Op-Ed: Tell Salem What You Think About Red Light Photo Cams

A private company is on the verge of installing cameras in Salem that will photograph red light violations and ultimately, lead to a ticket in your mailbox. The city says they want your input.

(SALEM) - Salem is close to making a final decision on whether to implement remote traffic cameras that record a driver’s license plate, and result in a traffic citation. They say the decision has not been made, but the council has decided which private firm gets the job. Now the city council wants input from the public.

Is that out of order? If the opinion of Salem residents is truly sought, then selecting the company before the idea makes little sense, and it more than borders on insult.

Op-Ed: Every Oregonian Deserves Protection From Secondhand Smoke

(SALEM) - No one should be required to breathe unhealthy air as a condition of employment.

Yet for the 35,000 Oregonians who work in places where indoor smoking is allowed, inhaling toxic fumes is an unavoidable part of the job.

U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona has released a comprehensive new report that definitively concludes that secondhand smoke is a killer and must be addressed as a serious hazard to public health. "The debate is over," Carmona said as he presented the findings. "The science is clear. Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious public health hazard."

Op-Ed: Impact of Incest Lingers for Male Victims as Well

This column is written in the heat of summer about a hot-button topic that has for far too long been hidden in society's closet. It is time that it sees the light of day. That topic is incest's impact on male victims, which is at times trivialized.

(SALEM) - I am by no means an expert on sexual abuse, quite the opposite, having grown up in a hugely Victorian family on the East Coast. But over the last decade, as a Clinical Social Worker in Oregon, I have had nearly a dozen adult male clients who retain the trauma left by childhood incest and abuse.

In one case, the victim was actually transferred from the home of an alcoholic mother to foster care with a church elder. Reportedly the elder had a dying wife, and chose to molest his young teenage ward as a substitute for his perverted hormones. In another case, both parents allegedly molested their little boy to the extent that he required surgery.

Op Ed: Kiss `Neutral Net` Good-Bye,
Then Open Wallet-Wide,
For Pay-Per-Page

Consumer agencies dissect demands, defy Web-Net pirates.

(SALEM) - YOU are about to be robbed of your rights for freedom of speech and choice of sources on the World Wide Web --the Internet.

Op-Ed: `Umbrella` for Sale

(SILVERTON) - Proponents of a ballot initiative that imposes an overly harsh and arbitrary spending limit in Oregon`s constitution are calling their measure the `rainy day amendment.` This is like trying to sell a lightning rod by calling it an `umbrella.`

Oregon does need a rainy day fund that can be used to maintain schools, public safety and other state services when the economic weather turns foul. Such a fund should be established by Oregon`s Legislature. Despite its name, the `rainy day amendment` does not create a rainy day fund, and the amendment`s sponsor has said as much.

Even worse, if the Legislature ever finally creates a rainy day fund, the misnamed `rainy day amendment` will render the fund impotent to help protect services during a downturn.

Op Ed:
Political Gravity
Forcing Much Greater Corporate Controls

Realities Will Rule When Facts Strike Home to Voters.

(SALEM) - The Greek philosopher Aristotle in the 4th century BC. stated early gravitational theory. He believed that there is no effect without a cause, and therefore no motion without a force.

Grover Norquist may well have learned from this early philosopher, simply applying the theory to political organization. The extreme driving force of his once-famed but now notorious fiscal, social, and political maneuverings and manipulations had to have come from some solidly transcendental source --obviously one buried in antiquity.

Yet he has shaped much of the nation`s prime notions about every one of those areas ever since...

Op Ed:
Oregon Descent to Perverted Party Role
Is Only `Cult-Preservation`

State Pattern Repeats Early Federalist Frenzy.

(SALEM) - Even the Founding Fathers fought to prevent feared descent into political-party confrontation, authoritative study by Yale`s famed historian Bruce Ackerman now shows in new detail.

Their ongoing efforts mitigating confrontation, yet leading irretrievably to Constitutional confusion, were finally resolved `the hard way`: only by principled return to positive progressive communication.

It was the then-Federalist/packed Supreme Court, laying aside new political-cult allegiance politically-pledged, that forced final action saving the struggling young Republic.