I just want to add how ridiculous I think the idea of putting medians on Ninth Street is.

I know for a fact I am not the only one who is so excited to hear about Trader Joe’s coming to Corvallis, to join the other new businesses like TJ Maxx, Michael’s, Dress Barn and others. Add to that rumors of another market coming in at the corner of Ninth and Circle in the Rite Aid building about to be vacated, and you have another thing to be excited about. Now hopefully the area near Office Max will finally develop and Ninth will be a booming shopping area.

Good companies exceed their policies and practices to help their subscribers. Poor companies stand behind these items to avoid their obligations. Ask yourself, what kind of health care plan do you have? Recognize the good ones, and don’t settle for excuses. Contact your congressman to demand health care reform, and accountability.

How can the answer to local homelessness be “to maintain the status quo”? This is no answer; this cannot be called progress. Ignoring the extremely poor, the unemployed, mentally or physically disabled, the disenfranchised will not keep them off our streets. Shelter is the basic need of all human beings.

Lisa Ullmer’s July 8 letter to the editor regarding speed bumps on Circle between Lantana and Dogwood contains some misleading statements. Most significantly, the funding does not come from city transportation funds or any other public source. The money was raised voluntarily by the residents along this section of Circle Boulevard. Almost every household contributed. Given the current economic conditions, this demonstrates how strongly the residents feel about the need for traffic calming in their neighborhood.

We were very encouraged to hear Oregon Attorney General John Kroger say this week that he’s planning to review the state’s open government laws with an eye toward asking the Legislature to overhaul them.

As was reported in this paper, an important and fantastic event took place in this town on June 27. The first ever Pride Festival and Parade was held in Corvallis, and it was a complete success. We were very excited about the fact that our mayor, Charlie Tomlinson, agreed to be the grand marshal for the parade, and Mayor Tomlinson did a wonderful job in that capacity. To add color to his Mayormobile, I loaned the mayor a rainbow flag that I had borrowed from someone else.

I feel the need to express the frustrations that many businesses outside of the four-block radius of downtown are feeling about all of the recent articles on new and expanding businesses within that area and the hypocritical statements being put out daily about how Corvallis needs to support these businesses.

George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was published 60 years ago, but it’s interesting to see the parallels with today.

Robert Gourley, in his letter of July 6, compares our liberal/conservative partisan politics to the swing of a pendulum. He assumes that policy swing is “wasting energy and doing good for only a few at a time.” His answer is to educate voters in order to minimize the swing.

At its meeting this week, the Corvallis City Council took the following step to address the issue of homelessness:

Strange that the newspaper felt the need to clarify my July 1 letter regarding the passage of Senate Bill 767 in an editor’s note when there’s hardly been a peep from them about SB 767 except in one recent Sunday edition.

This past week, Public Works marked three areas for installation of speed bumps on Circle Boulevard between Dogwood and Lantana. The response from them was that this had been approved a year ago by the City Council. No notification came out to the neighborhoods or in the City Newsletter.

If ever there were a story that foreshadowed the political and legal Waterloos that loom in seeking solutions to climate change, surely that cautionary tale is the one about the Columbia and Snake rivers’ salmon and their imminent extinction.

We are skeptical about the tentative plans to improve Ninth Street in Corvallis by installing a series of planted median strips in the middle of the busy commercial district.

In her June 29 letter, Xuan Cheng says that humans do not appear to be “designed” to eat meat.

I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Gazette-Times and reporter Rachel Beck for the article and photo that was printed in response to the disappearance of my guitar from the street in front of my house. (July 3, “Local performer’s prized guitar stolen”).

On June 11 you wrote an editorial about Corvallis City Council sending a resolution to the U.S. Congress on health care reform.

The great tragedy of Michael Jackson’s death is the administration of drugs under the guidance of licensed physicians. The circumstantial evidence rests heavily on the fact that he could buy certain doctors to administer any medicine.

Thursday night (July 2), while driving home on a busy street, I hit and killed a cat that ran in front of my car.

Senate President Peter Courtney has said he isn’t running for governor in 2010 primarily because he has been too outspoken. And that’s too darn bad.

We are at an important moment in our nation’s debate over health care. It is critically important that we initiate a government option heath plan, and our politicians are folding under enormous pressure from insurance companies.

Veteran political consultant James Carville predicts the Democrats will rule for the next 40 years.

My daughter is enrolled in grad school at Oregon State University, and we were in Corvallis from June 20 to 30 for a visit. It was wonderful.

Two letters last week contained opposing views as to whether aspects of our anatomy such as our intestines indicate if we are designed to eat meat.

Our country is now in discussions about our health care system. There will be changes — and changes to the changes — in developing a good and acceptable system. But now is the time to start the process, and an Oregon congressman could be a starter.