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Show A8 Wednesday, May 9, 2007 Vernal Express ; 1 ' Public Forum - Letters to What is your opinon? The Vernal Express welcomes letters from its readers read-ers concerning any subject pertinent to the Uintah Basin. There are no restrictions on contents, if not libelous, vindictive and is in good taste. The letters may be edited for length. Letters must be submitted exclusively to the Vernal Express and bear the writer's full name, signature, phone number and address. Letters for the sole purpose of expressing thanks to individuals or groups will not be printed in this forum. Letters may be mailed to 54 North Vernal Avenue, Vernal, Utah 84078. faxed at 435-789-8690 or emailed to editorvernal.com The name or names of the persons submitting letters must appear on all published letters. Letters express the opinion of the writer and are not necessarily the opinion of the Vernal Express. Trails opposition Dear Editor, What's wrong with this picture? pic-ture? In May 2's Vernal Express I read an article titles "Trails coalition makes proposals to forest service" that was directed toward regulating our use of our forest land. . Disgusted, ' I thought it was only appropriate to fight back. First some dictionary explanations explana-tions of the word they used in the article to explain what they are planning to do: regulate - a rule or law designed to control or govern conduct. A synonym to regulate is control - to exercise restraint or direction. Other synonyms syn-onyms to regulate are dominate and command. Now one more word I'm sure you are all familiar with what it means, but maybe not how they are trying to take some of it away: freedom - exemption from external control, interferences interfer-ences or regulation, or the right to frequent enjoyment or use at will. What should you be worried about? The coalition's attack on your freedom to come and go where you want while you are using or enjoying at will your forest lands. This is open for public comment during the Animal shelter concerns Dear Editor: For the past six or seven years, rescuers have transported homeless Uintah County dogs into Colorado for adoption into "forever" homes or placement in a limited-kill shelter. Those transports have resulted in more than half of Uintah County's homeless dogs finding "forever homes," the rest having been reclaimed re-claimed by their owners, adopted locally or euthanized. The dogs who have been placed directly for adoption in Colorado have had a rabies vaccination; those who have been transported to a hmited-kill shelter have been vaccinated immediately upon passing the shelter's temperament tempera-ment assessment. A new policy, pushed through by Uintah Animal Services Special Spe-cial Service District Director Christina Baley under the guise of the SSD Board "acknowledging" "acknowledg-ing" a Colorado regulation that requires all dogs three months of age or older coming into the state to have been vaccinated against rabies, threatens the transport program. If the transport program pro-gram is curtailed by Baley's compliance with a Colorado regulation that Colorado has not enforced for at least the past 24 Jay Leno "Hits the nail on the head" The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right? The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the president. In essence 23s of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, "What we are so unhappy about?" Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Is our un-happiness un-happiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter? Coulditbethat95.4percentof these unhappy folks have a job? Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year? Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state? Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter? I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers showup and months of May and June. You are the public and your freedom to enjoy your forest lands are at stake. You should comment that you want all and every trail - designated or not - unregulated for your right of frequent enjoyment or use at will. , Do not let them terrorize you on your own free forest land in America. Fight for your right . to be free. They will continue to chip away at your freedom if you don't. Once it is gone, it does not return easily. Right now much of the areas north of Vernal are currently open to motorized vehicles on already designated routes and undesignated routes as long as resource damage is not occurring. occur-ring. Forest officials that this kind of open travel opportunity (freedom) would be changed to a regulated route program. For this reason they want us to map out existing trails we like to use and enjoy our freedom on so they can review them before being eliminated or placed on the new regulated travel plan. Our input ends toward the end of July. They will compile our requested trails and see which they can respond to or eliminate. years, as many as 500 more dogs entering our shelter will die this year. Adopting policies that result in the unnecessary death of homeless animals doesn't seem . to trouble Baley. She, arguably unnecessarily, killed 19 shelter puppies and dogs when there was an "outbreak," i.e., one diagnosed case, of parvo at the shelter last January. At a public meeting, Animal Control Officer Of-ficer Brett Sabey contradicted Baley's characterization of one puppy's confirmed diagnosis as an "outbreak" that warranted her euthanizing 19 asymptomatic asymptom-atic dogs. Officer Sabey is no longer employed as an animal control officer. When Baley institutes new policies for the SSD, especially policies that may result in hundreds hun-dreds of homeless, but adopt-able, adopt-able, dogs being killed, I think adoption of that policy deserves more from the SSD board than an "acknowledgment" of a Colorado Colo-rado administrative regulation governing dogs' vaccinations that Colorado has not enforced for decades. Too many pet owners in Uintah County do not vaccinate their dogs, cats, puppies or kit provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments mo-ments and use top notch equipment equip-ment to extinguish the flames thus savingyou, your family and your belongings. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs,, a burglar or prowler intrudes , an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping rap-ing and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world? Maybe that is what has 67 percent per-cent of you folks unhappy. Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here. I know, I know. What about the Editor In the end, they will have a new regulated motorized travel map showing their regulated routes, listing what kind of vehicles, ve-hicles, any seasonal closures andor special uses they wish to implement. They think with their effort for our input on how much freedom free-dom we want to give up, that we will be more compliant and self-regulating. self-regulating. Then they threaten that if they can't regulate, then more and more areas will be shut down. They say they want to be accommodating of our interests, inter-ests, but regulating is their key word. Can they do this? Yes, but only if we are compliant and will regulate ourselves to their rules. This idea right now is only suggested and cannot be put into effect unless we allow it. We can stop this attack on our freedom. Start now. Call Darlene Burns, commissioner over the trails coalition at 781-5383. Tell her we won't stand for regulated regu-lated freedom. Or email her at dburnsco.uintah.ut.us. Let's not give up our freedom to frequently enjoy and use at will our forest lands. Chelsie Young tens. If Baley is as concerned about the spread of rabies, parvo, distemper, etc., as she claims to be, shouldn'tshebefocusingher limited time on increasing the .rate of vaccinations in Uintah County, rather than worrying about whether dogs who are being transported 300 miles to Colorado's Front Range are vaccinated? vac-cinated? At the same time that Baley interrupted in-terrupted transports of healthy, adoptable animals to Colorado, she reduced the hours that the shelter is open for local residents to reclaim lost or adopt homeless animals citing as a reason "staff shortages". If Baley's interest is in saving, rather than destroying, animals' lives (and people's hearts), why can't the shelter be open from 2 to 6 p.m., instead of noon to 4 p.m. to facilitate owners, parents and children being reunited with lost or adopting new pets? The staff would work the same, just different hours: hours that ' accommodate rescuing, rather than killing, homeless animals. Sandy Hansen Vernal the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? rat-ing? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 911? The president presi-dent that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander-in-chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me? Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about it ... are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain or is it because the "Media" told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day. Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a "general" discharge, an "other than honorable" discbarge dis-cbarge or, worst case scenario, a "dishonorable" discharge after a few days in the brig. By Jay Leno IN 2002 A-COUPLE WED (IN LOGAN UTAHmS WERE RECOGNIZED At THE OLYMPIC WINTER. GAMES 5LC. A5T LONGEST WED COUPLE I IM THE UNITED STATES AT 78 YEARS. A Piece of By Delmer Hyde Guest Writer Do you remember when Christmas was so much fun that you couldn't go to sleep on Christmas Eve because of the excitement? For days and even weeks before it was the thing most on your mind. Even when you weren't daydreaming and planningyou still felt the excitement. excite-ment. When I was still small enough to do it, I would climb way back under the Christmas tree and try to bury myself in the presents. On Christmas Eve I would sneak behind the tree with the hope of falling asleep and waking up just in time to catch Santa. The excitement was too much to let me sleep and Mother always called me out and sent me to my bed. My family had a little cloth Christmas tree calendar. Each day we could put another tiny ornament on the tree until finally by the 25th it was decorated and Christmas day arrived. In the early morning we would wake up. Sometimes we didn't wait until morning. My dad always made us wait to go to the tree though and he seemed to just relish rel-ish in our bouncy nervousness. We would plead with him to let us go. He would smile and say it was still too early. He would threaten to send us all back to bed. Dad always stretched it out as long as he could. I thought it was cruel. Now I realize why he did it. Now I understand what my Dad understood and used to create these great memories. Have you ever wanted to buy something so badly that you just ached and couldn't think of anything else? Maybe it was a pair of roller skates or a pellet gun or a pocket knife. Maybe it was bicycle or a motorcycle or a new car. It could have been a new doll or a makeup kit or a new dress. For you it might have been a puppy or a kitten or a bunny rabbit. For me it was a fly rod when I was a teenager. We didn't HAVEWfkmCEPHOto) THE EMS'JOM WW issooesEssepoirm HIS HAIRSTYLE? rn'tom 111 H U II 11 &fvmr7r'-&m i My Mind have much money and to spend what we had on a fly rod was too frivolous. My job was helping on the family sawmill and in terms of money it didn't pay very well. We always knew that someday we would get ahead, but someday was pretty slow in coming from my teenage perspective. Our home was in a small town. With the exception of the post office where the postmaster sold some candy, the closest store was 20 miles away. There was a baseball field and a playground at the church, but otherwise our recreation was of our own invention. inven-tion. My recreation very often revolved around Stump Creek. It wound for miles through the pastures and hayfields. It was full of tadpoles and minnows and swimming holes and of course it contained several varieties of trout. The fly rod was a white Shakespeare with red and black thread binding the eyelets to the rod. I don't remember its price, but I certainly remember wanting it. I could imagine how one of those Stump Creek trout would feel hooked on my line. So I worked and worked and saved my money. I hauled hay for the neighbors and milked cows and finally I had enough and I got my fly rod. I don't know what eventually eventu-ally happened to it. I graduated from high school and went on a mission and I think my brothers cast lots for all my stuff. My dad used to take us elk hunting. We would always leave the house early in the morning so we could be on the mountain when the sun came up. I could hardly wait for opening day and for Dad to shake me awake on that early morning. Whenever Dad planned a camping trip or a fishing trip the anticipation was almost unbearable. When I was eleven or twelve we took a family vacation to Disneyland. It was so difficult to waitfortheschoolbell ' to ring on that last day before we started our trip to California. I T.G. SCARECROW was very curious and anxious to see a palm tree. Do you remember remem-ber turning 16 and qualifying to get your driver's license? Did the butterflies flutter by as you waited for your first date or the beginning of a new adventure? Did time drag slowly as you-waited you-waited for the return of a loved one? Did the last week before the birth of your first child last forever? Antoine de Saint Exupery is the author of The Little Prince and he illustrated this concept of anticipation when he told the story of the relationship of the Little Prince to the fox. The Little Prince wanted to play with the fox but, explained the fox, "We can't be friends until you've tamed me." "What does that mean," the Little Prince wanted to know. "It means to create bonds." "How do I do that?" he asked the fox. "You have to come see me in the meadow at three o'clock every day and I'll let you get closer and closer until one day I'll let you pet my fur. Then we'll be friends." When The Little Prince came to the meadow early he was chastised by The Fox. "You can't come early." The Fox was very adamant. "You must arrive just on time. At one o'clock I'll begin to get nervous. At two o'clock I'll be anxious for you to get here and by three o'clock I will be excited and ready to play. I must have time to dress up my heart!" There are many joyful and wonderful things in life. Anticipation An-ticipation of a happy event is amongthe sweetest. Our fondest memories are sweetened by the lingering remembrance of wait-ingforthe wait-ingforthe time to finally come. It may be true in making candy that a watched pot seems never to boil, but waiting and watching watch-ing for those first few bubbles to appear and the first wisp of steam to rise is most of the fun and I'm quite sure that it makes the candy taste better. |