Aug. 19 Letters to the Editor

A winning team

I enjoyed the article on accomplishments of the Castle Rock equestrian team winning the Washington High School Equestrian Team championship last May in Pasco.

This team, formed in 2005 with only three riders, now includes 20 riders from Castle Rock, Toutle, Kelso, Mark Morris and R.A. Long. Kudos to Gaming Coach Kara Bloomfeldt and the Castle Rock team. Bill Wagner’s photography is always outstanding.

Judi Peters

Longview

Is state testing public’s patience?

It seems that the New Deal of FDR and WPA have been resurrected by the state of Washington along SR 4. The questionable projects that add numerous stoppages lead one to wonder if the state is trying to see just how much the public will take.

To add insult to injury, Wahkiakum County closes the only back road out at the Beaver Creek Bridge. Coordination? All we need now is for the Puget Island to Westport Ferry to shut down.

Peter J. Fleury

Cathlamet

Know your enemy

We must know our enemy to defeat him. We know that al-Qaida will do everything it can to tear down our way of life, the American Dream. We know it can, through the worldwide Web, by telling stories that exploit two of our worst weaknesses — fear and racial tensions.

Al-Qaida operatives surely must be anonymously authoring stories that are half truths and outright lies (fear mongering) about health-care reform (itself still in the making) that goad weak people into disrupting town hall meetings. Those meetings can help make the kind of reform that will become the strength of our nation. Town hall meetings have been the American way and our strength since this nation’s beginnings, and I think it’s some of al-Qaida’s successes that it is destroying some of them.

Please, let’s try to avoid actions driven by fear, and show civility. To defeat this enemy we should all try to become stalwarts of stability. Al-Qaida is not only trying to prevent the vote in Afghanistan, but also civil discussion in this country. Its success is our weakness.

Rex Carter

Castle Rock

People have power at polls

We find the conversations very interesting between our elected officials, the media and the people. Do they remember who put them into office, whom they represent, or who is paying their salaries? It isn’t their party or the special interest groups, but we the people.

We saw the “fur fly” when President Bush was in office: mockeries, effigy burnings, hate-filled rhetoric — endlessly. My dad had two classic sayings regarding this: 1) “It all depends whose ox is being gored.” 2) “What they need is the toe of my boot in the seat of their pants.” Simple, but profound.

To refer to people who object to government health care and call them “Brown Shirts,” “Nazis,” “Mob Mentality” is ridiculous. Baird’s quote: “This is how to make sure an intellectual discussion doesn’t happen” sounds so pious. The Congress has a 1,000-plus page bill they haven’t read or studied, and the president’s desire was to ram it through in a couple of weeks before the summer recess. That is totally insane. What is intellectual about that?

If the federal government is so successful in its huge programs, why cut $500 billion from Medicare? Why is Social Security broke and why is there such chaos in our public school systems? We may not have the power of the White House or the Congress, but we do have power at the polls.

Ken and Peggy Bayles

Kelso

Just one question …

I have one question for seniors and baby boomers: Do you really want advocates of partial birth abortion and those who conceived the cash for clunkers program responsible for your health care?

Don Cullen

Kelso

Focus on healthy living

Health care is definitely the hot topic this summer. Hopefully, it is a good thing in getting people to educate themselves so they can intelligently discuss the issue. Sadly, I fear, cost seems to be the main focus. My fear is it appears little attention has been given to prevention as in living a healthy lifestyle.

The founder and director of Arizona Center of integrative medicine, Andrew Weil writes, “American health care doesn’t fulfill it’s prime directive — it does not help people become or stay healthy. It’s not a health care system at all, it’s a disease management system. It’s impossible to make our drug-intensive technology-centric and corrupt system affordable.”

Let’s all work for a healthier system. A basic right should be healthy food, especially in our schools. Will it cost more? Is it better to build healthy children or have more children dependent on drugs? It may be as simple as fresh fruit rather than a bag of potato chips.

The conversations, scare tactics, etc, are out there and it’s time for all to become educated about real health-care reform. One can start by encouraging our local schools to implement the “Local Farms-Healthy Kids FARMS” (bill) passed by our state Legislature.

Patricia Quenzer Schauer

Longview

It’s all about money

The same people who complained that Brian Baird is avoiding a meeting on health care would scream bloody murder if money was used for extra security.

Many who have sufficient health care, as I do, have no compassion for the less fortunate.

It’s all about money. What a selfish world we live in.

It is also a lie when we are told that AARP does not support Obama’s health plan. Just today I received another official AARP letter endorsing the plan.

Phylis M. Bess

Longview