Phoning, like being drunk

Your latest editorial about using a cell phone while driving implied that it would be a waste of time to make it illegal since they cause such a small percentage of the accidents and some users would avoid being caught anyway. According to a study I read in the Washington Post, driving while using a cell phone causes just as many accidents as drunken driving. Maybe we should legalize drunken driving too since drunken drivers cause such a low percentage of accidents, and not all drunken drivers are caught either.

Just this past week I had to honk at the driver in front of me who was text messaging. She was about to run off the road. She avoided running off the road, but that didn't seem to faze her. She went on her merry way text messaging, not only being a danger to herself but everyone around her.

Tom McCart, Albany

Anybody have yarn?

After the recent loss of my daughter Stormy I have decided to do something special for the babies still at the NICU at Sacred Heart hospital. I have not forgotten the joy that came from people making her little things. I have found that same joy making blankets for the babies still fighting for their lives at the NICU.

I'm hoping to continue this project but am in need of yarn. If anyone has any left-over yarn from their own projects they would be willing to donate, please contact Crystal at (541) 401-3916.

Thank you; it will help bring someone else that little ray of hope at a very hard time in life.

Crystal Attebery, Lebanon

How GAPS could save

The survival rules have changed of this great country and the GAPS district.

I was dismayed to learn that our Albany schools had decided to hand out "intention to layoff" slips to many valuable employees in our school district. How many taxpayers realize that creative solutions may be in order for the GAPS district?

This is good - we all need to check our spending. Perhaps, some frills like late start times and early release times would unite all the students for learning and quit spending our tax dollars on bus routes, and save gas for the regular routes. Who invented the "special schedules" and late start times and early release times? Why would our school board allow such use of our tax dollars?

Families are looking at getting the best value for their money. Families are getting creative. The cost of gas some months back forced us to drive less, combine trips through careful planning, and even ride together. We found we had more time and could accomplish more at home!

When I see the schools not completing annual needed maintenance for the "regular" budget and then begging for bonds to roof and repair schools, I expect smarter decisions than doing middle and high school schedule changes that cost all of us more money. I challenge our GAPS district and school board to search for ways to save money so employees do not have to lose jobs and leave teachers without classroom support.

Classroom supplies - what about rewarding schools that find ways to save money? When students see teachers conserving, students learn to embrace ways to save on supplies also.

We are all needing to spend wisely, and I would like to see GAPS do the same. A good start would be to have all schools on the same schedules and running on the "regular" bus schedules.

Wendy McCormick, Albany

True waste is elsewhere

This is in response to the people who have been bellyaching about what they consider to be food stamp abuse.

The blatant bigotry displayed by these potential tyrants is stupefying, appalling and shameful. I see these whiners as mean-spirited, small-minded, trouble-making, hypocritical, ignorant cowards looking for scapegoats! Their prejudice blinds them to the facts. Or perhaps they simply lack the mental capacity to learn how most of their tax dollars are truly wasted.

Janet Ward, Albany

Against engineered food

Genetically Engineered (GE) foods and products pose a threat to organic and natural foods and have been approved without adequate safety testing. Despite the fact that roughly 70 percent of the foods in supermarkets have GE ingredients, GE foods and products are currently not labeled. Labeling GE foods is the only way to restore consumer choice and provide people with the necessary information to make educated food decisions.

Poll after poll has demonstrated that the vast majority of Americans want GE foods to be labeled. Yet the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and Congress have repeatedly denied consumers the right to chose safe and healthy foods for them and their families.

GE foods are labeled in dozens of countries around the world, including the European Union, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. As a result, food manufacturers have removed GE ingredients from their products in these countries. Consumers, given the option, simply don't want genetically engineered ingredients in their food.

Connie Crew, Albany

Beware of taxing too much

The article in Friday's paper (Feb. 24) about the state needing to generate more revenue by raising taxes on the rich is indicative of the mentality at work in our government. The statement of the social service and educator advocates that the rich should be taxed because "they don't often spend everything they make" is phenomenal.

The following statement by Adrian Rogers is an apt answer to this. How can we begin to swing the pendulum to more accountability for each of us?

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

Judith Chaffin, Sweet Home