Letters to the Editor: July 31, 2026

A cheaper way

Are you cringing when you fill up your car or truck?

My small SUV costs me less than 2 cents a mile for fuel. How? I own an all-electric car — not a hybrid, as they still burn gasoline.

My electricity comes from McMinnville Water & Light. My car gets about 4 miles per kilowatt and a kilowatt costs me less than 7 cents. So I just smile as I drive by gas stations.

There are more savings, as there’s no gasoline engine to maintain, just an electric motor requiring virtually no maintenance. I need no oil changes, no tuneups, no radiator flushes, no air filters, no timing belts.

My total maintenance cost for 30,000 miles on my first electric car — I’m now on my second — ran $100. That covered a 12-volt battery, set of wiper blades and supply of windshield washer fluid. And my second one is running about the same.

Are they safe? They’re safer than gasoline cars, as there’s no gas tank to explode in a collision.

If you can’t afford a new electric car, check out the used ones. I bought both of mine used, getting a better value. And you don’t have to worry about whether the previous owner maintained the engine.

Gary Langenwalter

McMinnville

A darker side

President Trump is fond of using the words “patriot” and “patriotism” as if they connoted sunshine and roses. Two quotations from the history of English literature bring out the other, darker side.

One evening at a dinner party, the conversation fell into a discussion of patriotism, and Dr. Samuel Johnson quipped, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

W. H. Auden, the twentieth century poet, wrote:

“Patriots? Little boys

Obsessed by bigness,

Big pr—ks, big money, big bangs.”

Today, we add big crowds, big garish glitz plastered on the walls of the oval office, big Teutonic structures disfiguring the skyline of Washington, D.C.

Unbridled patriotism can do great damage. Witness the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

Robert Mason

McMinnville

More paving, please

As someone who makes daily journeys to Salem, I am happy to see a redesign of the intersection of Hwy 99W and Bethel Road, albeit costing more than $4 million. What pains me is the lack of available detours.

Like Yamhill County, Polk County is awash with road money, but using it for chores like grading Yampo and North Oak Grove roads on a regular basis — adding more gravel, then spraying it down with oil to reduce the dust. It’s time to do a little paving, re-allocating some of those funds from county taxpayers to something beneficial to all of us.

Yamhill County has plenty of gravel roads, but would, it seems, rather buy more equipment — extra big pickup trucks for employees to drive around in and duplicate heavy equipment items. Be creative and improve the infrastructure.

Philip Haynes

McMinnville

Gaggle of grifters

I went to see The Odyssey this evening. If you haven’t seen it, and have three hours, I recommend it highly.

The makers of the movie chose to emphasize the folly of one man’s ambition, that of King Agamemnon, in seeking to bend the world to his will — launching the Trojan War and thus throwing the “civilized” world into war and chaos.

The people of Ithaca, home of Odysseus, reluctantly follow the king to war with the Trojans, feeling they have no choice. The war brings darkness to Troy, destruction of their city and culture, and casts that same darkness back the in Greek city states of Ithaca and Sparta.

The movie was powerful and apropos in a number of ways.

America has a would-be king whose ambition and lack of moral character has attracted a cast of sycophants to his side.

This gaggle of grifters has reduced the standing of America in the world, ushered in an era of unilateralism and might makes right geopolitical struggle, and threatened to lead into an era of greater darkness in world affairs. But more than that, the U.S. is fouling our own nest as our politics descend into wholesale graft for the benefit of political insiders, their families and their benefactors.

The end of the movie has Odysseus sailing off, musing that this sad history will only be remembered in song, because in the future, writing will be lost to history.

We are a free people. No self-respecting American should bend the knee to any political leader, much less a classless miscreant and felon.

Let’s stand up for our rights, our common humanity and decency. Let’s course-correct.

John Linder

McMinnville

Explanation please

Could someone explain why The Pub at 325 N.E. Davis was allowed to take two or more of our precious downtown parking spaces for outdoor dining? It really doesn’t seem right.

Charles Hottle

McMinnville