Feb. 10 Letters to the Editor

Comments short-sighted

Sen. Hatfield’s comment Feb. 6 about I-197 raised my hackles.

Alternative energy more expensive? How short-sighted. That attitude ignores the total and long-term costs of acquiring, refining, delivering and utilizing finite fossil fuels.

Hatfield would put jobs over climate change? That’s a false choice. If we ignore climate change there will be no jobs. And no life as we know it.

Why are we in recession? Greed, yes. But that’s only the immediate cause. Basically, it’s because the real cost of everything has gone up. We are running out of the finite resources of energy that we has supported our economy on for the last 250 years (oil, coal, gas, water) and ignored the virtually unlimited resources (sun, wind, tides, geothermal) that surround us.

We have the technology now to begin the switch. It’s a win-win situation. We better let our politicians know we also have the will. And they better listen.

Because they are unlimited, renewable resources are virtually “free” in the long term. (Aside to Dean Takko — anything more renewable than a tree? Yes—industrial hemp.) Customers are smarter than the politicians and the corporate CEOs. We know we have to be good environmental stewards—that’s because we aren’t looking at the “bottom line” or the political cost. We know what the real cost is down the road.

Elizabeth Sheppard

Longview

Paper yes, plastic no

It’s time to correct some gross misconceptions. Trees are not cut to make paper bags. They are much too valuable as a raw material for timber products.

Paper bags are made from a combination of wood waste from timber processing and recycled fiber from waste paper. Paper bags are most certainly biodegradable with some air contact.

However, they are a very valuable source of recycled fiber and should never find their way into landfills. Until recent small attempts by local schools and a few stores to recycle plastic bags, essentially all plastic bags went to landfills, not just in Longview but the entire state of Washington.

A paper bag will hold about three times the groceries of a plastic bag and will stand up in your trunk or cargo area. Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging is the largest producer of bag paper on the West Coast, supporting a large number of very well-paying jobs in our community. The largest producer of plastic bags and materials is Formosa Plastics.

Unfortunately, plastic bags from petroleum products are significantly cheaper than paper. They certainly supply a need when carrying goods long distances in the rain, for example. But, when asked “paper or plastic,” please don’t answer that it doesn’t matter. It matters very much.

Dick Elliott, retired

Longview Fibre Company

Longview

O’Hair should be praised

The Feb. 3 letter from Sherry Davis was knocking the ACLU.

The ACLU tries to accept only cases of national importance, two local ones come to mind with the Kelso Police Department trying on their own to amend our U.S First Amendment on Freedom of Speech and in the archives the Longview School Board trying about the same with Larry Wagle.

I would love to have seen “The History Channel” on TV making such a large error (as Ms. Davis writes) as saying Madalyn Murray O’Hair was the founder of the ACLU. Madalyn was the founder of American Atheists (of which I’m a lifetime member).

Madalyn may have had the help of the ACLU in her U.S. Supreme Court case to get prayer out of schools. (Murray v. Curlett-1963) She was also on the original Phil Donahue talk show and was liked well enough to be on Phil’s final show.

As far as such snide comments as “She wrote for Hustler magazine,” she may have been interviewed for Hustler just as ex-Pres Jimmy Carter was interviewed for Playboy. That does not make a person “foul.”

My favorite picture in my hall is that of myself and Madalyn Murray O’Hair, with my arm around her.

Dave Westerlund

Longview

Stimulus bill not the answer

History is set to repeat itself, again. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 has all the hallmarks of a classic deja vu.

Last year the federal government sent out rebate checks in an attempt to stimulate the economy. They also dumped huge sums of money into failing Wall Street banks and insurance firms. Both had no effect.

It’s long past time that central planners learned that throwing good money after bad will not stimulate the economy. We must instead cut taxes, reform burdensome regulations and eliminate government waste.

It is not until we pay attention to our past history of stimulus failures that we can begin to move toward the future.

Terry Salo

Clatskanie