Letters to the editor: Sept. 27, 2019

Going plant-based

As a bit of an animal lover, I have been scouring the Internet for some special occasion celebrating animals. I came across an international observance called a “day for animals,” but it wasn’t quite what I expected.

I was shocked to learn that nearly 99 percent of all domesticated animals are bred and raised for food. That unlike our cats and dogs, they get no compassion or respect from the meat and dairy industries.

That male chicks are suffocated in plastic garbage bags or ground up alive because they lay no eggs. That groups of laying hens are packed into small wire cages that tear out their feathers.

That breeding sows spend their entire lives pregnant in metal cages. That dairy cows are artificially impregnated each year, and their babies are snatched from them at birth so people can drink their milk.

Like many others, I always thought of cows, pigs and chickens as simply “food on the hoof.” Now, I realize that each dollar I spend on meat and dairy products at the checkout counter subsidizes animal atrocities.

I will be replacing animal products in my diet with the new healthful, cruelty-free plant-based meat and dairy items offered by my supermarket.

Melvin Nysser

McMinnville

Put on the brakes

It was good to see the letter from Larry Treadwell, “Resist the growth imperative,” in the News-Register.

He challenges the concept that cities must grow or die. It’s good to see people realizing growth does not pay for itself, foster prosperity or assure a better quality of life.

If growth brought prosperity, then Portland would be in excellent financial shape. But are Portland’s property taxes going down?

The growth industry and its finance, insurance and real estate FIRE team have been advocating unrestricted or mandated growth for years. They induce the Legislature to pass pro-growth laws, then criticize those calling for common-sense planned growth.

With passage of SB 1527, the citizens’ right to have a meaningful say in the future of their towns has been removed. At city council meetings, citizens are restricted to narrowly commenting on the details of a proposed d3evelopment.

The urban growth boundary concept has been busted wide open. Developers can develop as fast as they want.

Operating from a “rip it up and build it out” mindset, they have no plan for the future of Oregon. One developer told me citizens can grow their food on their rooftops for all he cares.

It’s time for the Legislature to recognize the desires of Oregon citizens and quit succumbing to the golden voices and contributions of paid lobbyists.

Nice letter, Mr. Larry Treadwell. Keep it up.

John Englebrecht

McMinnville

Retain care home ordinance

I am writing to urge your steadfast support of Ordinance 5059, which establishes licensing requirements and non-emergency medical standards for care facilities located in the city of McMinnville.

Many of us have relatives who have paid substantial sums of money to care facilities so that if a non-emergency fall occurs or a prescription needs refilling, there will be someone on the care home staff available to help the resident. The city ambulance service will not have to be called out.

Almost all of the 13 care facilities in McMinnville are owned by out-of-state corporations operating on a for-profit basis. Through referendum 36-202, they are seeking to repeal the ordinance.

Out-of-state corporations are doing everything they can to avoid going to their own expense in assisting their residents, even though their licensing from both the state and the city require they provide such assistance on a 24/7 basis.

One operator stated in the News Register, “This cost will have to be passed on.” Actually, they want to pass this cost on to us, the taxpayers of McMinnville.

Instead of staffing care homes with well-trained employees to provide necessary services, the operators call the McMinnville Fire Department. In other words, the care home owners want local taxpayers in McMinnville to cover their operating costs.

I don’t think there are any other businesses in this city that ask taxpayers to cover their operating costs.

It comes to you as a voter on this amendment to just say no to these out-of-state corporations. They need to absorb their own costs in providing services they are already billing their residents for.

Keep the ordinance in place. It protects elderly care-home residents.

Cherry Haas

McMinnville

A Trump U. grad?

Our president continues to berate and attack Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve. I can only assume the president got his Ph.D. in economics from Trump University.

Lee Howard

McMinnville

Great time at Gallery

We would never pretend to be live theater critics. In fact, we really know very little about the theater.

But we do know what we like. And we really liked the Gallery Theater production of Walt Disney’s “Newsies,” a Broadway musical directed locally by McMinnville resident Adam Ewing.

The actors and actresses, many of them McMinnville students, played their parts superbly. The settings were simple but very functional.

“Newsies” is one of the best performances we have attended at Gallery. And, oh my! The singing and dancing were 5-star. The cast really poured its soul into the performance.

We took our grandchildren to “Newsies.” They are 8 and 10 years old.

We can assure you that they were well entertained. At least until the kissing scene, when we looked over to see they had their hands covering their eyes. Quite cute!

We would highly recommend “Newsies” for children and adults alike.

By the way, are you old enough to know what a “newsie” is?

John & Joan Schindelar

McMinnville

Nothing but the truth

Wouldn’t it be interesting if, after all this stuff is over, we find Donald Trump is and has been the most honest White House occupant we’ve had in many years?

Makes you want to say, “H-m-m-m.”

Bill Whiteman

McMinnville

No to air show

To be clear, I do not want the air show in McMinnville. Never again.

It scares the animals and me. Especially me.

Put that money toward something positive!

Jerry Carlton

McMinnville

Migrants targeted for death

Randy Johnson’s letter of Sept. 20 excuses our government’s current horrific policies and behavior toward migrants at the border. He terms it well-deserved because the migrants are trying to enter the U.S. illegally.

But individuals entering to seek asylum are certainly not doing so illegally. And in my view, all migrants should be treated humanely.

Since the year 2000, an estimated 7,000 migrants have died trying to cross our southern border, some 3,000 in Arizona alone. So for more than 15 years, volunteers have placed jugs of water, blankets and food in portions of the Arizona desert migrants are known to traverse.

The current administration has made these humanitarian activities federal misdemeanors. As a result, a number of volunteers with the group No More Deaths have been arrested.

At least eight volunteers have been prosecuted this year. The best known is Scott Warren, a geography teacher arrested in January 2018 after providing food, water and shelter to two men from Central America.

A mistrial was declared in Warren’s case in June 2019. However, the government has decided to retry him.

Border Patrol agents have been shown in well-distributed videos destroying the jugs of water. This is incomprehensible to me.

Without water, some migrants will die. It is difficult to deny that this amounts to the deliberate killing of migrants.

Certainly the policy of denying extended stays for immigrants receiving life-saving medical care, now apparently rescinded, would have led to the deliberate killing of many of these individuals as well.

As for Randy Johnson’s claim that religious leaders are preoccupied fighting abortion and the rise of infanticide — which doesn’t exist — I can only hope such fights will come to naught.

Current efforts to define fetal personhood and the beginning of life at fertilization have no scientific basis. They are actually theological or religious constructs, as the late Justice Stephens noted in 1989.

The Supreme Court should strike these down. They should surely not be allowed to become the basis of law.

Les Howsden

Amity

The real story

A recent letter criticized people who have made unflattering statements about the current president.

In that letter, it was stated that the Trail of Tears was the result of the Cherokee victims having lost a war with the U.S. Not true.

The Cherokees in the southeastern U.S. had made peace with America long before. They had adopted the customs and dress of the Americans. And they had been largely successful, building up large farms and plantations, complete with fine houses, just like their American counterparts.

The reason they ended up evicted from their land and sent on a death march was greed. Swindlers convinced Washington politicians, including then-President Andrew Jackson, to seize the lands and turn them over to whites. And not just any white, but specifically the swindlers themselves.

There’s a good book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, that tells the whole sad story in detail.

Fred Fawcett

Lafayette