45 million.

Also "rare" suggests that there is some acceptable number of viable babies, like that tiny girl in 1989, who can be denied their human rights. Strangely, that's no comfort either.

Frank DeMonte, Corvallis

Tricked by candy cash?

I was troubled by the Nov. 2 front-page article, "Cash for Candy."

Dentist Kurt Black offered children $2 for every pound of Halloween candy turned in. Although his intentions seem noble, there are some disturbing consequences of his effort to reduce candy consumption.

I wonder if there aren't better ways to encourage healthy eating and reduce tooth decay. If Dr. Black offered apples instead of money for the candy, he would certainly achieve his goal in a more positive way. Yes, he probably wouldn't have as much candy turned in, but doesn't the "money for candy" concept promote greed? Trick-or-treaters who can expect dollars will gather as many pounds as possible, such as the "kid" who received $50 for 25 pounds of candy.

This candy is paid for twice, first by the individuals purchasing it and distributing it and then by Dr. Black. This includes the downtown merchants who participate in the Halloween event and encourage the costumed children to visit their stores for a treat. To add to my concerns, this candy, two garbage cans full, will be dumped. In a country where people still go hungry every day, sending anything edible to the landfill, even candy, seems wasteful.

This year I had nearly 100 costumed visitors that were polite and appeared to be having fun going from door to door. I thought that it was an enjoyable Halloween for both young and old. Now I wonder if I have been tricked.

Nancy Basque, Corvallis

Strong military, but rest is weak

Robert Kagan is partly right about "America in Decline?" (Nov. 2). Our military remains strong (though over extended and undermanned.) But the social structure supporting it is crumbling beneath it. That's what the "decliners" have been correctly pointing out for years.

Kagan ignores that fact and renders his whole argument irrelevant. Important parts of our society that are obviously in decline, in addition to our industrial base, are education, health services, energy independence, immigration, global warming, prisons (in crisis), failing infrastructure, and on and on.

Regarding the latter, a recent study shows that public investment in transportation in the 1970s generated a return approaching 20 percent, mostly in the form of higher productivity. Investments in the 1980s generated only a 5 percent return; in the 1990s, the return was just 1 percent. I'd say that's decline. The cost of congestion, including added freight costs and lost productivity for commuters, reached $78 billion in 2005.

Mr. Kagan is not a reliable prophet. He was one of the earliest and strongest cheerleaders for the Iraq fiasco. And is still lying about it! Iraq is not "now an ally" of the U.S. as he claims. If anything, it is an ally of Iran. 80 percent of Iraqis want us out of there! That's why they are refusing to sign a new agreement (SOFA) for us to stay. Only the Kurds there want to be our friends, and they don't want to be Iraqis!

Mr. Kagan not only fails to mention our federal debt of more than $10 trillion, but also our unfunded upcoming entitlements (Medicare and Social Security) that will probably exceed $45 trillion. Our dysfunctional Congress keeps kicking these cans down the road, along with the other problems listed above.

Let's face it, Kagan: Our political system doesn't work for the nation as a whole. It's owned and controlled by the military-industrial alliance that you are so fond of. It's working fine for them!

John Goodwin, Lebanon

Let's park unfunded initiatives

Sunday's editorial has a hypothetical governor saying to voters who passed an initiative needing funding but lacking it: "So as much as we'd like to do what the voters want us to do, you can't do something with nothing, so we´re not going to do it." Great idea!

But why put it on the lonely governor? Why not have the Legislature pass a law stating that measures passed requiring funding - but without the means incorporated in the adopted measure - will have to wait for enactment until an initiative containing the funding mechanism is adopted? Or do it with another initiative petition?

We could call it the "hot potato" law - or if you're a Republican, the "hot potatoe" law.

We could then have a place where such initiatives go to wait for funding. Eventually we might have to put a time limit for how long they wait. Some problems might just solve themselves while waiting.

Robert G. Gourley, Corvallis

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