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Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
March 25, 1999     Shelton Mason County Journal
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00ournal of Opinion: Y2Kalm down The Y2K bug is about to make this writer ill. If we didn't kn()w better, we'd think the world was going to end at midnight c>n l)ecember 31, 1999. ()kay, okay, we overstated what the media has told us. All that will happen is unintentional launching of nu- clear missiles, a rolling nationwide electrical blackout, a crash of the stock market and banking system, a total breakdown in the delivery system for food and fuel, and worst of all, no Journal the following Thursday. Kind of makes you want to be a missionary in Central Africa over New Year's instead of being here with your Orange Bowl t)l:cked out. The imagined scenario brings to mind the one af- ter The Bomb has hit - some guy sitting in his barricaded base- ment in a cold nuclear winter amid a stockpile of food and wa- ter with a gun in his lap. This bunker-mentality panic situation is not what we remember about the "Y2K problem" or "millennium bug" being announced several years ago. Back then, it was explained that computer programmers, in an attempt to save memory, used only the last two digits of the year. So there was a chance that as time marched from '9" to "00," computers would think they were back in 1900. Wouldn't it be unfortunate, we were asked, if computers didn't recognize Social Security recipients as born yet and they didn't get their January 2000 checks on time? J no. (. were pretty tame warnings compared to what we've been hearing lately. We think the hype about the disasters that might happen has created unnecessary fear, fear that could cause major problems even if the millennium bug has little ef- fect. The uneasiness and outright fear we sense is happening because no one can guarantee a smooth transition from Decem- ber 3l t,o January 1. The skeptic's disbelief that anything could be this bad is tempered with a responsibility not to throw cau- ti,:)n to tim wind, to be the ant to the fable's grasshopper. We trust that the stock market, with its trillions of dollars involved, is going to spend a few of them to en- sure that it doesn't lose 100 years. If the stock market plunges, it will be irrational fear of the unknown that will make it plummet. If people think their life's savings are at risk, they'll pull out, and as nutty as Wall Street is, it won't take much to start a stampede despite the market's incredible growth in the '90s. Let's hope they remember how 1998's "Asian crisis" devastated them. People put money in banks partially for safety, yet one of the suggestions to those fearful of a banking collapse is to take a few thousand dollars out of their account and stash it in the house. What's safe about that if every criminal in the country knows half the people have thousands of dollars in the freezer? Tim suggestions to squirrel away cash persist despite the fact that banks are required by federal law to solve any Y2K prob- lems. Simpson Community Federal Credit Union has even sent its customers a letter saying it set its computers ahead to 2000 and n!!t!fing happened. Except everything kept working. The doom.and.gloom predictions for January 1 dlsap: point Joel Myer, the city of Shelton's special projects co- ord inator who will be involved in a public Y2K forum at 7 p.m. next Tuesday in the Shelton Middle School Com- mons. lte said reports of local governments becoming paralyzed by the Y2K bug are erroneous. Shelton, he said, plans to provide public safety and water, sewer and garbage service as usual, the way it has before when outages and storms have hit. It has generators. lie believes there's a big difference between a Y2K risk and a hazard tbr city residents. There's a risk there will be some dis- ruptions in ttmir lives, but the situation doesn't come close to hazard status, he said. He thinks people should prepare for January 1 the way they would for a natural disaster such as a storm or earthquake, only in this case they know exactly when son mthing might happen. It frustrates Myer to hear people talk about preparing to hoard food. He's just enough of a cynic to feel it's ludi- crous to think supermarkets won't have food, that peo- ple in business to make money aren't going to be pre- pared. A lot of people are working hard to make sure their businesses continue, and those businesses are con- fident, he said. He encourages people to listen Tuesday to the consultant who did the city's Y2K assessment. PUD 3 officials, too, think the hype has been a little much. The utility's assistant manager, Pat McGary, attributes the scare to "the FLW problem" or freelance writers making moun- tains out of molehills. He said the PUD gets all its power from the Bonneville Power Administration, which is right on sched- ule with all its testing for Y2K compliance. He said a BPA offi- cial will sit with him at the forum on Tuesday, and he expects positive news about BPA's testing scheduled to be finished by this month. BPA says it wants to make Y2K "a non-event." The North American Energy Reliability Council, an organization formed in the '60s to make the electric in- dustry's generation and transmission systems in the U.S. and Canada reliable, has collected Y2K data from 98 per- cent of the 3,200 electric suppliers in the two countries. It concludes that "the transition through critical Year 2000 reliever dates is expected to have minimal impact on electric system operations in North America." ll)eople should realize his industry is adept at restoring pow- er when it is cut off, McGary said. The PUD will treat the night of 1)ecember 31 as if a potential storm looms, and workers will be on call. He doesn't expect anything bad to happen, but if it does, the PUD will be working with the BPA to restore power. The PUD has had a task force working on the millen- nium bug since 1995. The utility started getting all new software for computers in 1997, it plans to replace all personal computers that don't roll over to the 2000 date, its phone system and voice mail are being replaced, and all of its substations are Y2K-compliant. The task force feels the utility will be ready to face January 1. And the list goes on of agencies confident of their prepara- tion. Mason General Hospital reports it's worked on Y2K com- pliance for 13 months, It expects to be ready by October and to Imve a contingency plan by June to handle potential problems. So prepare, but don't act like the world is coming to an end. That'll happen in July 2000 when the Mariners trade Alex Rodriguez. - CG Page 4- Shelton-Mason County Journal- Thursday, March 25, 1999 Pigging out on road hogs By DAVE BARRY If there's one thing this nation needs, it's bigger cars. That's why I'm excited that Ford is coming out with a new mound o' metal that will offer consumers even more total road-squatting mass than the current leader in the hu- mongous-car category, the popu- lar Chevrolet Suburban Subdivi- sion -- the first passenger auto- mobile designed to be, right off the assembly line, visible from the Moon. I don't know what the new Ford will be called. Probably something like the "Ford Un- tamed Wilderness Adventure." In the TV commercials, it will be shown splashing through rivers, charging up rocky mountainsides, swinging on vines, diving off cliffs, racing through the surf and fighting giant sharks hundreds of feet beneath the ocean surface -- all the daredevil things that cars do in Sport Utility Vehicle Com- mercial World, where nobody ever drives on an actual road. In fact, the interstate highways in Sport Utility Vehicle Commercial World, having been abandoned by humans, are teeming with deer, squirrels, birds and other wildlife species that have fled from the forest to avoid being run over by nature-seekers in multi-ton vehi- cles barreling through the under- brush at 50 miles per hour. In the real world, of course, no- body drives Sport Utility Vehicles in the forest, because when you have paid upwards of $40,000 for a transportation investment, the last thing you want is squirrels pooping on it. No, if you want a practical "off-road" vehicle, you get yourself a 1973 American Mo- tors Gremlin, which combines the advantage of not being worth worrying about with the advan- tage of being so ugly that poison- ous snakes flee from it in terror. In the real world, what people mainly do with their Sport Utility Vehicles, as far as I can tell, is try to maneuver them into and out of parking spaces. I base this state- ment on my local supermarket, where many of the upscale pa- trons drive Chevrolet Subdivi- sions. I've noticed that these peo- ple often purchase just a couple of items -- maybe a bottle of diet water and a two-ounce package of low-fat dried carrot shreds -- which they put into the back of their Subdivisions, which have approximately the same cargo ca- pacity, in cubic feet, as Finland. This means there is plenty of room left over back there in case, on the way home, these people de- cide to pick up something else, such as a herd of bison. Then comes the scary part: get- ting the Subdivision out of the parking space. This is a chal- lenge, because the driver appar- ently cannot, while sitting in the driver's seat, see all the way to either end of the vehicle. I drive a compact car, and on a number of occasions I have found myself trapped behind a Subdivision backing directly toward me, its massive metal butt looming high over my head, making me feel like a Tokyo pedestrian looking up at Godzilla. I've tried honking my horn, but the Subdivision drivers can't hear me, because they're always talk- ing on cellular phones the size of Chiclets. ("The Bigger Your Car, The Smaller Your Phone," that is their motto.) I don't know who they're talking to. Maybe they're negotiating with their bison sup- pliers. Or maybe they're trying to contact somebody in the same area code as the rear ends of their cars, so they can find out what's going on back there. All I know is, I'm thinking of carrying marine flares, so I can fire them into the air as a warning to Subdivision drivers that they're about to run me over. Although frankly I'm not sure they'd care if they did. A big reason why they bought a Sport Utility Vehicle is "safety," in the sense of, "you, personally, will be safe, although every now and then you may have to clean the remains of other motorists out of your wheel wells." Anyway, now we have the new Ford, which will be EVEN LARG- ER than the Subdivision, which I imagine means it will have sepa- rate decks for the various classes of passengers, and possibly, way up in front by the hood ornament, Leonardo DiCaprio showing Kate Winslet how to fly. I can't wait until one of these babies wheels into my supermarket parking lot. Other motorists and pedestrians will try to flee in terror but they'll be sucked in by the Ford's power- ful gravitational field and become stuck to its massive sides like so many refrigerator magnet They won't be noticed, however, by the" Ford's driver/Who will be busy whacking at the side of his or her head, trying to dislodge his or her new cell phone, which is the size of a single grain of rice and has fallen deep into his or her ear ca- nal. And it will not stop there. This is America, darn it, and Chevrolet is not about to just sit by and watch Ford walk away with the coveted title of Least Sane Motor Vehicle. No, cars will keep getting bigger: I see a time, not too far from now, when upscale suburba- nites will haul their overdue movies back to the video-rental store in full-size, 18-wheel trac- tor-trailers with names like "The Vagabond." It will be a proud time for all Americans, a time for us to cheer for our country. We should cheer loud, because we'll be hard to hear, inside the wheel wells. Stance on debt immoral Editor, The Jommah In recent months many people from local churches have gone on missions to Central American countries in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. Nicaragua and Honduras were the hardest hit, but many other countries were af- fected as well. We applaud them for their work to alleviate the suf- fering of people who have lost homes, livelihood and even family members and pray that help will continue as long as necessary. Most of us are either unable or unwilling to take such action on behalf of suffering people. We can make a difference, however, if we support Bread for the World's 1999 legislation called the Debt Relief for Poverty Reduction Act. The need for this legislation is great. Throughout the developing world, more than one billion peo- ple are struggling under a burden of unpayable debt. Children are dying from preventable malnutri- tion and disease because their governments are forced to cut funding for health clinics just to pay the interest on the debt. Congress will soon be consider- ing this bill called the Debt Relief for Poverty Reduction Act. This legislation would provide debt re- lief to the world's highly indebted poor countries such as Honduras and Nicaragua. It would cancel most of the debt owed to the U.S. government and reduce the debt owed to the World Bank, Interna- tional Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international organizations. The bill would require debt relief to be targeted to reducing pover- ty. It is immoral and unacceptable to require debt repayment at the cost of human life. Senators Patty Murray and Slade Gorton (202) 224-3121 or Congressman Norm Dicks (202) 225-3121 can make a difference with their vote. Call them and let them know your feelings about this vital issue. The lives of poor people depend upon our action. Sue Johnson Bread for the World member Union Look speaker in the eye Editor, The Journal: March 9 I went before the Ma- son County commissioners as part of a team to defeat an issue on construction of a pier on our beach approximately 61/2 miles out North Shore Road on Hood Canal. On introducing myself I looked for eye contact, but it wasn't there from two out of three. I reviewed 11 letters for the project indicat- ing NONE of them were from the area, two would benefit if the project passed and one letter was from Mary Jo Cady's sister. Throughout I looked for eye con- tact, but it wasn't there from two out of three. My words fell on deaf ears; my words were treated as so much rhetoric. What I felt to be a very important issue against the proj- ect was deflated by the commis- sinners' actions and a complete cold shoulder. North Shore land owners who may read this article better take note, because one pier is going to have the domino affect, and even- tually we'll be living with the South Shore syndrome, pier x pier x pier. Gary Beckwith Belfair i00eaders ' 00]ournal: Un-pear-alleled Editor, The Journal: Thanks for printing such great news on the front page a few weeks ago. The wonderful news I'm referring to is the purchase of David Shelton's pear orchard by the city of Shelton. The city commission has defi- nitely done a favor to the whole area by planning a park with ac- cess to salt water so close to downtown Shelton. There will be now recreation within the city. land Park near Creek now has not only some children's play new kitchen and picni ties. I am very gra administration for foresight to buy this Growth Editor, The Journal: You might think Mason Coun- ty is about due for a double dose of the growth management medi- cine. When you move here from Seattle you find you're paying just as much property tax per val- uation as you did in downtown Seattle. But where in the world does the money go? In Seattle it buys large buildings and streets used by hundreds of thousands of people, but in Mason County it just seems to disappear. It seems that part of the an- swer lies in an earlier generation of anti-environmental tax re- sisters, gyppo loggers, who scalped the land and then left for balmier climes without paying their taxes. Eventually the county deeded the tax-foreclosed land to the state to form the state forests that can provide a sustainable harvest, and do provide money for schools, but do not pay taxes. Another part of the answer may be found in the amount spent on law enforcement, as re- flected in the Journal of Record. In the big city there are a lot more people, and a lot more prob- lems per policeman and when you're knee-deep in alligators you won't be calling the police because kids are shouting while they play basketball or if "a group of bun- nies" is crossing the street. None of this seems to really grease the wheels of commerce. The last two times we drove through Shelton on Highway 3 it took jst as long as it does to drive through downtown Seattle, because of the time spent waiting for the Simpson switching crew. Our last trip produced a scene that seemed to epitomize Mason County. The locomotive had pulled just clear of the crossing and the motorists might have passed freely if the switcher crew had been flagging the crossing in- stead of leaning on the rail of the locomotive and admiring the line of sValled cars. In the line of stalled cars were two patrol cars, with officers who might been directing traffic tirely predictable traffic. weren't. You just had to this was the way things ways been and the way would always be. Another sinkhole for must be the roads. A Seattle must be amazed' Highway 3 from Belfair ton without seeing ant and then learn from that there are plans another highway same forest. Rural Washington have gotten more roads from t than they paid for in tag e long as the roads are public subsidy to privat ers, gridlock will only subdivisions away. Growth mana cates are described as "take" something from landowner, but reverse is true. We buy roads and services the capacity to meet the and five years later we capacity has vanished. it go? Right into the real-estate speculator al development. What not the land, which much the same the improvements we Land beside a road line sells for a lot in the middle of the the difference in the to the developer, nity that built the im Ironically, ment in Mason County by the lack of ment. Mortgage people just don't want when they don't know future costs will be. Seattle, which "ruin-the-env the '60s, is booming. Halt Editor, The Journal: When I hear ads for gun con- trol it makes me wonder if most people even realize what's at stake here. The real power behind organ- ized gun control are the totalitari- an socialists - the same people who want America to become a totally controlled, cashless, gun- less society. They don't care about your kids' safety or gang violence. That's only a ploy for their nar- row-minded self-serving agenda, and that's total elimination of our personal rights and most impor- tantly our guns. People, I think, tend to forget that the whole idea of the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting or sporting. Its pur- pose was to keep the (the law) from sive. It was never civilian, law tary-like or for that better armed than That's what the is for. I know because The next time someone pushing gun member this: The Lenin and Hitler did the people, and look pened. Many people have serve our rights. Let'S those rights. Let's talitarians.  Shelton-fa$on ontg usPs 492-800 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Shelton-Mason County Journal, P.O. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584. Published weekly by Shelton Publishing Inc. at 227 West Cota Street, Mailing address: P.O. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584 Telephone (360) 426-4412 Second-class postage paid at Shelton, Washington Member of Washington Newspaper Publishers' Association SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $25.00 per year in-county addreSS, $35.00 per year in state of Washington Charles Gay, editor and publisher. Neweroom: Carolyn Maddux, Patch, sports editor; Jeff Green, general assignment, city government, society editor, county government; Sean Hanlon, police, courts, Stephen Gay, advertising manager; Janet Daugherty and Dave Pierik Julie Orme, business manager; Vicki Kamin, circulation; Donna Mahony, office assistant. Composln 9 room: Diane Riordan, supervisor; Jan Kallinen, paste-up; Koleen Wood, typesetter and computer system computer ad layout and computer system manager; Cynthia Moyer, i Robert Rodriguez, production foreman; Roger Lawson, darkroom; Kelly llll; 00ournal of Opinion: Y2Kalm down The Y2K bug is about to make this writer ill. If we didn't kn()w better, we'd think the world was going to end at midnight c>n l)ecember 31, 1999. ()kay, okay, we overstated what the media has told us. All that will happen is unintentional launching of nu- clear missiles, a rolling nationwide electrical blackout, a crash of the stock market and banking system, a total breakdown in the delivery system for food and fuel, and worst of all, no Journal the following Thursday. Kind of makes you want to be a missionary in Central Africa over New Year's instead of being here with your Orange Bowl t)l:cked out. The imagined scenario brings to mind the one af- ter The Bomb has hit - some guy sitting in his barricaded base- ment in a cold nuclear winter amid a stockpile of food and wa- ter with a gun in his lap. This bunker-mentality panic situation is not what we remember about the "Y2K problem" or "millennium bug" being announced several years ago. Back then, it was explained that computer programmers, in an attempt to save memory, used only the last two digits of the year. So there was a chance that as time marched from '9" to "00," computers would think they were back in 1900. Wouldn't it be unfortunate, we were asked, if computers didn't recognize Social Security recipients as born yet and they didn't get their January 2000 checks on time? J no. (. were pretty tame warnings compared to what we've been hearing lately. We think the hype about the disasters that might happen has created unnecessary fear, fear that could cause major problems even if the millennium bug has little ef- fect. The uneasiness and outright fear we sense is happening because no one can guarantee a smooth transition from Decem- ber 3l t,o January 1. The skeptic's disbelief that anything could be this bad is tempered with a responsibility not to throw cau- ti,:)n to tim wind, to be the ant to the fable's grasshopper. We trust that the stock market, with its trillions of dollars involved, is going to spend a few of them to en- sure that it doesn't lose 100 years. If the stock market plunges, it will be irrational fear of the unknown that will make it plummet. If people think their life's savings are at risk, they'll pull out, and as nutty as Wall Street is, it won't take much to start a stampede despite the market's incredible growth in the '90s. Let's hope they remember how 1998's "Asian crisis" devastated them. People put money in banks partially for safety, yet one of the suggestions to those fearful of a banking collapse is to take a few thousand dollars out of their account and stash it in the house. What's safe about that if every criminal in the country knows half the people have thousands of dollars in the freezer? Tim suggestions to squirrel away cash persist despite the fact that banks are required by federal law to solve any Y2K prob- lems. Simpson Community Federal Credit Union has even sent its customers a letter saying it set its computers ahead to 2000 and n!!t!fing happened. Except everything kept working. The doom.and.gloom predictions for January 1 dlsap: point Joel Myer, the city of Shelton's special projects co- ord inator who will be involved in a public Y2K forum at 7 p.m. next Tuesday in the Shelton Middle School Com- mons. lte said reports of local governments becoming paralyzed by the Y2K bug are erroneous. Shelton, he said, plans to provide public safety and water, sewer and garbage service as usual, the way it has before when outages and storms have hit. It has generators. lie believes there's a big difference between a Y2K risk and a hazard tbr city residents. There's a risk there will be some dis- ruptions in ttmir lives, but the situation doesn't come close to hazard status, he said. He thinks people should prepare for January 1 the way they would for a natural disaster such as a storm or earthquake, only in this case they know exactly when son mthing might happen. It frustrates Myer to hear people talk about preparing to hoard food. He's just enough of a cynic to feel it's ludi- crous to think supermarkets won't have food, that peo- ple in business to make money aren't going to be pre- pared. A lot of people are working hard to make sure their businesses continue, and those businesses are con- fident, he said. He encourages people to listen Tuesday to the consultant who did the city's Y2K assessment. PUD 3 officials, too, think the hype has been a little much. The utility's assistant manager, Pat McGary, attributes the scare to "the FLW problem" or freelance writers making moun- tains out of molehills. He said the PUD gets all its power from the Bonneville Power Administration, which is right on sched- ule with all its testing for Y2K compliance. He said a BPA offi- cial will sit with him at the forum on Tuesday, and he expects positive news about BPA's testing scheduled to be finished by this month. BPA says it wants to make Y2K "a non-event." The North American Energy Reliability Council, an organization formed in the '60s to make the electric in- dustry's generation and transmission systems in the U.S. and Canada reliable, has collected Y2K data from 98 per- cent of the 3,200 electric suppliers in the two countries. It concludes that "the transition through critical Year 2000 reliever dates is expected to have minimal impact on electric system operations in North America." ll)eople should realize his industry is adept at restoring pow- er when it is cut off, McGary said. The PUD will treat the night of 1)ecember 31 as if a potential storm looms, and workers will be on call. He doesn't expect anything bad to happen, but if it does, the PUD will be working with the BPA to restore power. The PUD has had a task force working on the millen- nium bug since 1995. The utility started getting all new software for computers in 1997, it plans to replace all personal computers that don't roll over to the 2000 date, its phone system and voice mail are being replaced, and all of its substations are Y2K-compliant. The task force feels the utility will be ready to face January 1. And the list goes on of agencies confident of their prepara- tion. Mason General Hospital reports it's worked on Y2K com- pliance for 13 months, It expects to be ready by October and to Imve a contingency plan by June to handle potential problems. So prepare, but don't act like the world is coming to an end. That'll happen in July 2000 when the Mariners trade Alex Rodriguez. - CG Page 4- Shelton-Mason County Journal- Thursday, March 25, 1999 Pigging out on road hogs By DAVE BARRY If there's one thing this nation needs, it's bigger cars. That's why I'm excited that Ford is coming out with a new mound o' metal that will offer consumers even more total road-squatting mass than the current leader in the hu- mongous-car category, the popu- lar Chevrolet Suburban Subdivi- sion -- the first passenger auto- mobile designed to be, right off the assembly line, visible from the Moon. I don't know what the new Ford will be called. Probably something like the "Ford Un- tamed Wilderness Adventure." In the TV commercials, it will be shown splashing through rivers, charging up rocky mountainsides, swinging on vines, diving off cliffs, racing through the surf and fighting giant sharks hundreds of feet beneath the ocean surface -- all the daredevil things that cars do in Sport Utility Vehicle Com- mercial World, where nobody ever drives on an actual road. In fact, the interstate highways in Sport Utility Vehicle Commercial World, having been abandoned by humans, are teeming with deer, squirrels, birds and other wildlife species that have fled from the forest to avoid being run over by nature-seekers in multi-ton vehi- cles barreling through the under- brush at 50 miles per hour. In the real world, of course, no- body drives Sport Utility Vehicles in the forest, because when you have paid upwards of $40,000 for a transportation investment, the last thing you want is squirrels pooping on it. No, if you want a practical "off-road" vehicle, you get yourself a 1973 American Mo- tors Gremlin, which combines the advantage of not being worth worrying about with the advan- tage of being so ugly that poison- ous snakes flee from it in terror. In the real world, what people mainly do with their Sport Utility Vehicles, as far as I can tell, is try to maneuver them into and out of parking spaces. I base this state- ment on my local supermarket, where many of the upscale pa- trons drive Chevrolet Subdivi- sions. I've noticed that these peo- ple often purchase just a couple of items -- maybe a bottle of diet water and a two-ounce package of low-fat dried carrot shreds -- which they put into the back of their Subdivisions, which have approximately the same cargo ca- pacity, in cubic feet, as Finland. This means there is plenty of room left over back there in case, on the way home, these people de- cide to pick up something else, such as a herd of bison. Then comes the scary part: get- ting the Subdivision out of the parking space. This is a chal- lenge, because the driver appar- ently cannot, while sitting in the driver's seat, see all the way to either end of the vehicle. I drive a compact car, and on a number of occasions I have found myself trapped behind a Subdivision backing directly toward me, its massive metal butt looming high over my head, making me feel like a Tokyo pedestrian looking up at Godzilla. I've tried honking my horn, but the Subdivision drivers can't hear me, because they're always talk- ing on cellular phones the size of Chiclets. ("The Bigger Your Car, The Smaller Your Phone," that is their motto.) I don't know who they're talking to. Maybe they're negotiating with their bison sup- pliers. Or maybe they're trying to contact somebody in the same area code as the rear ends of their cars, so they can find out what's going on back there. All I know is, I'm thinking of carrying marine flares, so I can fire them into the air as a warning to Subdivision drivers that they're about to run me over. Although frankly I'm not sure they'd care if they did. A big reason why they bought a Sport Utility Vehicle is "safety," in the sense of, "you, personally, will be safe, although every now and then you may have to clean the remains of other motorists out of your wheel wells." Anyway, now we have the new Ford, which will be EVEN LARG- ER than the Subdivision, which I imagine means it will have sepa- rate decks for the various classes of passengers, and possibly, way up in front by the hood ornament, Leonardo DiCaprio showing Kate Winslet how to fly. I can't wait until one of these babies wheels into my supermarket parking lot. Other motorists and pedestrians will try to flee in terror but they'll be sucked in by the Ford's power- ful gravitational field and become stuck to its massive sides like so many refrigerator magnet They won't be noticed, however, by the" Ford's driver/Who will be busy whacking at the side of his or her head, trying to dislodge his or her new cell phone, which is the size of a single grain of rice and has fallen deep into his or her ear ca- nal. And it will not stop there. This is America, darn it, and Chevrolet is not about to just sit by and watch Ford walk away with the coveted title of Least Sane Motor Vehicle. No, cars will keep getting bigger: I see a time, not too far from now, when upscale suburba- nites will haul their overdue movies back to the video-rental store in full-size, 18-wheel trac- tor-trailers with names like "The Vagabond." It will be a proud time for all Americans, a time for us to cheer for our country. We should cheer loud, because we'll be hard to hear, inside the wheel wells. Stance on debt immoral Editor, The Jommah In recent months many people from local churches have gone on missions to Central American countries in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch. Nicaragua and Honduras were the hardest hit, but many other countries were af- fected as well. We applaud them for their work to alleviate the suf- fering of people who have lost homes, livelihood and even family members and pray that help will continue as long as necessary. Most of us are either unable or unwilling to take such action on behalf of suffering people. We can make a difference, however, if we support Bread for the World's 1999 legislation called the Debt Relief for Poverty Reduction Act. The need for this legislation is great. Throughout the developing world, more than one billion peo- ple are struggling under a burden of unpayable debt. Children are dying from preventable malnutri- tion and disease because their governments are forced to cut funding for health clinics just to pay the interest on the debt. Congress will soon be consider- ing this bill called the Debt Relief for Poverty Reduction Act. This legislation would provide debt re- lief to the world's highly indebted poor countries such as Honduras and Nicaragua. It would cancel most of the debt owed to the U.S. government and reduce the debt owed to the World Bank, Interna- tional Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international organizations. The bill would require debt relief to be targeted to reducing pover- ty. It is immoral and unacceptable to require debt repayment at the cost of human life. Senators Patty Murray and Slade Gorton (202) 224-3121 or Congressman Norm Dicks (202) 225-3121 can make a difference with their vote. Call them and let them know your feelings about this vital issue. The lives of poor people depend upon our action. Sue Johnson Bread for the World member Union Look speaker in the eye Editor, The Journal: March 9 I went before the Ma- son County commissioners as part of a team to defeat an issue on construction of a pier on our beach approximately 61/2 miles out North Shore Road on Hood Canal. On introducing myself I looked for eye contact, but it wasn't there from two out of three. I reviewed 11 letters for the project indicat- ing NONE of them were from the area, two would benefit if the project passed and one letter was from Mary Jo Cady's sister. Throughout I looked for eye con- tact, but it wasn't there from two out of three. My words fell on deaf ears; my words were treated as so much rhetoric. What I felt to be a very important issue against the proj- ect was deflated by the commis- sinners' actions and a complete cold shoulder. North Shore land owners who may read this article better take note, because one pier is going to have the domino affect, and even- tually we'll be living with the South Shore syndrome, pier x pier x pier. Gary Beckwith Belfair i00eaders ' 00]ournal: Un-pear-alleled Editor, The Journal: Thanks for printing such great news on the front page a few weeks ago. The wonderful news I'm referring to is the purchase of David Shelton's pear orchard by the city of Shelton. The city commission has defi- nitely done a favor to the whole area by planning a park with ac- cess to salt water so close to downtown Shelton. There will be now recreation within the city. land Park near Creek now has not only some children's play new kitchen and picni ties. I am very gra administration for foresight to buy this Growth Editor, The Journal: You might think Mason Coun- ty is about due for a double dose of the growth management medi- cine. When you move here from Seattle you find you're paying just as much property tax per val- uation as you did in downtown Seattle. But where in the world does the money go? In Seattle it buys large buildings and streets used by hundreds of thousands of people, but in Mason County it just seems to disappear. It seems that part of the an- swer lies in an earlier generation of anti-environmental tax re- sisters, gyppo loggers, who scalped the land and then left for balmier climes without paying their taxes. Eventually the county deeded the tax-foreclosed land to the state to form the state forests that can provide a sustainable harvest, and do provide money for schools, but do not pay taxes. Another part of the answer may be found in the amount spent on law enforcement, as re- flected in the Journal of Record. In the big city there are a lot more people, and a lot more prob- lems per policeman and when you're knee-deep in alligators you won't be calling the police because kids are shouting while they play basketball or if "a group of bun- nies" is crossing the street. None of this seems to really grease the wheels of commerce. The last two times we drove through Shelton on Highway 3 it took jst as long as it does to drive through downtown Seattle, because of the time spent waiting for the Simpson switching crew. Our last trip produced a scene that seemed to epitomize Mason County. The locomotive had pulled just clear of the crossing and the motorists might have passed freely if the switcher crew had been flagging the crossing in- stead of leaning on the rail of the locomotive and admiring the line of sValled cars. In the line of stalled cars were two patrol cars, with officers who might been directing traffic tirely predictable traffic. weren't. You just had to this was the way things ways been and the way would always be. Another sinkhole for must be the roads. A Seattle must be amazed' Highway 3 from Belfair ton without seeing ant and then learn from that there are plans another highway same forest. Rural Washington have gotten more roads from t than they paid for in tag e long as the roads are public subsidy to privat ers, gridlock will only subdivisions away. Growth mana cates are described as "take" something from landowner, but reverse is true. We buy roads and services the capacity to meet the and five years later we capacity has vanished. it go? Right into the real-estate speculator al development. What not the land, which much the same the improvements we Land beside a road line sells for a lot in the middle of the the difference in the to the developer, nity that built the im Ironically, ment in Mason County by the lack of ment. Mortgage people just don't want when they don't know future costs will be. Seattle, which "ruin-the-env the '60s, is booming. Halt Editor, The Journal: When I hear ads for gun con- trol it makes me wonder if most people even realize what's at stake here. The real power behind organ- ized gun control are the totalitari- an socialists - the same people who want America to become a totally controlled, cashless, gun- less society. They don't care about your kids' safety or gang violence. That's only a ploy for their nar- row-minded self-serving agenda, and that's total elimination of our personal rights and most impor- tantly our guns. People, I think, tend to forget that the whole idea of the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting or sporting. Its pur- pose was to keep the (the law) from sive. It was never civilian, law tary-like or for that better armed than That's what the is for. I know because The next time someone pushing gun member this: The Lenin and Hitler did the people, and look pened. Many people have serve our rights. Let'S those rights. Let's talitarians.  Shelton-fa$on ontg usPs 492-800 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Shelton-Mason County Journal, P.O. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584. Published weekly by Shelton Publishing Inc. at 227 West Cota Street, Mailing address: P.O. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584 Telephone (360) 426-4412 Second-class postage paid at Shelton, Washington Member of Washington Newspaper Publishers' Association SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $25.00 per year in-county addreSS, $35.00 per year in state of Washington Charles Gay, editor and publisher. Neweroom: Carolyn Maddux, Patch, sports editor; Jeff Green, general assignment, city government, society editor, county government; Sean Hanlon, police, courts, Stephen Gay, advertising manager; Janet Daugherty and Dave Pierik Julie Orme, business manager; Vicki Kamin, circulation; Donna Mahony, office assistant. Composln 9 room: Diane Riordan, supervisor; Jan Kallinen, paste-up; Koleen Wood, typesetter and computer system computer ad layout and computer system manager; Cynthia Moyer, i Robert Rodriguez, production foreman; Roger Lawson, darkroom; Kelly llll;