Bulletin ignored march

When a coalition of 21 entities in Bend — including environmental groups, representatives from the faith community, a popular local band and a business owner — comes together to hold an important event that an estimated 200 people, including three city council members, attend on a very cold Sunday during a holiday weekend, it is outrageous that our local newspaper chooses not to cover the event with even so much as a photo. The People’s Climate March Bend on Nov. 29 was a significant statement of hope and expectation for meaningful action at the Paris climate summit by a caring community at a critical time. It is extremely telling, and sad, that The Bulletin ignored this.

Connie Peterson

Bend

Walden’s mistaken policies

I recently discovered that our 2nd District congressman has one special talent: He is a master of double-speak.

I called Congressman Greg Walden’s office to ask an aide if Walden would support legislation to prevent people on the terrorist watch list from buying firearms. After all, I thought, if someone is considered too dangerous to fly, it might not be wise to sell them deadly weapons. But I was quickly fed the National Rifle Association position: No, we can’t do that as there might be people on the list by mistake who would be inconvenienced by such a law.

Pressing on, I asked the aide about the congressman’s “yes” vote to make it almost impossible for Syrian refugees to come to the U.S. I then received the polar-opposite argument. Despite the fact that the refugees are trying to escape ISIS and the bombing, and despite the rigorous vetting process already in place, he thinks it is still possible that a few bad apples might get through. So, in this case, we must “inconvenience” up to 10,000 refugees.

The only conclusion I can draw from my conversation is that Walden is quite concerned about additional terrorists entering the country. But for those who are already here, he is more than willing to let them help themselves to all the guns and ammo they want. Maybe he thinks we should take solace in the knowledge that they might have trouble taking their weapons aboard an airplane.

Craig Knight

Redmond

Avoid huge cost on pond

Regarding the recent letter by the late Dan Wadosky about Mirror Pond, I fully agree. I wrote a similar letter a couple of years ago. It’s a no-brainer! Let Pacific Power pay for the dam removal and river restoration. Then leave it up to the voters. Those voters should include all those in the park and recreation district. If they want a new dam, that could be phase one, and phase two could be a small tax every year for a dredging fund. I love Mirror Pond, but this is a huge cost that needs to be considered by the voters.

Larry Ulrich

Bend

Anti-Muslim frenzy

Mass shootings are generally defined as four people being killed at the same time. We have had a horrible number of these mass shootings in this last year. The majority of them have been done by homegrown crazies, but people only seem to concentrate on the crazies who are Muslims. We all have to stand up to the politicians who want to keep us concentrated on Muslims, instead of recognizing that the majority of mass killings cannot be attributed to them.

It is very scary to think that none of us are safe anywhere, especially since that is not true. Millions of us will never be personally affected by a mass killer. That does not mean we should not rally together to do something, anything about these killings and killers. There are things we can explore to prevent more killings, but we probably will never be able to completely stop them. We just must not get carried away by an anti-Muslim frenzy and thus ignore the many contributing factors to these mass murders. This country was founded on religious freedom. I do not remember that being interpreted as just not Islam. We all need to stand up to this religious bigotry!

Arlene Stiff

Bend