>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Concerning the criminal charges brought against OSP Senior Trooper Larry Purdy, La Grande Patrol Office: my wife, Chris, and I have known Larry for over 10 years. From what my wife and I have directly observed, Larry doesn't waiver in his faith to God, he doesn't waiver in his devotion to his family, and he doesn't waiver in his dedication to his chosen career path. We're talking about duty, honor, and integrity. We cannot imagine, and don't believe, that Larry would have done anything untoward that would have brought these criminal charges against him. Larry has been an active trooper who, undoubtedly, has made some people very unhappy by his enforcement of the law. But that comes with the job. It's no surprise that there are those who would not wish him well. What is surprising in Larry's case is to have charges of felonies and misdemeanors directed towards him. These charges against Larry are beyond our understanding. In our opinion, is it possible that we hear the sound of personal axes grinding against Larry?

Mike and Chris Hovde, La Grande

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Gross, unjustifiable prosecution and backwards justice. It happens too often in Union County. Without public knowledge and involvement, it will not stop.

Our son and his friend were victims of a gross miscarriage of justice perpetrated by the Union County District Attorney's office. Despite compelling evidence supporting the innocence of both of these young men, they were charged with Assault II: a Measure 11 felony punishable by a mandatory six years in prison.

A stressful year follows while awaiting trial. Both families and both young men have considerable illnesses and one parent suffers a heart attack. After four days of testimony, it took the 12-person jury only one hour to find the two men not guilty on all charges.

The cost to our two families was enormous, both in legal fees and emotional distress. We lived for a full year in fear and anguish, contemplating the hideous possibility of our sons facing prison terms for a crime they did not commit.

Yes, there is malicious prosecution and backwards justice right here in La Grande. Nor is this an isolated incident. Local families have shared stories of police indifference and ineptitude and the DA's suspect priorities for years. This could happen to your child.

Our "esteemed" DA, Martin Birnbaum, is, and should be, retiring. We must expect the new DA to exercise the power of his position wisely, not to terrorize the citizens who believe he was elected to protect them.

A citizens' review board or ombudsmen panel is essential.

This is not a story that our community can afford to repeat.

How do you feel about it? We would like to hear from you. Write us at P.O. Box 393, La Grande 97850, or call us at 963-9226.

Marge and Henry Woodford, La Grande

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Have you ever noticed how often the topic of food works its way into a great book? There's "Like Water for Chocolate," " Fried Green Tomatoes" or even "Green Eggs and Ham." There is no doubt that pondering culinary delights provides food for thought.

If eating and reading are some of your life's passions, then mark your calendar for the first annual "Books and Bites" event sponsored by the Friends of Union County Libraries (FOUCL)).

An opportunity to have a cooking lesson from Master Chef Merlyn Baker of Foley Station is being offered on Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. at the Nazarene Church, 18th and Gekeler. This will be a unique chance to learn from a master as well as help support libraries in our county. Seating is limited so you will be able to observe and interact with the teacher.

It has been several years since Chef Baker has offered a cooking class and this is sure to be one of fall's biggest events. Tickets are $30 per person and are available at Foley Station, Sunflower Books or by calling 963-3879.

Funds raised by this event will help FOUCL continue to promote and enhance library services in Union County.

This year the Friends, in cooperation with the La Grande Community Library Foundation, is providing free access to all citizens in Union County to the genealogy web site Heritage Quest through the UCL Info Web page, www.unioncountylibraries.info. Access instructions may be found on bookmarks located in each library in the county. Heritage Quest has census information for the United States plus many other features.

This is the only free access to census information that is available locally. Help with using the web site is available from libraries in the county or from the LDS Family History Center on Fir Street.

"Books and Bites" participants will receive not only recipes and instruction but also lists of food-based books available at Union County Libraries.

The evening will be a smorgasbord of new ideas, recipes, thought provoking reading, and door prizes. Won't you join us? Your table is waiting.

Arlene Young, La Grande

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Are we really this crazy? The US is in serious trouble, not from forces outside, but from our own reliance on violence to solve any and all problems and the refusal of the Cheney/Bush administration to learn from disaster. Zealotry is dangerous. There is a depressing deadness that seems to permeate much of the political, economic, military and media landscape, as if we simply can't help ourselves.

Any 10-year old could tell you that you can be relatively safe if you don't go down the block and blow up your neighbor's house, killing his children and anyone else who happens to be there. If you do things like this, stuffing your pockets in the bargain, you can expect retaliation.

We're presently in a war based on a series of bald-faced lies. The propaganda needed was created by the Office of Special Plans under Douglas Feith. The Sept. 11 Commission didn't bother to talk to them.

Cheney, Bush and Rove can rely on the corporate media to bury every violation of US and international law in the black hole of "balanced news". Two and two is four? Sure thing. Two and two is seventeen? Anything you say! Listening to this, much of the public tunes out. Inconvenient truths are drowned in a sea of lies. We're marching toward a disaster created by the institutions charged with preserving democracy. The worse it gets the more they glorify themselves.

Terrorism is a tactic, and state terrorism is generally more effective than non-state terror, with more resources and the propaganda mechanisms available to persuade their populations to participate. We've trained terrorists in the past to do our dirty work, including many of the people we're demonizing now. A simple fact conveniently forgotten.

The U.S. is committing major war crimes in Iraq. The Israeli/US attack on Lebanon was a blatant act of terrorism. Both wars are crimes of aggression against another state. Benjamin Forencz, chief US prosecutor at the Nuremberg court, said recently that Bush belongs in the docket of the International Criminal Court along with Saddam Hussein. An obvious conclusion shared by most of the world's people.

What have we learned from Sept. 11? That our leaders can mount another propaganda campaign and in a month we'll be ready to attack another country, killing thousands of people? Have we empowered our own extremists and lost respect for the rights of other people? We will never gain the respect we refuse to give.

The U.S. has now attacked four countries in the Middle East, destroying Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving behind major devastation in Lebanon in a joint effort with Israel, supplying weapons and diplomatic cover for Israel's continued attack on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Our basic doctrine is that other people don't have the right to defend themselves. Hezbollah has to disarm while we continue to arm Israel, the 4th largest military power in the world. Hamas has to watch while their homes and orchards are bulldozed by Israel, their children shot down in the street. Our contempt is a palpable reality in the Middle East.

And we don't understand why the rest of the world is looking on in horror? It is not democracy that is hated, but U.S. violence and greed, our use of terrorist tactics against people we want to rob. What has happened in the US that we tolerate leaders who want an empire at any cost, when the cost is always paid by others?

In Lebanon the people of the Middle East have learned that the US and Israel can be stopped. The US will not escape Iraq without further bankrupting our entire culture, both economically and morally. Israel is jeopardizing its own future by linking itself to US efforts to dominate the region. Rice continues to prate about the birth pangs of a new world. The US gift to the Middle East looks more like the death throes of civilized life.

More than 85 percent of Iraqis want the U.S. to leave their country. About the same number continue to admire the US democratic republic, the form of government we espouse but rarely follow. We will not allow it in Iraq because we' ve corporatized their resources and economy for our own benefit.

With incredible arrogance and stupidity, US elites have declared that we can rampage through the world and escape retaliation. The Cheney/Bush war on terror is a swindle. Working class people are expected to give their lives to increase the profit margins of megacorporations. And their coffins cannot be shown because they're bad PR for a criminal war.

The republic can no longer afford the empire. Our critical choices now are to preserve as much as we can of our democratic freedoms as the empire continues its collapse. The many battles to be fought for this depend on US citizens, not government/corporate/media elites. They will only tell you to go back to sleep.

Cheney and Bush have repeatedly made it clear that it has no interest in education, health care, employment, the environment or the law. Twice, prior to Katrina, Bush told US governors that he had no interest in helping with their problems. He had his war and his tax breaks. The public can live on slogans.

I have a Jewish friend whose words illustrate the roots of what worries me. An otherwise sophisticated and cultured man, he simply abandons his decency when referring to the Middle East.

"Palestinians? They don't exist," he told me recently.

We are treating the world like this and border walls will never keep us safe.

The good news from Iraq is that people there are fighting for their freedom. From France, students are fighting to keep corporations from gaining more power over their lives. From Venezuela, the government is fighting to get out from under the thumb of the US and the IMF. From the US, immigrants are fighting to keep themselves from being labeled criminals.

The real fight in the US is to support the basic human rights of all people – health care, education, nutrition, adequate employment, a healthy environment, respect for a world filled with 6.2 billion people who deserve the same rights we claim for ourselves. We need to end our violence and stop manufacturing enemies to justify our crimes.

We have an ugly, ruthless enemy, contemptuous of working class people, the rule of law and all the beautiful diversity of the world. They want money and power. They'll kill for them.

You are needed in the fight to create a democracy worth passing on to our children.

Ron Brand, Elgin.