During the last six years in Corvallis, I have watched the once-secluded trail from Timberhill to Chip Ross Park become housing scenery. I have seen developments expand further and further into the hills, and I have noticed the absence of bike trails on Chip Ross Park's south side. Trees are cut down and used to form big piles of smoking wood, burned because there is no other purpose for them. Muddy roads across the empty hills mark the place of future expansion.

I thought once that expansion would take a long time, and never happen in the valley. But after only 18 years of living in Corvallis and only about six years since I started to notice, I have seen many of my favorite places to walk, run and bike start to be destroyed.

I have biked up Dimple Hill many times, going up Horse Trail and down Dan's Trail. I have run up it several times, walked up it several times and skied there once with my family.

I have more memories of Dimple Hill than I do of the football stadium; than I do of our new high school; than I do of the riverfront. It is my place to escape to after the second hour of practicing French horn and before the third, a place to relax and regain my perspective, and not another blank place on the map waiting for a suburb.

We just moved to Oregon two years ago and registered as Independents. Having moved here from Illinois, it seemed like an enlightened thing to do. Since we've been in town, we've been on different sides of some key issues.

Yesterday we received our Official Primary Nonpartisan Ballot, and we have a total of two choices: One for Superintendent of Public Instruction and for one contested Supreme Court Judge.

It's no wonder that relatively few Independents return their ballots. Back in Illinois, I did have to specify whether I wanted a Republican or a Democrat ballot, but I at least could participate in what were the hottest races of the day. I got to vote for Sen. Barack Obama there, and I sure would like to participate in the Republican Gubernatorial primary here!

Let's call this so-called "Open Primary" what it is — an elimination of the nomination process. I don't know if eliminating the nomination process will energize voters or not, but it could save them some money. Because unless you consider Oregon voters so dumb they need two chances to elect someone for office, we could eliminate one trip to the ballot box by eliminating the nomination process and save the cost of one election.

semitism in Poland and all other countries. We are ashamed that some Poles remained anti-Semitic in their spirit and actions in face of the Holocaust tragedy.

Yet, we also are very proud of some 5,400 Poles who were recognized by Yad Vashem in Israel as righteous for hiding and saving Jewish people, despite that Germans punished such actions by death. The phrase "Polish concentration camps" from your April 27 article, "A tale of terrors, survival," distorts truth and, if perpetuated, may lead to misconceptions about world history.

The biggest problem is that health care has become big business and — in order to maximize profits for doctors along with insurance and pharmaceutical companies — governmental interference has severely limited patient options. The result has been predictably catastrophic for patients. We have the most restrictive drug and health care market in the world, and the restrictions have only served to raise costs and profits for the health care industry.

The obvious solution is to empower the patient. Doctors shouldn't be the gatekeepers for medications that informed patients should use. We should take the Drug Enforcement Agency and Food and Drug Administration out of equation.

None of the banned drugs have been shown to be inherently dangerous. If they are misused, it is often a problem related to misleading claims by sellers — which is a problem for the courts or the Federal Trade Commission. The FDA and DEA restrict drugs based on users — not the drugs themselves. If patients make bad choices on medications, then that should be their problem.

As it is now, with so many gatekeepers, the litigation often results in higher costs for other health care users. Nearly all drugs banned by the DEA have legitimate medical uses. They are often better for patients than the most widely used treatments. Yet the result of this ban is higher law enforcement costs and higher crime — again passed to people who are not responsible for the problem.

Isn't it odd to read that the price of oil per barrel is falling, while the pump prices are rising to new heights and the petroleum giants are boasting of record-breaking profits?

I think we need to find a means to stop the theft at the pumps occurring before we are forced into bankruptcy, while the oil barons continue to take advantage of our society.

It's even come to a point where automobile owners can't even afford to have their vehicles maintained because all of their auto budget ends up in the tank. Of course a lack of preventative maintenance causes our vehicles to become less fuel efficient, and we end up spending even more on our fuel bills, thus increasing the profits of the oil barons. Don't you feel as though you are being monopolized by a petroleum industry that has become out of control?

Everyone knows that reducing our dependence on foreign oil is a national objective, involving alternate sources of energy and more efficient vehicles.

Now our state Legislature is working against that goal. The problem: More efficient vehicles pay less gasoline tax, and increasing costs of road maintenance mean that more money is needed for highway upkeep.

The Legislature is spending a considerable amount of money field-testing a mileage tax to replace the gasoline tax. Briefly, a GPS system installed on all vehicles as of 2009 would indicate to a sensor at the filling station where the vehicle has been and how many miles it has traveled.

Efficient vehicles would pay more per mile than now, gas hogs would pay less — a terrible idea. The cost of the GPS system on the vehicles and the expensive sensors at the stations would cost millions to implement statewide. That money would go to private industry, not for road maintenance.

The argument is presented that the cost to the average vehicle would be approximately the same as with the present gas tax. But the whole idea is to raise more money.

Please get into Google and read about the Oregon mileage tax. Then contact your legislator and voice your objection. Higher gas tax or an annual vehicle fee might be preferable. At least all the money would stay in the state for the roads.

As further examples of the liberals' war on comprehension and rational debate, letter writers Monya Lemery and Carly Davis continue to muddle the immigration issue by attempting to imply that most people opposed to illegal immigration are opposed to immigration itself. Monya even goes as far as asserting that the opposition "detests" immigrants. Neither mention the word "illegal" at all. Others dance around the issue with the word "undocumented" to avoid having to say the "I" word.

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