Sept. 19, 2007
Measure 37 was unnecessary to begin with
   Impressed by the Graphic’s editorial, “At least consider Measure 49,” I encourage the same. Measure 49 is a no-nonsense fix of the mess of Measure 37.
   Having reviewed every approved Measure 37 claim in Yamhill County, the more I look the uglier it gets. So in no particular order, let me count the ways:
   — Measure 37 is never-ending. With no cap, current claims can and will be amended, while corporate claims will likely go on for decades.
   — Measure 37 boundlessly rewards some at the expense of the rest. Those claiming their rights were ignored are now ignoring the rights of their neighbors. Recent buyers paid a premium to longtime owners — in some cases, the same landowners now seeking compensation. I’ve yet to meet a longtime owner incapable of making a handsome profit by selling their intact property tomorrow.
   — Measure 37 claims lack common sense planning. Instead of an orderly division and reasoned expansion, Measure 37 locates the equivalent of small towns within our most protected and productive areas. And though few urban dwellers realize it, their property taxes will subsidize roads, fire protection and the additional deputies and schools necessary to serve these secluded subdivisions.
   — Measure 37 was unnecessary to begin with. Few longtime landowners were demanding compensation before the opportunity of Measure 37 appeared. For more than three decades every farm, ranch and timber owner in Oregon has enjoyed reduced property taxes, compensating them for their inability to subdivide.  And who’s paid those extra taxes? You have!
   — The biggest winners with Measure 37 are not even people — they’re corporations. Sold to us as a method of allowing an elderly owner to subdivide for a house or two, Measure 37 allows timber companies, orchard consortiums and commercial ranching operations the right to remove thousands of acres from production as they liquidate their assets. Toss in absentee landowners (many out of state) and corporate-like family trusts and you’ll find the most abusive demands of all.
   — Recklessly drafted by sprawl promoting attorneys, Measure 37’s unclear open-ended wording has spawned more than 400 court cases across the state. Written as a one-sided wish list for their client’s, this measure has done little to aid the ordinary citizen. Left alone it’s an attorney’s dream and an Oregon nightmare.
   Heard enough? Me too. So let’s consider the bipartisan fix of Measure 49. Appearing on your November ballot, Measure 49 will reign in the greed and clarify the law. It will instantly grant approved Measure 37 (human) applicants three homes and transferability, the guaranteed right to pass those homes on to family or buyers.
   Measure 49 takes into consideration common sense aspects such as the availability of water and the loss of agricultural productivity. Beyond that, owners may build up to 10 homes if they can document a true financial loss, curbing the outrageous Measure 37 monetary claims.
  Finally, Measure 49 will not allow massive subdivisions, strip malls, airports, condominiums, dumps, mines or assorted commercial schemes on irreplaceable farm and forest lands. In short, Measure 49 will give us what Measure 37 promised — without giving away the store.
  After considering M-49, I hope it earns a yes.
   Viron Fessler is a Gaston resident

Sept. 15, 2007
Let welfare recipients, not illegals, do the work
   For months now I have read several opinion letters regarding the allowance of illegal immigrants to work in the agricultural sector.
   I hear farmers complaining about having to potentially pay an increased wage to folks who aren’t willing or decent at the tasks required, and how it is unfair for them to get fined for hiring an illegal immigrant with a fake Social Security number. Then I hear folks talk about how much their produce will increase in price, so we should be more tolerable of illegal immigrants working in the United States. The list of reasons/excuses just continues as the days grow longer.
   My fellow Americans, please wake up! There is a simple, common sense solution to this whole problem: combine much-needed welfare reform to gain cheap farm labor.
  Based on simple supply and demand principles, people receiving welfare need a job to support their families and farmers need workers to complete farm work. I am sure there a ton of reasons people can think of to not support this, but I say figure it out and make it happen.
   First thing some people might say is, “Where am I supposed to take my children while I work on the farm?” or “How can I get to work?”
   Honestly, these are really excuses to get out of work, but fine, solve these problems. Place a pre-fabricated building on the job site, just like at a construction site, and bring the children to work. The welfare office can supply a teacher or two who can educate the children while their parents work. Transportation is easy. Take a bus, car pool or develop a program to overcome this pesky problem.
   So let’s break down the numbers. A welfare recipient gets paid minimum wage to complete agricultural tasks and gets off welfare. The farm owner gets the work done, pays a fair wage to a legal source of labor and sells product at a slightly higher price point.
   Best of all, if we can keep the government from lining their pockets, the remainder of the tax money from the welfare pool can be returned to the taxpayers or used for completion of positive change in the United States (support a school, educate a child, etc.)
   Bottom line is illegal is illegal. Anyone trying to do it the right way, legally, I have no quarrel with that. Welfare programs are in desperate need of an audit and need to be more stringent with their program recipients.
   I have no problems with a person or persons working two jobs to take care of his/her family, and receive food stamps. I have a real problem with someone receiving assistance because they are lazy or think they are owed something. There are a lot of hard working folks busting their butts in this country just to give their dollars away to someone who doesn’t want to work for their existence. Talk about unfair.
   Kevin Beattie is a Newberg resident

Sept. 8, 2007
What did the voters intend when passing Measure 37?
   I don’t like to be disagreed with. I don’t like disagreements period. I wish everyone could see things my way. But, alas, that’s not realistic when discussing such controversial issues as abortion, the death penalty, taxes and appropriations, religion, the wars we’re involved in around the world and a whole host of issues where more than one defensible position or interpretation can exist.
   Take the upcoming battle on Measure 49. We’re rehashing, essentially, the same debate we all had surrounding Measure 37. But, having lost once already on the merits, it appears some are preparing a hostile offensive where their assessment of a position boils down to claims of “hyperbole,” rather than openly discussing each side’s claims based on the merits and validity of the arguments themselves.
   Seems rather boorish behavior, a duck and divert tactic one losing a debate might attempt. I picture two fellows debating at opposing podiums, one fellow throwing out his best bullet points, while the other guy retorts with simple “Bull manure!” The audience clearly understands the two gentlemen are in conflict, but the one fellow retorting with simple “Bull manure” is doing no one any good in understanding the validity of either position.
   We know he seems to think Participant One is full of it, but we aren’t privy to the “why” of Participant Two’s skepticism.
   The latest debate, the revamping of M-37 via M-49 begins with one simple question: What did we intend as supporters of land use reform and property rights in Oregon? We each have to ask ourselves that simple question.
   If you supported M-37, was it simply to allow a property owner to build a house or two on his or her property? Or was it something more? Because if you only intended for a property owner to be able to build a house or two on the property he owns, and little more, then this revision (M-49) might truly be a law which represents your values much better than the original (M-37).
   But I never supported M-37 only to allow a guy to build a house or two. I supported M-37 because, fundamentally, I believe private property rights are a fundamental bedrock principle of capitalism and a free society.
   Some might like to build a house; some might like to build a neighborhood. I guess I see the whole debate as a reflection of a larger question: Where does the line lie between the rights of the individual and the welfare of the many? And, if we are asking that question, we must decide how broadly we are willing to define “welfare.” Because the wider we define the welfare of the many, the narrower becomes the rights of the individual. And there are broad implications in the definition we choose to the route our nation takes in the generations to come.
   Are we short on food and so must protect the farms to the benefit of the many, with the sacrifice of the individual? No. Are we short of beautiful vistas and recreational opportunities, even though we all jointly own 55 percent of Oregon’s lands already? No. Are arborvitaes so expensive that nurseries must be protected at the expense of the individual, so that we may continue to landscape our yards? No.
   Just which special interest group has sold you their hyperbole? I represent none, I represent the individual. Well, maybe I speak incidentally for the homebuyer, who might one day afford the resulting depreciation of a new home, were land values to decrease as availability of buildable lands increased. If interested in that lineage, look up Randy O’Toole.
   Brett Lieuallen is a former Dundee resident living in Tigard

Sept. 8, 2007
Diversity would be a good thing for our society

(Editor’s note: This letter is in reference to an Ayn Rand Institute column on multicultural education that appeared in the Aug. 25 edition of The Newberg Graphic).

   The Ayn Ryan Institute is not my favorite source of information and the junior fellow’s disgust with multicultural education was particularly misleading and offensive.
   Following the probable outcome of his rant suggests an educational system which would likely produce an adult who thinks himself superior to all others and one arrogant in his determination to impose his beliefs and thoughts upon others.
   Perhaps he is an example of what he preaches.
   Education itself is an evolving enlightenment; at first an opportunity to view the best of mankind’s efforts and to understand history as our opportunity to learn from the past instead of reliving past mistakes.
   Only after the basics is it time to teach critical thinking, and analysis, the time to become aware of and to consider the human cruelty, greed and hatred which exists in every culture. How children deal with the dark side of life is as much a parental responsibility as it is the school’s.
    The fellow’s proof of our country’s superiority was that it arose from the European Age of Enlightenment. What he forgot to mention was that the Enlightenment was preceded by the Dark Ages in Europe.
   After the collapse of the Roman Empire and the departure of their legions from the continent, the European world was cut off from the glory of books and the cross fertilization of ideas. Literacy was limited to the scribes of the church for about 600 years. I propose that it was this very insolation which contributed to the stagnation of creative thought and ideas during that time.
   The Enlightenment began with the Crusades and conflicts which brought Europeans in touch with other cultures: the mathematics and medical sciences of the Moors in Spain, the Arabic and Latin translations of the Greek philosophers, the legal system of Hammurabi, the navigational equipment of the Arabs, the creative arts of the ancient civilizations.
   It was diversity and exposure to different ways of doing things which stimulated the great minds of the enlightenment. Not to mention the magnificence of other languages and the literature within them (Spanish for example with Cervantes’s “Don Quixote” or the saga of “El Cid.”)
   If we do not open our children to diversity, we will be left behind. Our children will never ask the questions which lead to good judgement and reasoned choices. They will not realize the value of knowing that there are and have always been many different solutions to people problems, to societal problems, to political problems. We can do this without teaching the arrogance, superiority and “better than thou” attitudes which led us, perhaps, into the never ending war in the Middle East.
  If we are not open to diversity, past and present, we will be left in the dark ... for ages.
   Marni Haley is a Yamhill County resident living near Sherwood

Sept. 5, 2007
President must address veterans’ issues
   On Aug. 22, President Bush addressed the largest gathering of veterans in the country — the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Kansas City. Instead of taking that opportunity to offer leadership on the urgent issues facing veterans today, the president instead proffered a history lesson — he actually compared Iraq to Vietnam.
   Although this was an ideal opportunity for the president to show some real leadership on the crisis facing veterans’ healthcare, he failed to do so.
Plenty of people are making arguments about the historical accuracy of the president’s Iraq-Vietnam comparison. I am more angry by what Bush did not say.
   I have written here and spoken on TV before about the president not addressing veterans’ issues. His speech on the 22nd, however, represents a new low. After taking credit for increasing the veterans’ budget (even after seven years of underfunding the VA) the president was silent on the real issues facing our newest veterans, including naming a replacement for Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson who steps down in October, and implementing the recommendations of the Dole-Shalala Commission to fix the nation’s military and veterans’ hospitals.
   What happened to all the outrage and promises after Walter Reed? The “Dole-Shalala” recommendations were not even mentioned in the president’s speech. The Dole-Shalala Commission’s Report sets out a clear, six-point action plan to be implemented (most by the president), but now that plan gathers dust on a shelf somewhere while the president and Congress are on vacation for the rest of the summer. In the meantime, veterans and their families suffer and wait.
   So, if we’re going to talk about the legacy of Vietnam, remember the (sadly) accurate scenes from the movie “Born on the Fourth of July,” the Ron Kovick story with Tom Cruise, showing in detail what neglect of the VA means to returning service personnel. We need to remember what happens when a nation fails to take care of its veterans as promised.
   We cannot abandon, again, another generation of vets to untreated mental health problems, substance abuse, unemployment, homelessness, broken families and suicide — all of which are at levels not seen since Vietnam, or worse. We/he should heed his very own words: President Bush said, “History reminds us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history.”
   These are hollow words unless we learn that the men and women who have fought in Iraq, Afghanistan (and all wars) deserve to be provided for — they deserve what we promised in our contract with them for their brave service to the nation. Not just used as a backdrop for another political photo op.
   Bruce Freeman is a Newberg resident

Sept. 1, 2007
Single-payer healthcare will work for America
   Pondering better healthcare, I have come to the conclusion that a single-payer national healthcare plan such as Medicare will work for the greatest number of Americans.
   The market place competition has not worked and I do not see changes which would make it work. That was the goal of managed care and it failed miserably.  When I have a stroke, I do not want to rely on the cheapest healthcare which is likely to be what I can afford.
   What could make quality healthcare cheaper? That is a billion dollar question, to which there are other answers than those offered by the Cascade Policy Institute.
   A single-payer system will eliminate paper work and the cost of specialize billing professionalism which are required because of multiple insurance programs.
   With a single-payer we won’t fall into the trap of one thing being covered but not another, as has happened with the Medicare drug program.
   We will not have to pay for insurance advertising nor deal with the obfuscation of insurance double-talk and their unsolicited mailers.
  As in the Oregon Health Plan, rationing could bring down the cost. For example, basic healthcare and wellness care would be covered for all and what is not covered clearly stated in simplified language. Extraordinary care would then be covered by private insurance, i.e., transplants for those over 65.
   A governmental single-payer system could require that only one area hospital would provide specific extraordinary care and all emergency personnel would know in advance which hospitals are heart specialists and which are head trauma specialists. This cuts costs by cutting duplication of skills and equipment.
   This is the theory behind having only two trauma centers in Portland (OHSU and Emanuel). I would rather have a kidney transplant with a team that does 500 surgeries a year than five teams that do only 10.
   It is even possible that a life could have a fixed dollar value to cut down on lawsuits which drive up the cost of healthcare.
   With a single payer we will not be paying multiple, exorbitant executive salaries either for hospitals or insurance company executives.
   Finally, a governmental system could provide malpractice insurance, including coverage for pain, suffering, lifelong incapacitation and even punitive damages for all doctors regardless of their specialty, so that the few can continue to practice in high risk specialties, obstetrics for example. Of course, there would probably be a three strikes clause somewhere.
   A universal government health insurance system will share the risks across a larger group with more economical results than smaller insurance groups and at the same time eliminate the perceived problem of mandates.
   Yes, I know, the devil is in the details. I, for one in this debate, think public opinion of the voters will be heard more quickly by an elected representative than by an individual confronting a corporation
   Marni Haley is a Yamhill County resident living near Sherwood

Aug. 29, 2007
A few facts to illuminate the immigration debate
   I wish to respond to the immigration editorial published last week. Yes, Hispanics are here to stay, but doing nothing about a growing illegal problem is not the answer. To understand the problem more, one must obtain more education about the Hispanic population’s culture. Here are some facts:
   — There is rampant petty theft in Mexico as a general rule. Most families own a dog and keep it in their home to ward off strangers.
   — There is prejudice between the Indian nationals and the Spanish who conquered them, with a lot of distrust between each. There are more than 350 other languages spoken in Mexico and Spanish is a lot of folks’ second language. Some don’t speak it at all.
   — Their government is doing nothing in the way of helping them like Social Security or building roads. Most Hispanics dislike anything that has to do with their government. The government is not building water plants or helping the families own their own homes, etc. Yet they tax them and will take their land away from them if they want to without recompense.
   — Most Hispanic adults have only three to four years of formal schooling. Any more has to be paid for. The older children work in their homes watching out for their younger siblings while both parents work.
   — The average adult rises at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for work. They pack a small lunch with bottled water and walk to a bus stop to be picked up by a farmer for work. They work a 10- to 12-hour day in mostly hard labor jobs like picking berries. They return home at around 5:30 p.m. having earned only $7 to $10 for a day’s hard work. (This is a high average.)
   — Commodities in Mexico cost a lot more than they do here. Combine that with the decreased rate of pay and you have the average buying power of anything here times four. For instance: A gallon of milk here that costs approximately $2.50 would be the equivalent of $10 there. A new $10,000 dollar car would be $40,000 dollars. (It is unheard of to see anyone with a new car there!) And so forth.
   — People with disabilities or the elderly have to depend on their families or friends to care for them and house them. There is no government Medicare or health care plan.
   — Hispanics are a social people, not a task-oriented people like American’s are. They put a lot of emphasis on being friends and socializing. The elderly are honored and well thought of; they often run small stores or businesses.
   — Most Hispanics like living in their country and want their government to leave, or just leave them alone. They distrust anything government and with good reason; their government conquered them and is not working for them at all.
   Bearing these things in mind there is certainly a clashing of cultures going on in America over the Hispanic that are here. White Americans tend to look at these social, gentle people with a little bit of fear too just because of the differences. But because of their distrust of government it would be hard to get some of the illegal immigrants to understand that government rules and regulations are there to help them. It is my opinion that they will just immigrate illegally anyway.
   Also there are some really bad Hispanics out there getting themselves into trouble and they should be, I feel, policed out of America. They are giving a bad name to those Hispanics whose families have been here a long time and are really trying. Maybe the emphasis should be on getting the Hispanics who are getting into trouble with the law out of America instead.
   As far as working is concerned, though, we were the ones who let the laws be changed regarding child labor here on the West Coast. I am almost 50-years-old and I picked in the fields when I was 6-years-old up until my first “real” job when I was 15 washing dishes for a local restaurant. It didn’t hurt me to work three or four mornings a week until noon picking for a local farmer.
   Now a child has to be 13-years-old and have their parent out in the field actively picking too! (Who is going to leave their job just to do this with their teenager?) Younger children are not allowed to pick at all unless they are the farmer’s children. We are the ones who should change our laws.
   There were no Hispanics in the fields when I was a child. There was no large influx of Hispanic migrant workers here yet. I learned work ethics, built a savings, and was able to buy my first car with my earnings from berry picking. I was able to afford a few nice things that normal parents wouldn’t just go out and buy for a kid normally, also. And the work didn’t hurt me one bit.
   I think the issues here are a little deeper than just language barriers and illegal immigrants. I think we are seeking as a nation to deal with the cultural clash and impact of a group of people that are distrustful and almost wary of us. They have no wish to be Americans and are only here to work and send the money back home to benefit their families. They consider themselves Hispanics and will always be Hispanics. And there is no crime to that.
   In summary; my grandparents were immigrants. My father spoke two languages before he learned English as a first-grade student. I am not out to kick those who are here as immigrants in any way. We pushed to “Americanize” when we got here and we were legal immigrants. It is good to have the freedom we enjoy here. I have cousins in Europe who were behind the iron curtain that can attest to how good it was that we moved here when we did. We just have so much as Americans.
   I would invite any other culture to come here and “Americanize.” But there must be law and order. And there must be a willingness on the part of the immigrants to be a part of such a great nation as this one if they are going to be granted legal status. That is the heart of the matter as I see it.
   Anne Jones is a Newberg resident

Aug. 22, 2007
What the Oregon Legislature hath wrought
   “It really is the beginning of a progressive decade,” said House Speaker Jeff Merkley (D-Portland). “We’re just getting started.”
   When the Oregon Legislature adjourned in June the gavel fell on six months of total Democrat-control of Oregon state government, something Oregonians have not experienced for 16 years. The question for the electorate is whether they liked what they saw of their legislators and want more of the same. Only time will tell.
   In a matter of 172 days, state legislators advanced many policy proposals. What most of the legislation had in common was an overriding belief that more government intervention into our lives, our economy and our interactions with each other provides a net benefit in our overall quality of life. Besides increased agency budgets across the board, notable legal changes passed by the legislature included:
   — Mandatory child-seat laws expanded to require booster seats until children turn 8 or they are four feet nine inches tall.
   — Oregon universities and community colleges required to come up with plans to increase voter turnout among students.
   — All public schools required to install metal halide light bulbs that self-extinguish when broken.
   — Title and payday loans limited to interest rates of no more than 36 percent (consumer finance loans also face similar restrictions).
   — Schools must revamp their menus to align with nutritional guidelines.
   — “Domestic Partnership” status established for gay couples.
   — “Sexual orientation” added to the list of potential discrimination lawsuits.
   — Employer political speech restricted in communications with their employees.
   — The secret ballot eliminated in union elections.
   — The governor empowered to impose price controls during an emergency.
   — Estate taxes reduced for some farmers, fishermen and forest land owners.
   — Restrictions loosened on hunting cougars.
   — Tax credits given to biofuel farmers and producers.
   — PGE and Pacificorp customers mandated to get 25 percent of their power from “renewable” (mostly wind) sources by 2025.
   — Laws passed making it tougher to get an initiative on the ballot.
   — Oregon’s bottle bill expanded to require a deposit on water bottles.
   — A smoking ban phased in for all restaurants and bars.
   — Companies holding “going-out-of-business” sales must register with the state first.
   — Computer and television recycling made mandatory by 2010.
   — Part of the corporate tax rebate or “kicker” eliminated for the state’s largest companies.
   In addition, voters in the next few elections will be asked to: roll back property rights restored by Measure 37 in 2004; increase taxes on tobacco products and create a government-funded universal health care program for children in Oregon; and virtually eliminate the double-majority requirement for local/school tax measures.
   Although hundreds of tax and fee increases were proposed and quite a few received votes on the House and Senate floors, many were not able to overcome the three/fifths requirement for passage of tax increases. Fees and mandates, however, require only a simple majority to pass. About 70 fee increases passed this year and they, along with most of the mandates (renewable energy for instance), will result in price increases in one way or another.
   Remember that businesses do not pay taxes; they collect them from consumers by increasing their prices.
   With the exception of the cougar hunting bill and the estate tax reductions for some farmers, fisherman and forest land owners (which was a compromise to get the partial elimination of the corporate kicker), nothing the legislature did made Oregonians more free. In reality, we are a little less free every time our government meets.
   The water in our pot just got a few degrees warmer.
   Matt Wingard is director of the School Choice Project at Cascade Policy Institute

Aug. 18, 2007
Don’t be absurd; Fox News bereft of content, integrity
   A response is demanded to Renee Mehus’ rather rambling assertion in the Aug. 15 Newberg Graphic that “Fox News is the only reliable journalism around.” Not only is this statement an insult to journalism, but “Faux News” or “Fox Noise” or “Fake News,” among the many other descriptives (many unprintable) by which they have infamously become known, is a perfect example of how corporate takeovers of the Fourth Estate threaten, in a very real sense, our existence as the well-informed populace required by a free republic.
   With numbers slipping as the American public becomes increasingly aware that what Fox News says — versus what is truth and reality — is almost always at diametrically opposite poles. Since ratings rule, Fox News has become ever more desperate to bend and break journalistic rules of investigative research, unsentimental objectivity, verification and alternative/opposite perspectives with equal and credible time/space for each. Instead, they lean ever more toward the outlandish and ridiculous entertainment “values,” shunning those of journalism.
   Fox News is no more than the personal rightwing spin machine of Rupert Murdoch and, thus, a shill for Republicans and this administration. Not by any serious stretch of the imagination could the Fox outfit claim to be “journalists” — and it takes a vigorous imagination indeed to view O’Reilly and Hannity and Gibson and most of the others at Fox as being anything other than shills advancing the rightwing agenda.
   They make outrageous statements and air downright lies in order to infect the minds of Americans with the same grocery-market tabloid crap by which Murdoch’s other publications and media outlets are known. Expect to read or hear “O’Bama Conceived by Bigfoot and Alien Invaders!” Fox News “reporting” should be taken just as seriously.
   Even very right-of-center Joe Scarbourgh mocks the antics of Bill O’Reilly (you may also remember O’Reilly as the author of children’s books who recently settled a sexual harassment case out of court). Just today, MediaMatters stated Jon Stewart, of The Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” was perhaps the nation’s best journalist, even taking into consideration what Stewart does is satire — which, by definition, uses humor, irony and wit to both give voice to truth, while exposing people’s stupidity and vices.
   The same is true of “The Colbert Report” and Stephen Colbert whose show itself is a brilliant spoof of Bill O’Reilly and Fox News.
   Instead of viewing Fox as news, watch the latter two shows above or catch the few real broadcast journalists remaining, such as Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s “Countdown” or Bill Moyers’ weekly “Journal” on PBS. Here you will learn what “fair and balanced” really looks and sounds like when practiced with sincerity.
   Watch Fox News, if you must, but at your own peril, for Fox is dangerous “entertainment” (and I use the term loosely with apologies to all real entertainers) — but not by any twisting, turning, rubber-band machinations of mind and vocabulary could the deviousness of what happens on Fox be termed journalism.
   Bruce Freeman is a Newberg resident

Aug. 11, 2007
Voters were slipped a ‘Mickey Finn’ with M-37
   Fans of actor/comedian W.C. Fields will remember his movie, “The Bank Dick,” in which he played a bank guard given the job of chaperoning a government bank examiner who is auditing the bank’s records.
The bank’s condition is such that it is unlikely it will survive a careful examination.
   Fields takes the examiner to lunch at a local hangout, “The New/Old Lompoc House.” As he orders a drink at the bar, he slyly turns his head toward his guest and asks the bartender, “Has Mr. Michael Finn been in today?”
   This is code for the bartender to “slip a Mickey Finn” to the bank examiner. Named after a legendary Irish bartender who would administer knockout drops to disorderly customers, the Mickey Finn incapacitates the examiner for the rest of the day.
   The key to the successful administration of a Mickey Finn is, of course, that the victim is unaware and remains unaware of its application until it is too late. In “The Bank Dick” the Mickey Finn only had to last long enough to compromise the bank audit. The bank survives the audit and the movie ends on a happy note.
   In the case of the citizens of Oregon, we appear to be slowly emerging from the effects of a Mickey Finn, one which was not administered by a bartender, but by a most unlikely miscreant — a sweet little old widow who wanted to build a house on her property, or 10 houses or a 100-home development.
   What’s the difference? We were all asleep.
   The Mickey Finn worked. She got what she wanted and so did the people who promoted her as the “Poster Child for Oregon Land Reform.” But this one still has our heads spinning. It’s called Measure 37. Unlike that poor bank examiner, who shook off his “Mickey” with an afternoon nap, we’ve been carrying our hangover around for a couple of years.
  But we have an opportunity to end out own story on a happy note. Fortunately, there’s an antidote to our long hangover — one guaranteed to at least get our heads clear enough to be able to notice the next assault on our environment. That antidote is Measure 49.
   If you want to shake off that Mickey Finn, vote yes on Measure 49 this November.
   Hank Franzoni is a retired attorney and Dundee resident

Aug. 8, 2007
Why can’t illegal aliens play by the rules?
   My column is in response to the Graphic editorial of Aug. 1. It presented a positive spin on illegal aliens. This is my spin.
   Your editorial told us “some of those people use social services to get by, many do not.” Now, how would you know this to be true? How many have stolen identities and therefore fly happily under the radar. Del Monte, in Portland, had more than 73 percent of the aliens using fake identity when raided by ICE.
   “Some illegal immigrants run afoul of the law, many do not.” Presently, the estimate of illegal immigrants in our jails and prisons is near 30 percent. Considering how many illegals are living in the country, that’s a high number in proportion to the total.
  You then told us about jobs they do. Sure, they do lousy jobs for low pay (often under the table). Are you saying that is a good thing? Why not just advocate for the importation of slaves? How about the other jobs being filled by illegals? Those would include nearly all large building projects that you drive by. These are good jobs when paid properly. Many strong young U.S.citizens would love to have them. It’s not difficult to believe that some builders are using illegals because they pay them less.
   You explained to us that a fast track system must be put in place to grant illegal aliens citizenship. Huh? So we reward people for law breaking? A guest worker program: OK. Citizenship: absolutely not!
   Can we deport everybody? That has not been a practical solution since the first five million got through. A guest program would solve many problems. It would remove the under-the-table wages; it would reduce emergency room medical visits because the billing agents would have accurate addresses; they could come and go to their home country without having to sneak back in.
   This approach would stop the flow of people (including terrorists) across our borders because only “guest workers” would be able to work. The benefits are many to both citizens and those illegally here looking for work.
   Another benefit would be the reduction in overcrowding in our schools; families would stay home awaiting higher income realized because proper legal wages would be paid. Fewer social services would be required, so we all would save money.
   Finally, the editorial told us that illegal’s are only fulfilling a dream. By breaking our laws? Doing it the right way like so many have, including my Dad, is the way to fulfill your dream. My dream is to own a Ferrari, so if I steal one to “realize” my dream, is that OK?
   I will never understand why most immigrants must go through proper procedures to stay in America, but people sneaking across our borders are somehow exempt. What’s really going on here? It’s worth thinking about.
   Doborah Soderquist is a Newberg resident and former city council member

Aug. 4, 2007
Thatcher doing what constituents expect
   Kudos to state Rep. Kim Thatcher for towing the line, for doing exactly that which her Republican constituency would expect of her as a member of the minority party: Do everything legally possible to impede further spending in any shape or form.
   I’ll agree with The Newberg Graphic’s July 11 editorial this far: Republicans should indeed be willing to negotiate new taxes, but only when Democrats are willing to reduce taxes in other areas.
   I’m still wondering what the Democrats are planning to “give” on, after the half a billion dollar increase in teacher benefits this session. An increase, I might add, which didn’t buy a single book, or building, or reduce class sizes by even a single student. A half a billion dollars that didn’t even hire a single new teacher.
   A half a billion dollars that didn’t fill a single pot hole, or add a single new state police trooper. A half a billion dollars that didn’t bring one more needy Oregon child health care coverage, or provide a single new armor vest for Oregon soldiers in war zones in the Middle East.
   But then, I guess the Democrats did “give” after receiving. They “gave” back to the teachers unions, after “receiving” their election support.
   But, I digress. Actually, I meant to comment on one particular mention within the Graphic’s editorial, the cigarette tax increase. I don’t smoke, nor do 75 percent of Oregonians. But why in the world should we implement a specific tax on this minority population to pay for a benefit for everyone?
   That seems right and just to someone?
   Now, if within the cigarette tax increase we want to designate only smokers as beneficiaries of this tax, which only they pay to begin with, I’d reconsider the whole thing. Since smokers do indeed cost the heath care system more money over their lifetimes, it only seems fair they contribute an amount equal to those costs. But requiring smokers to pay for everyone’s s healthcare? How, in this world or the next, is that possibly fair and just?
   So, Mr. Graphic editorialist, we (myself and the Republicans I often align with) didn’t see this new tax increase on smokers as just another tax to be voted down at the expense of the poor children of Oregon. We saw that tax, as designed, as completely wrong on a moral level. It’s just not a fair or just tax at all.
   In short, we saw our impediments to that tax, as designed, as taking the moral high ground, actually protecting the minority from the viciousness of the majority, and not, as you and others would like to paint us, as one part reckless and one part selfish.
   Smokers should indeed pay for their additional healthcare costs. But they shouldn’t be asked to exclusively pay for yours (or your children’s).
   Hey Democrats? Don’t be such cowards, picking on that nearly powerless 25 percent minority. If children’s healthcare coverage matters to you (as it does to me) come up with a far tax that everyone pays, not smokers alone, to pay for a program that everyone will have equal access to. You’ll have my support.
   And Graphic editorialist? Shame on you for supporting, apparently, such unjust legislation. Even if the motives are pure, the end does not justify the means. Republicans are pompous? Kim Thatcher is pompous? Back at you.
   Bret Lieuallen is a Tigard resident who formerly resided in Dundee

Aug. 1, 2007
ODOT ignoring obvious route for the bypass
   The promise of a bypass for all our money spent. That was the statement.
   I have said it before and it bears repeating, the southern bypass route will never be built in my lifetime. Maybe that would be a good thing. Just think of all the homes that we would save and the people that would not be displaced. Most would never be able to buy a home again in Newberg with what they would be paid by the Oregon Department of Transportation.
   Remember, once you lay pavement it rarely comes back up. The bypass would take a very large portion of this community and create a solution for others more than it would benefit us. It was planned as one of the biggest egotistical items that the state could buy, maybe $600 million to go around Newberg and Dundee, and all it would do was move the traffic up the road so we could spend more to fix another spot.
   Why not look at this — as I have said all along and others have shared the same thoughts — from a regional standpoint. After all, the state has said all along that this highway is of statewide significance.
   Now, I know that Marion County and the farmers on the Marion County side would tar and feather me before they would allow such a thing over there (if you believe all the stories). But first off, who ran the computer model when the regional bypass was one of the options? Well, now it seems Marion County ran it for the state. And the first resolution by Marion County to stop the regional bypass from being built? Well that was by some former county commissioners when Newberg was in a legal battle over water rights and I believe there might have been some retaliation in another form.
   The one thing that no one has ever thought of doing, and I have said for years should be attempted, was try working with people. No one has really went over and said “Let’s do lunch” and talk to the affected land owners.
   We kind of know that some day they will build that road over there anyway. But we should “always” talk and say if its going to be there, what would you like? Give them guarantees of what would be done and that the land around would not turn into a shopping mall.
   They need to have governance over the land use and not us that surround it. And maybe we should elevate it like others have done to be able to farm it easier underneath. I know you would say “But the cost?” It would probably be way cheaper than the southern bypass route. I believe that this would allow us to pay for a purchase or long-term lease on a small parcel and also pay for the inconvenience of land disruption for construction.
   We could have made this work without shoving it down like a bad-tasting something. But we need to learn to work and talk it out and find out what it would take to make it right with all involved, and not make changes when we want after the fact.
   This could be a regional solution for all and if they want money for building a portion of it, simply make a toll bridge. This is not new technology and works a lot of places and is already regulated on how to do it.
   Think about it for a while: come out from Portland on I-205 and go down 12 miles and drive straight to the coast with maybe one stop. In a couple of years the farmers would not even notice it — similar to the St. Paul bridge extensions we now have.
   Roger Currier is a Newberg City Council member

July 28, 2007
Our system creates wishy-washy candidates
   One of the great myths of American politics is that voters like candidates who have the courage of their convictions. It is an incessant whine of the Man on the Street:
   “These guys, they don’t believe in anything,” he’ll say. “They gotta take a poll before they go to the bathroom. I wanna guy who has the guts to stand up for what he thinks is right.”
   Which sounds good, but it’s not what the American voter really wants. What he wants — what we all want — is a candidate who will stand up for what we believe.
   The only problem with that is that this is a big country and people believe a lot of different things, many of them contradictory. What’s a poor candidate to do?
   Well, he takes poll to find out what a majority wants, then tries to craft his message to satisfy those desires. That may not be the most noble approach in the world, but it’s the way you get elected. And if you’re not elected, what difference does it make what you believe in?
   I’m sure that Real Conservatives and Real Liberals are shocked — shocked — at this cynical attitude. Which is why so few Real Conservatives or Real Liberals are ever elected to anything.
   Push-me-pull-you political candidates are the inevitable result of our two-party system. When you only have two major political parties, each of them national in scope, both must appeal to a diverse, national constituency, which results in opposing candidates who cannot afford to be too far apart on the issues. (Indeed, one could argue that the Democrats lost power in the 1980s and 1990s because they came to focus on too narrow a segment of their political coalition. You could also make the case that Republicans are suffering the same fate right now).
   If voters really wanted a candidate who stood up for what he or she believed in, regardless of the popularity of the conviction, John McCain would be the runaway leader in the polls.
   As a presidential candidate, McCain is a virtual encyclopedia of unpopular issues. If it weren’t for his unpopular stances, he wouldn’t have any stance at all:
   — At a time when the war in Iraq is about as popular with voters as diphtheria, he is for staying the course.
   — He also favors a kinder, gentler immigration policy aimed at helping immigrants become U.S. citizens.  This at a time when a good share of the nation — and particularly his part of the nation — has expressed opposition to that approach bordering on the hysterical. It wants a punitive immigration policy; one festooned with fences and border guards and midnight roundups. (I have a theory about immigration: People who cut their own lawns are against letting more immigrants in. People who hire others to cut their lawns are in favor of looser immigration policies. I call it the Lawn Care Theory of Immigration).
   — He is perhaps the chief Washington advocate of campaign-finance reform, favoring restrictions on the ability of corporations and special interest groups to influence elections. Voters don’t care much about this one way or the other, but lobbyists, whose job it is to influence elections, hate it. Consequently, money for McCain’s campaign has pretty much dried up and his candidacy is about to disappear beneath the waves, leaving only an oil slick.
So much for the rewards of political courage in our electoral system.
   If you really want candidates with a clear, hard edge who believe as you do, you’d best seek out a multi-party, parliamentary system. Some countries have six or seven parties vying for attention all across the political spectrum. In a system like that, you should be able to find someone who speaks your language. In our system, probably not.
   In our system we get candidates with outward diversity — black, white, man, woman, Catholic, Protestant — but who underneath are pretty much the same person.
   So stop complaining about our wishy-washy candidates. They’re the kind we demand.
   Donald Kaul is a retired Washington, D.C., columnist for the Des Moines Register.

July 25, 2007
Minimum wage was higher when things were cheaper
   The federal minimum wage rose July 24 for the first time since 1997. This was the longest period between adjustments since the federal minimum wage was enacted in 1938.
   We’ll hear the usual outcry from hostile commentators. There will be warnings of impending economic disaster to the nation all because the minimum wage rose from $5.15 per hour to $5.85 this summer and to $7.25 in 2009.
   So how about a little context?
   In 1956, the flashy cartoon spokesman for the nation’s electricity generation industry, Reddy Kilowatt, reminded us regularly to consume more electricity because electricity is “penny cheap.”
   Gasoline sold for pennies per gallon too.
   And how much was the federal minimum wage in 1956? In today’s dollars, it would have amounted to a whopping $7.65 per hour.
   Of course energy costs have run amok since then. Reddy Kilowatt and his electricity consumption messages have gone the way of the dinosaur. Just four years ago, regular unleaded gasoline was selling for less than $2 per gallon. Today, it’s at $3 — more than a 50 percent increase in just four years.
   Meanwhile, the minimum wage stayed stuck in a time warp.
   Raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do and not just because it’s also the fair thing to do.
   Studies by the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research and education organization, show that in states that have a minimum wage that are higher than the federal minimum wage, the number of small businesses and the number of small business employees grew more and faster than other states.
   If higher minimum wages are good for small business, they’re good for America. Small business is the backbone of the American economy.
   Our 25 million small businesses make up 52 percent of the private sector work force. Small businesses create 75 percent of all new jobs and anchor our communities.
   Small business owners know firsthand that higher minimum wages mean more customer spending power. Higher minimum wages mean more productive workers and healthier local economies.
   So it’s no wonder that 62 percent of small business owners surveyed nationwide in 2006 by Small Business Majority supported an increase in the federal minimum wage.
   Small business owners from across the nation have signed a statement in support of higher minimum wages at www.businessforafairminimumwage.org. The statement says, “We cannot build a strong 21st century economy on a 1950s wage floor. We cannot build a strong 21st century economy when more and more hardworking Americans struggle to make ends meet.”
   So who are you going to believe? Television and radio talking heads predicting doom and gloom because of a raise in the minimum wage, or those men and women from the small businesses responsible for most of the new jobs in this country? I’ll be going with my peers in the business world.
   Steve Fernlund is founder and president of Generation Three Logistics, a transportation logistics firm in Las Vegas

July 21, 2007
Maybe it’s time for a woman to be president
   Dave, trust me, you and I do not agree. (Dave Scott letter July 18). Cheney should be impeached (same goes for his hand-puppet, ‘Dubya’) on numerous counts.
  And what is it with you Republicans and the Clintons? Our house is burning down and all the Republicans can do is scream and point in the other direction: “Look! Bill Clinton just littered! After him!”
   My only guess is that Republicans cannot stand competency or real compassion — not feigned. Of all the treasonous, dishonest, greedy, immoral things the Cheney/Bush cabal has wrought upon our nation for seven agonizingly long years, the best the Republicans can ever do is continue to castigate Bill Clinton? And this despite Republican policies which have cost real lives, real treasure and sucked real hope from the middle class? We have a lapel button that reads: “Blame the Clintons/It’s Easier than Thinking.” How apt.
   Personally, I not only think the nation is ready (as the pundits put it) for a female chief executive, I am of the opinion we need a female chief executive. Unlike many rightwingers — especially the so-called religious right that espouses the Old Testament incantation that women should largely remain silent and walk two paces behind their man, deferring to his every whim — I submit that it may just be that the female of the species is the superior gender.
   Compared to Cheney/Bush, give me the wisdom and compassion of a Hillary Clinton any day who attempted to bring real health care reform to America in 1994 but was flung aside by Republicans. Or of a Golda Meir, who said, “A leader who does not hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.”
   Pathologically patriarchal rightwing Republicans can only continue to chant their macho slogans meant to slap down superior ideas and ideals (witness not allowing a majority vote on an Iraq withdrawal time frame Wednesday), subduing better alternatives in favor of retaining and expanding power for the male-dominated establishment elite.
   Yet, these so-called macho rightwingers in Congress have not served in the military in even half the numbers of their Democratic counterparts.   Republicans, it seems, do not generally stick their necks out; they seem to prefer someone else do that in their stead (or someone else’s children).
   Then there is the gun thing. By and large, guns, for the rightwing, weirdly go beyond any affinity for the Second Amendment, approaching the symptoms of some real, deep-seated mania more in need of a shrink and a couch than a day of target practice at the shooting range.
   No Dave, we do not agree. If anything, the country needs a “woman’s touch”: humble, fair, yet firm and friendly — as opposed to rightwing humorless hubris and mean, maniacal machismo. At least this is what my wife tells me. Oh, and Dave, I agree with her.
   Bruce Freeman is a Newberg resident

July 18, 2007
Justice denied: The new Supreme Court
   This year’s Supreme Court session has only just ended, but the court’s sharp turn to the right is already having devastating consequences. President George W. Bush’s two nominees to the bench – John Roberts and Samuel Alito – are voting to overturn, undermine or eliminate hard-won rights and protections that millions of Americans rely on for justice.
   Just ask Lilly Ledbetter. A supervisor at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Gadsden, Ala., Ledbetter received an anonymous tip late in her 19-year career that, for years, she had been paid significantly less than her male coworkers. She sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects workers against discrimination on the basis of sex. Ledbetter proved her case. A federal jury awarded her back pay and punitive damages. The company appealed and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. On May 29, in a 5-4 ruling authored by Justice Alito, she lost. The court did not dispute the discrimination, but ruled that she should have filed her discrimination claim within 180 days of the time her supervisors first set her pay on a discriminatory basis.
   It’s a jaw-dropping injustice for Ledbetter, but it has far-reaching consequences for all of us.
   Before this case, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – the federal agency charged with enforcing Title VII – said that a worker had 180 days to file a complaint after receiving any paycheck that was lower due to discrimination, regardless of when the discriminatory pay decision was made. But under the Court’s new restrictive ruling, a worker would have to file a complaint within 180 days of that discriminatory decision.
   That’s ludicrous. Employees are not mind readers, and corporations do not make a habit of disclosing the salaries they pay. Workers usually do not know how much their peers are paid, and discrimination may only become apparent over time. It often takes time even to suspect such a problem, and more time to find actual evidence. Meanwhile, few people can afford to put their jobs in jeopardy by making waves.
   Now, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, workers like Lilly Ledbetter who find out “too late” that they have been discriminated against for years will have no legal recourse. And employers will reap the financial benefits of their illegal conduct.
   That’s not justice. And it’s clearly not what Congress intended when it passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Besides prohibiting sex discrimination in employment, Title VII also protects all Americans from workplace discrimination and harassment based on religion, race, color or national origin. The Supreme Court’s decision to interpret narrowly the 180-day deadline in the Ledbetter case will undermine these other essential protections as well.
   This case is just the latest evidence of the court’s dramatic rightward shift. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito have joined with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to create a four-vote, ultraconservative bloc. Justice Anthony Kennedy now often serves as the court’s tie-breaker – a role once played by the more moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. More often than not, in critical divided rulings, Kennedy joins with the right-wing justices.
   There’s more to come. As court watchers and civil rights advocates predicted when Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito were confirmed, the new Supreme Court has shown itself willing to favor powerful government and business interests over the rights of individual Americans. Look for this disturbing trend to continue as the court addresses voting rights, workplace and product safety, privacy rights, environmental protection, and so on.
   Legislation has already been introduced in Congress that would correct the unjust ruling in Lilly Ledbetter’s case. Congress must act to pass this legislation immediately so that no one else who faces pay discrimination at work will be shortchanged.
   We cannot stand by as the court destroys vital protections and undermines our cherished rights and liberties. We must remain vigilant and push for judges throughout our legal system who value equality and fairness. We must fight for new legislation that stands up for individual Americans against powerful interests. The gains we have made as a nation over the past 70 years are at stake.
   Judith Schaeffer is the legal director for People for the American Way

July 14, 2007
For the first time in a long time the legislature accomplished its goals in a professional manner
   Contrary to President Bush’s stubbornly held ideological view, climate change is indeed underway. Witness, for example, the fresh breezes in recent weeks sweeping across our Oregon, emanating not from our coast but from Salem, and specifically from our capital. These winds bring purpose, accomplishment and hope for a better Oregon. In the past the faint whiffs were stagnate, charged with indecision, hopelessness, lacking in direction and putrefied with corruption.
   In stark contrast, the past legislative session was marked by a sense of orderliness, responsibility and true concern for all Oregonians. Can you imagine, citizens were welcomed to participate and even listen? Legislative public meetings were held when scheduled, and conducted cordially. Testifying citizens were not grilled and cross-examined.
   All of this was much unlike the days of Republican control when citizens often seemed tolerated at best, while lobbyists’ and ideological views prevailed.
   The recently terminated session saw long-overdue action on many key issues such as education, health care, consumer protection, labor, public safety, citizen rights, the creation of a rainy day fund, restructuring of corporate taxes, environment and land use, expansion of the Bottle Bill, and ethics of public officials. All this was achieved a day earlier than planned. In the past two or three legislative sessions, far less was accomplished in far greater time.
   But there is more to be done. Specifically, in the November general election we must vote solidly for Measure 49 and fix the unforeseen, disastrous ills of Measure 37, so deceptively marketed and fraudulently sold to voters.
   Let’s return fairness to all landowners and citizens while protecting our limited agricultural and forest resources.
   Henry Reeves is a Amity resident

July 11, 2007
Democrats failed to deliver in this legislature
   On June 28, the 74th legislative session adjourned, the first session in recent years that Democrats had control of all three branches of Oregon’s government.    This gave them a terrific opportunity to quickly implement the values of Oregonians across our state.
   Looking back at what they did with this chance to change Oregon for the better, I am disappointed and concerned for the direction this state is moving. There were missed opportunities for the legislature to work together in addressing important issues for the citizens of our state.
   State Sen. Larry George and I sponsored legislation to provide funds to move the bypass project forward, along with other significant transportation projects like the Highway 99W interchange near Sherwood.
State Rep. Linda Flores and I worked on a package of sensible immigration reform bills to address the problems of illegal immigration here in Oregon.
   Since public safety is the No. 1 responsibility of a government, I worked with state Rep. Berger and two House Democrats to sponsor bills that would have provided around-the-clock state police coverage without raising a nickel in new taxes or cutting existing programs. At the request of a constituent, Beth Jackson, we introduced a bill that would punish drug dealers for homicide when their “product” kills one of their “customers.”
   Many of us worked on consensus legislation to address the needs of low income mobile home park residents in need of help when the sale of their parks force them out of their homes. Constituents also demanded increased transparency of public proceedings at all levels of government. Manpower shortages for nurses, state police and certain teachers prompted my attempts to ease the effects of these shortages.
   I also drafted bills to make it easier to rehabilitate former meth houses as well as bills to ensure that money from the state of Oregon was no longer invested in the terrorist regime of Iran.
   As your state representative, I was the chief sponsor of legislation that would have affected every one of the above mentioned problems. Unfortunately, with Portland liberals in the driver’s seat, not one of these proposals was allowed to become law.
   It was an ambitious agenda, but I take my role as your state representative very seriously. Right now, America and Oregon are facing the most challenging times in history. To meet these challenges we will need to work together to solve problems.
   Looking back at the leadership provided during this legislative session, it seems the liberal majority was not serious about a bipartisan approach, but instead was focused primarily on their own narrow special interests.
   Their socialist-inspired agenda implements greater state control over more aspects of our individual freedoms than ever before, while adding a larger burden onto the backs of every taxpayer.
   Even with state government coffers at a record high, aggressive attempts were made to raise every tax and fee that could be raised; including a new payroll tax on your paycheck, fees to register your car, taxes on your car’s insurance, taxes on beer, taxes on gasoline, higher property taxes, taxes on smokers, and the list goes on and on. They even tried to say that if you didn’t use your gift card within their approved time limit, the money should be turned over to the state.
   Disappointingly, this session seemed more about paying back the special interest groups that got the power brokers into office than about the citizens who elected them to do the right thing. Their agenda gave public employee union activists unprecedented control over the reins of government, while trampling on the Oregon constitution and voter-approved initiatives to meet their criteria.
   Nevertheless, I am confident that I voted the values I was elected to represent. Many of you trusted me with this role, and I appreciate that trust. I will continue to try to earn your vote and not take it for granted. Together, we can continue the fight for what our community really cares about and make Oregon an even greater place to live and work.
   State Rep. Kim Thatcher represents District 25

July 7, 2007
‘Sicko’ the best science fiction film of the summer
   The wait is over. Michael Moore’s “Sicko” has hit the theaters. For 123 minutes, the film kowtows to the socialist healthcare of Europe, Cuba and Canada, while demonizing the American system.
   Moore calls it a documentary, but it’s so far removed from reality it really ought to be categorized as science fiction.
   For example, the film repeatedly attacks America’s “for-profit” health care, yet ignores the fact that 85 percent of United States hospitals are nonprofit and almost half of privately insured Americans have polices from nonprofit health insurers.
   At a recent press conference, Moore railed against the Martin Luther King Jr. Harbor Hospital in Los Angeles, where a patient died of a perforated bowel after lying on the emergency room floor for 45 minutes.
   Since 2004, the hospital has received more than a dozen state and federal safety citations. Hospital errors included leaving sick patients unattended, which resulted in death for three of them, giving patients the wrong medications, and using Taser stun guns to restrain psychiatric patients.
   This hospital is not private, however. It is owned by the county of Los Angeles. So much for reliable government care. Even the private insurers Moore criticizes are not free of government interference that raises the cost of their health policies. Most states force insurers to sell health policies laden with mandates that many individuals would not voluntarily purchase.
   In some states, mandated benefits have raised the cost of individual health insurance by 45 percent. In New Jersey, for example, it’s actually cheaper for a family of four to lease a Ferrari than buy health coverage. At $6,048 per year, the average individual healthcare premium is the highest in the country.
   Government solutions that create more government amount to nothing but expensive salt in the wound.  We should encourage insurers and all players in American health to be more competitive, not scrap them for big-government bureaucracy. Mr. Moore’s foolish preference for abolishing private insurance in favor of government-run, single-payer health care will not create universal care, only a government monopoly.
   “Sicko” also ignores the Canadian Supreme Court’s 2005 decision that government monopoly health care violates basic human rights. Mr. Zeliotis, the winning plaintiff in this case, needed hip surgery. When he tried to pay privately for his operation rather than wait in the government queue (which takes two to four years) the government stopped him. The denial of such a choice prolonged his pain and threatened his safety.
   Mr. Moore likes the single-payer system in Cuba, a one-party Communist dictatorship. Some 11 million Cubans attend run-down facilities, receive dated prescription drugs and are even required to bring their own sheets, food and soap to the hospital. Communist party bosses get better treatment, but when it came time for the great dictator Fidel Castro to go under the knife, he flew in a specialist from Spain.
   Government-run health care already presents problems right here at home. Medicaid was instituted in the 1960s for the poor, but it has grown far beyond its capacity, putting taxpayers under great strain. In order to keep costs down, Medicaid underpays physicians, who have increasingly stopped accepting Medicaid beneficiaries as a result. Government restrictions also make it challenging to get prescription drugs for Medicaid patients.
   Mr. Moore’s remedies fail as heath-care reform and don’t even amount to effective propaganda. His film should have featured a Canadian on a waiting list for treatment. He should have gone undercover to experience the real system that serves most Cubans. He should have followed a Medicaid patient’s struggle to get health care from the U.S. government.
   But that would have entailed filming an actual documentary, as opposed to a fluffy work of fiction.
   Diana Ernst is a public policy fellow in health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute

July 4, 2007
What should be the process when an annexation fails?
   Why did a clear majority of the voters vote down both northside annexations in the last election? On June 27 the Newberg City Council held a public work session to begin to answer not only that question, but the question of what the procedure should be when an annexation fails.
   I wholeheartedly agree.
   The first step in acquiring knowledge is looking at things the way they really are as opposed to simply what makes you feel good.
   Naturally there’s been the inevitable cry of voter ignorance. It frequently happens when you don’t get your own way in an election. Stating that the voters need to be properly educated about the issue closes the door on the chance that there’s such things as a truly opposite opinion or a difference in perspective. It’s the truth we’re looking for, right?
   Do we voters always vote with intelligence or make the right decisions? Of course not — neither does the council, the planning commission or the city staff. So now that we agree we’re all human, where do we go from here?
   In this particular election, the suggestion has also been made that the applicants were blind sighted by complacency in that every previous annexation vote we’ve had has passed. This could be unquestionably true — to some extent. But in this case, it’s just another form of justification. The applicants had to know that there was a serious campaign of opposition in action long before the ballots went out. If they had chosen not to recognize and respond to that, well, that’s their fault. But even that isn’t what happened.  In fact, almost the opposite.
   Two different slick (and expensive) mass mailings went out. The first became controversial because it was mailed from out of town and had no identification as to the responsible parties. That’s a common, and unfortunately legal election tactic in Oregon, but not a good idea with the citizens of Newberg. Two expensive mass mailings hardly support a charge of no action on the part of the proponents.
   Several individuals have mentioned that they didn’t see the harm in bringing an identical proposal back for a re-vote. There’s a lot of harm, actually. All political actions use up energy and political capital. From the applicant’s and the city’s perspective it should be noted that such an action would be viewed by the opponents as arrogance, and probably would bring even more opponents out of the woodwork just on general principles.
   Our neighbor McMinnville gives us a poster child for this kind of arrogance — it’ called Shadden Claims. I strongly suggest that both the city and the applicants study the history of that debacle. The city of Newberg cannot afford these kinds of ill feelings between itself and it’s citizens.
   And, just for fun, I’ll throw out that if the city deemed it wise to just simply put an unchanged proposal back out for another vote, I’ll tell them that I have no objection so long as the citizens can have a “do-over” every time they let an annexation pass. I didn’t think so.
   Eleven years ago Jim Morrison, the late Nadine Windsor and myself collected signatures and got the right to vote on annexations on the ballot. Despite a lot of money spent by outside development interests, you voted to guarantee that right. The law has worked just the way it should work. Maybe sometime in the future I can talk about why I think these particular annexations failed.
   Lon Wall is a Newberg resident and McMinnville business owner

June 30, 2007
Why is the city so bent on development?
   The mayor included a letter in our highly inflated (but that’s another story) water bills this month. The last 25 percent of the letter basically negated the vote of the residents of Newberg on the annexation measures.
   In reply, here are some of my own musings: Yes, Mr. Mayor, the issue of annexation is a referendum on growth. What else? I’ve done the math. When Jeff and I moved to Newberg 23 years ago, the population (I believe) was around 11,000.
   So, it has taken significantly longer that 20 years for the population of this city to double to its present number.
   I would speculate that the growth curve has been exponential rather than linear. At the mayor’s suggested rate of 3.5 percent, which is conservative at best considering the development plans already on the books, Newberg’s population will double to 40,000 in 20 years.
   The development proposed by Austin Industries alone will add hundreds of housing units over the next decade. Extrapolate that out another 20 years and we are at 80,000.
   Now, I may or may not be riding my trusty bike around town at the grand age of 91, but it makes me sad to think that this is what is in store for the Newberg that I know and love.
   I have some questions for the mayor and the city council: What makes you think the citizens of Newberg made a mistake in the last election? Why do you suppose that annexations are required to pass a vote by city residents? Why, specifically, does the city of Newberg need more commercial buildings?
   And lastly, in the interest of ethical fairness, do the opponents of the annexation measures get to have equal space in next month’s water bill?
   Susan Osborne is a Newberg resident

June 27, 2007
One vote short on needed education reform
   On May 11 supporters of House Bill 3010 succeeded in getting the House Education Committee to vote on the issue of giving low-income minority parents a choice in their children’s education. Using a procedural motion, we attempted to amend HB 3010 into a Senate bill being considered by the committee.
   HB 3010 would have given dissatisfied parents in certain parts of Portland the option of receiving grants to transfer their children out of low-performing schools and enroll them elsewhere, including private schools. It was co-sponsored by 27 legislators at the request of the School Choice Working Group of which our organization is a member.
   Both School Choice Working Group board member Esther Hinson and I testified on the amendment. We reminded committee members that dropout and reading failure rates continue at alarming levels within the poorest neighborhoods in north and northeast Portland. We gave each committee member a copy of our report on the Jefferson Cluster, “Leaving Most Children Behind: Thirty Years of Education Reform at Jefferson.” We also reminded them that the high school’s most recent principal did not last a full year and the district superintendent has decided to move on after less than three years. Both events were predicted by our report, released a year ago in April 2006.
   Esther Hinson is a former Portland Public School (PPS) teacher and currently helps students study for their GED at a local workforce center. She told the committee about the students she teaches who dropped out of their local public school and the need for them to have more choices.
   Esther also told the legislators how her divorce some years back had forced her to remove her daughter from a private school that was working for her child. Esther made it clear that finances alone forced her child to attend a school that was not a good fit. She pleaded with the committee members to support the modest pilot program created by the Freedom to Choose My School Grant program.
   Rep. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland) talked about how hard his son-in-law and daughter have worked as teachers in the Portland Public School system. He never once addressed Esther’s concerns. He told us he considered HB 3010 an attack on PPS and when we offered to work with him on the bill, he replied: “I’d prefer you bury it.”
   Our amendment failed by a vote of 5-4. Reps. Jerry Krummel (R-Wilsonville), John Dallum (R-The Dalles), Gene Whisnant (R-Sunriver) and John Lim (R-Gresham) voted to support the pilot project. Rep. Dallum, a former public school district superintendent, supported our proposal saying: “After 30 years we could try almost anything and do better.”
   You can listen to the testimony and the reaction from Committee members here: /www.leg.state.or.us/listn/archive/archive.2007s/HED-200705111344.ram (at 00:41:31).
   While we fell one vote short of the necessary support to advance the Freedom to Choose My School Grant program, we have much to be proud of and to build on for the next legislative session.
   One-third of the legislature supported our bill in the first year that we attempted to lobby at the state capitol. A number of others expressed off-the-record interest in our attempts to bring more choices to low-income and minority parents in Portland. Few bills get this kind of support during their first legislative session.
   We had an extremely successful and emotional hearing on our bill on April 5. Committee members were clearly impressed with the testimony and