Corvallis Gazette-Times from Corvallis, Oregon • 11

Tuesday, December 24, 2002, Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, Ore. www.gtconnect.com All PnH'chnr- RronHa tl tl Send tetters to the editor: Pubnsher. BrendaSpeth A By mall to the Corvallis Manning ed.tor: Rob Priewe i I I I I I i i I i I I 600 S.W. Jefferson Corvallis, OR 97333 Telephone: 758-9525 II 11 11 11 LJ Li By fax to 758-9505 fatherW anti-war movement In the 1970s, when Vietnam had become a synonym for quagmire, there was a repeated exchange between the supporters and protesters of the war. The hawks would ask rhetorically, "How can we get out of Vietnam?" The doves would answer directly, "In boats." The response was glib, satisfying and, in the end, right.

We just got out, although the most remembered mode of transportation was a helicopter over Saigon, not a Imat. Fast forward now to the season when peace on Earth seems as temporary as a wreath on a mantelpiece. We're in the run-up to a war on Iraq, a war most of us believe will happen, wanted or not. A new Los Angeles Times poll says that 72 percent of Americans don't think there's enough evidence to justify starting a war. Yet there isn't anything close to a massive protest.

Every day, it seems, someone asks: Why hasn't the anti-war movement caught fire? Why have relatively Letters A child's memories As Christmas approaches, my children ask to go to that beautiful, special house lined with candy canes on the sidewalk, decorated with lights all around, and the warm smell of gin-gerhread every year. She would make gingerbread cookies and hand them out to all the children that knew she made them every year. We would stop by there, my two sons and for just one of those wonderful cookies. She would even give me a gingerbread cookie. few Americans taken to the streets? Of course, the easy answer is circular.

There isn't an anti-war movement of any dimension because there isn't yet a war. It's also true tbat the small, scattered public protests so far have seemed oddly out of time and out of place. titoe is a Baintia lams (This editorial first appeared in The New York Sun more than 100 years ago. It was written by Francis Pharcellus Church, an assistant to the paper's editor.) We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun: Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.

Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun it's so." Please tell the truth, is there a Santa Claus? Virginia llanlon 115 West 95th Street Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little.

In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world around him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life as its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.

We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there.

Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, not even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God he lives, and he lives forever.

A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. As I See It ELLEN GOODMAN Oinnmn someone read this sign, see the names under the Whos, and still be so terrible as to destroy them? I doubt there are any words that may make the vandals feel remorse for their actions, but they should know they have attacked something very special; the memory of a dead relative, and have deeply saddened us. Many thanks to Mario Pastega and Jerry Allen for repairing the decorations. We sincerely appreciate everything you have done to keep my grandfather's memory alive. Your display comforts us each Christmas.

Jessica Strowbridge Corvallis Christmas Wishes The world wants its wars, my friend, and some souls want their hate. The children want their future from the now that we create. With Christmas in the present, I want conflict in the past. I want hope for children future. This is all I ask.

Oh spirit of the season Haunt us with your light! Blanket white our blackened hearts and bring us forth from night! Oh stars! You shine so gloriously! declaring each our worth! There! despite the shrouding gloom Then, one year we went for our gingerbread cookies and there were no more, and then the next year we went again and still there were no more. So as my children and I go to the car I see him help her get up and she was so fragile and delicate, just as her gingerbread cookies were. This is just a small "Thank you" for all your time and our childhood memories. We will always remember you. Angela Marie Olson Sutter Creek, Calif.

Vandalism at light display spoils spirit of holidays My grandfather's Grinch display at the Pepsi plant was recently vandalized. We built the decorations together, and they were a source of great joy to him. When he became too ill to display his work in his yard, he donated it to the Pepsi plant. The letters and cards he received from visitors were both comforting and inspiring during his battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. Since his death, the display has helped link his living family members to his memory.

My grandfather loved Christmas, and the display gives us a meaningful reminder of him at this time of year. I am completely taken aback by the vandalism, and I don't understand how people can be so heartless and cruel. I want the vandals to realize that they have hurt an entire family that was already hurt by the passing of a beloved member. There was a sign at the end of the display discussing my grandfather's death and thanking the public for their kind words. How could Merry Christmas.

Peace on Earth. jody a. harmon Corvallis LETTERS to the editor should be no longer than 250 words. Anonymous letters will not be published. While only the name and the town of the author are published, letters must include a street address and daytime telephone number for verification.

Generally, letters are altered only to correct spelling and some grammatical mistakes or to comply with these guidelines. Not all letters are published and writers are limited to two published letters each month. Letters that are libelous, advertise or condemn a business, promote an event, seek to raise money or recruit volunteers will not be published. AS I SEE IT columns should be 700 words or fewer and otherwise conform to the rules for letters. Although many letters to the editor are published, only some "As I See It" submissions are printed.

A modem-day, politically correct holiday story Earlier this month, when an old activist friend wandered over to one of the rallies pegged to International Human Rights Day, he felt like a reverse Rip Van Winkle. He'd changed, but the scene had stayed the same. Some of the slogans seemed like verbal uniforms taken out of mothballs: "Drop food, not bombs." "Hell no, we won't go. We won't fight for Texaco." In Washington, D.C., that day, some protesters ripped up Selective Service forms. In Rhode Island, a hundred Brown University students and faculty held a "die-in." Web sites offered retrofitted cheers: "1, 2, 3, 4 We don't want another war." One had song sheets for rallies including, can you imagine, "Imagine." None of those uniforms were the right size or shape for many like my friend, who had altered his beliefs for the circumstances of an Iraqi War.

And so he drifted away. Todd Gitlin, historian of the Sixties, has seen this as well. "The silent majority of anti-war sentiment hasn't found its style or form. That's a serious obstacle," he says. "We in the 19(i0s would have looked stupid if we were mouthing the rhetoric of the 1930s.

Why is it smart to sound like 1967?" Of course, if this is not to lie your father's anti-war movement, it's not just a matter of style but of substance. Saddam Hussein is, after all, no Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh. Becoming part of a peace movement that leaves him in charge is not comforting. And while there may lie no link between al-Qaida and Baghdad except in our imagination, we've lieen attacked at home and have no trouble imagining the worst. Indeed, the rallying cries of current protesters may often sound off-key.

too simplistic and too Sixties to attract a crowd. But at the same time, the more complex, thoughtful, layered reservations about war in Iraq don't make much of a rallying cry. Reading the ads and petitions signed by actors and academics 1 try to envision a protest march with posters full of their asterisks and footnotes: "Hell no, we won't go because want the U.N. to have a chance or because pre-emptive war is a dangerous precedent, or because a cornered Saddam is more frightening than a contained Saddam, or because hey, hey, what do you say?" Imagine on the other hand Sean Penn, unfairly and glibly dubbed "Baghdad Sean" as if he'd been a dupe of the dictator during his three-day trip. He sounded more like the muddled middle, saying, "I can read something one day and the next day I read something else and I think, 'Oh God, I didn't even think about and that's We have feelings that do not fit easily on placards and our alternatives to war do not sit smugly, snugly, "in boats." Meanwhile, the president and his inner circle, hankering for war, are all too certain.

How did Bill Clinton, that master of rhetoric, describe the attraction of their pitch? "Strong and wrong." In the past year or more, Americans have lost trust in one thing after anolh-" er: dot-coms and CEOs, cardinals and the occasional senator. Confidence in the commander in chief has remained strong but, I suspect, hollow at the center. And that's where doubt grows easily. Maybe we shouldn't lie asking why protesters haven't taken to the streets. Maybe what's remarkable is that despite the lopsided nature of the debate, a private reluctance has taken root in homes and offices.

A silent majority of Americans don't yet Ix-lieve that war is just ified. Maybe it's not the silence that's a surprise, but the majority. Pen Goodman writes for Tfe Boston Globe. With a height-challenged driver lively and quick I knew in a moment, it must be any of a number of positive winter festival icons, spirits or apparitions. More rapid than the magnificent bird the eagle hisher coursers they came And it whistled, and shouted, and called them respectfully by surnames Now, noble and extraordinary creature and equal in all rights to me number one.

Now, worthy partner number two. Now, numlier three. Now, number four. On, wondrous creature numler five. On, number six.

On, numlier seven and eight. Let us partner in harmony to go to the top of the porch To the top of the wall Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all. As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, So up to the housetop the coursers they flew With a sleigh full of educational gifts, healthful foods and the winter festival icon, too And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The proud and noble prancing of each little hoof. As I drew in my hand, and was turning around Into my completely air-tight, ecologically sound, good-sense house This person came with a bound. Dressed in faux fur, from its head to its foot And its clothes were all tarnished with remnants of the fossil fuels that man has so carelessly and callously burned throughout time.

A bundle of gifls the winter festival icon had flung on its back And die icon looked like a poor homeless person just opening their pack. The icon's eyes how they The icon's dimples how merry! The icon's cheeks ere like any of a numlier of beautiful flowers, say like roses the icon's nose like a cherry. The icon's droll little mouib was drawn up like a bow And the beard on its chin was as white as the snow once was before man so callously polluted the planet that we live on and caused acid rain, and -caused global warming. The stump of a pretend pipe was held tight in the icon's teeth. And it was never lit to ensure the children would never get the idea that it was right or proper to smoke.

The person had a broad face, and was slightly heavy but working on reducing its weight so as to set a g(K)d example for the children and to lower its bad cholesterol levels and blood pressure. And when the apparition laughed its tummy jiggled in a genuine festive way that proved over and over again that this truly was the innocent essence of all winter celebrations. But, even though the icon was slightly over the guidelines for acceptable weight-to-height ratio It knew that it was deservinr; of love and respect and so felt completely at ease with itself and happy to the very core. And, I laughed when I saw the icon, in spite of myself A wink of the eye and twist of the head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. This symlxil of festivals spoke not a word, but went straight to work And filled all of the appropriate winter festival vessels then turned with a jerk.

And laying a finger aside of the Nicorette patch on the nose And, giving a nod somehow out of the house it arose. It sprang to its ecologically safe and non-fossil-burning vehicle And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But, I heard the winter festival apparition say, ere they drove out of sight, "Happy winter festival of your choice based on your own individual, worthy and equally valid belief of hat is appropriate for the season to all and to all a gfxxi nijjlit." Gary Tharp has lived in orvalhs for 12 years. By GARY THARP I have once again been getting a kick out of how everyone in the letters to the editor section mentions how they are offended by Christian, heathen, Jewish (you fill in the traditions). Also, how each of the people who are offended naturally celebrates and promotes diversity.

Anyway, Fve attached an updated poem for your pleasure. Wouldn't want to offend anyone at this festive time of year. Happy holidays. In 1822 Clement Moore wrote the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas." He wrote it for two of his daughters as a joking present.

Yet, if Clement lived today, it is likely that it would sound quite different Twas the night before any of a number of equally festive and worthy winter festivals And all through the house Not a creature was stirring Not even a mouse or any other numlier of potentially endangered species of small rodents. Mouse is just an example. The stockings, or other appropriate winter festival regalia, were placed in the appropriate places with care In hopes that the appropriate icon of the each winter festival Soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds While visions of whole-grain cereals, high-fiber millet and vegetables Danced in their heads. While my significant other, spouse, or domestic partner in evening attire and I in my cap Had just settled down for a long winter's nap When out in the front of our abode There arose such a clatter I sprang to my feet to see what was the mntter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash Opened the energy-efficient window and threw up the sash. The moon on the of new-fallen snow Gave a luster of mid day to objects below. When what to my wondering eyes fcliould appear But a small craft of some tyjK- being pulled hy any of a number of wonderful creatures..