LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[September 14th, 2005] NO CHIP OFF THE TIMBER BLOCK

Though I appreciate WW's interest in next year's race for Multnomah County chair ["Baggage Check," WW, Aug. 31, 2005], I would like to set the record straight in two areas.

First, I know that "pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-environment progressive with needed business acumen" is too long for a title, but your use of "timber magnate" before my name is simply not accurate. As you know, I run a business that helps local companies compete in a global economy and keep jobs in Oregon. Before that, I helped my brother and others to build a financial-services company that created many good, local jobs.

Second, and more importantly, you implied that I played a role in the Wheeler Foundation grants mentioned in the article. As I explained to your reporter, I have no control over which charities receive grants from the foundation. Like most family foundations, ours is not a democracy-my father is the president, he runs it on a day-to-day basis, and the money is his. Not only do I oppose the groups you selectively mentioned-I have worked against what they stand for my entire life.

For those who believe-as I do-that you can learn about candidates by the organizations they support, I have posted a list of the organizations I have given to on my website at www.wheelerforcountychair.com.

When I talked to your reporter, I was prepared to answer questions about why I am running and what I stand for. Instead, all I was asked were questions about my father and the family foundation. If you want to attack me, fine-it comes with the territory. But my father is not a candidate in this race.

The stakes in this election are too high to be distracted by irrelevant issues. We should instead be talking about how we're going to restore common sense, accountability, hope, and optimism to county government. That's why I'm running for Multnomah County Chair.

Ted Wheeler
Northeast Broadway

Editor's Clarification: Wheeler is descended from Oregonians who earned substantial wealth in the timber industry, but he has not worked in the industry himself.

The Ice Next Time

I read Paul Koberstein's article "Hot or Not" [WW, Aug. 24, 2005] with great interest, but would like to take issue with some aspects of his story. While it is undeniable that the earth is heating up, there are many who feel that man-made activities could only contribute on a minute level to the overall temperature of the planet. Weather records dating back a century and a half and thousand-year-old tree rings don't begin to explain the long-term cycle of global heating and cooling.

I was surprised and disappointed that the Ice Age wasn't even mentioned in the article. The ancient Pleistocene Epoch, which occurred over hundreds of thousands of years, with its multiple freezing and intergalactic warming periods, most likely holds the unknown truth of our planet's thermal dynamics.

If the hole in the ozone is melting the icecap now, then how did the ice sheets that covered Europe and North America melt tens of thousands of years ago in a prehistoric age when the ozone was presumably intact? One thing's for sure: It wasn't caused by Fred Flintstone driving around in an SUV.

Your omission of the mysteries of the Ice Age seems disingenuous at best or agenda-driven at worst. Or does WW really believe that in the fullness of time another Ice Age is not even possible?

Mike Mason
Northwest 118th Avenue

Throw Away Your Hockey Stick

The hatchet job on state climatologist George Taylor was despicable.

The ignorant PC do-gooders who promote fear of Global Warming (GW) by man-made CO2 should learn a few facts before they pontificate. In the '70s, the claim was made that we were facing another Ice Age, because of human activities with excess CO2; all this was based upon "proven computer modeling." Since the temperature was really going up slowly, they changed the fear to GW, and, surprise! New computer models "proved" it, again! (Those models do not give the past climate, when run backwards!) They are carefully tuned to give the future they want.

To promote the fear, and tie it to something substantive this time, they faked their statistics to show that there was a rapid increase in temperatures when the industrial age and automobiles came along (the rapid turn-up in temperatures on the graph was called a "man-made 'hockey-stick.'") Well, it did not take long to unmask the subterfuge of falsified data, and to this day, the authors of the "hockey-stick" statistics refuse to release their data for proper peer-review.

Thus, the PC GW-by-man proponents are going to hurt the very people they are trying to help, by misdirecting the way to avoid human catastrophe. The way to avoid catastrophe is to plan on the natural unavoidable gradual earth warming, and how to cope with gradual rising oceans, drought areas, etc. Do not waste time (and ruin our economy) by trying to lower the CO2 level.

C. Norman Winningstad
Newport

IF YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING NICE...

Your uncomplimentary roasting of a fine human being and great meteorologist, George Taylor, was a frightening bit of career assassination. The article gave little credit for George's highly regarded weather and climatology work. Its author appeared far too eager to discredit George's reputation for his nonconformist opinions on "Global Warming" because they were not politically green enough.

I am not a scientist, and I have no idea whether George's opinions about the subject are as far off base as the author's sources conclude. They may well be bad science and/or just wrong. But that does not mean he should be held up to such mean-spirited public ridicule, when he does not hold or express his opinions on the subject in his capacity as state climatologist.

It's sadly ironic that a paper that made itself by expressing unconventional views is now so quick to attack those who do not conform to its worldview. We don't all need to think alike.

Drew Gardner
Northeast 28th Avenue

DON'T FEED THE HATE

A big "Hear, hear," to Chris Lynch [Mailbox, WW, Aug. 31, 2005].

As a new bike commuter in 1994, I too was part of the cadre of unlawful bikers in a rush and full of entitlement. This mentality began to change as I visited two close friends in intensive care. At the time, it wasn't so much that we all had this feeling of being invincible as it was our inattention to our true vulnerability. There is nothing like chest tubes and reconstructive facial surgery to bring safety consciousness to the fore.

With that said, I continued to bike to a different drummer until I racked up experiences that first put me in a haughty defensiveness, then brought me to a new awareness. Fellow bikers began to criticize me for my lawlessness. What a blow to have my own kindred spirits, folks who I thought were in league with me in this constant battle with the car culture, asking me to be accountable to laws designed to ensure that I did not end up in intensive care next. Imagine that-bikers willing to criticize me for the benefit of a biking community that was much bigger than I. Once I set foot on those pedals, I was "representing" regardless of whether I wanted to or not.

Today, I may not bike as defensively as I should, and I may be guilty of the occasional California stop, but as you fellow kindred biking spirits blow through that next red light, don't be surprised to hear the biker behind you quietly and respectfully state, "That's part of why they hate us."

Matt Svymbersky
North Farragut Street

WHAT WHINING?

Some of WW's online readers intimated that Angela Valdez's article "Biker Interrupted" [WW, Aug. 31, 2005] was not worthy of the cover. I disagree.

It seems to make sense that in a town where a large percentage of the population motors around on two rather than four wheels, issues of biker-driver legality and relations would be relevant-perhaps even important.

Furthermore, since when did telling one's story become "self-indulgent" and "whiny"? When we experience trauma, the impact not only leaves its mark in bruises, broken bones or vertebra. The emotional injuries are deeper, take longer to heal and for some, the only way to heal is through telling the story of how they came to be. It is important that personal stories get told. The telling allows us to remember, reenact and process the event. It diffuses the intensity of the emotions of the moment and enables us to see it at a distance.

I can't help but wonder if perhaps she were more famous, an athlete or perhaps even male-would we be more interested? Would she then have the proper credentials to speak about the fear of permanent paralysis, painkiller addiction, chronic pain, or how to pay for her legal and medical costs?

Should she consider herself lucky? Yes. Is she being whiny? No. Angry and frustrated are more like it. Bikers' rights and the relationship that the law has with riders and bikers applies to all of us, and I admire WW for validating its reporter and using her personal story to bring onto the cover a situation that could happen to any of us who ride alongside the curbs of P-town.

Kim Manchester
Southeast Portland