Charges are minor

Regardless of his position in the community, the charges recently laid against the local probation official are relatively minor, no different than what makes up the bulk of your crime section on a daily basis.

Your reporting sheds no light as to why the police felt entitled to ransack his home and confiscate his belongings, nor does it identify the judge who told them it was OK to do so. The police response has been heavy-handed so far; I very much doubt they will be able to justify it in the future, and I would like to know who that judge is so I can avoid voting for him or her in the next election.

George Nataly

Medford

Cartoon was racist

Just read the Jan. 9 opinion section, in which a "cartoon" by Robert Ariail characterizes the protesters in Burns as "ivory-skinned peckerwoods." This is a blatantly racist epithet insulting white people. The MT should exercise better judgment unless, of course, they're OK with that.

Kevin Keating

Medford

What's the worst?

Climate change deniers would have us keep burning fossil fuel for most of our energy needs. If we follow the deniers and make no changes, the worst that could happen is:

• Devastating floods, drowning tens of thousands and displacing millions of people.

• Droughts will become more severe, creating massive famines.

• Sea level will flood coastal areas, driving hundreds of millions from their homes.

• The world economy will be in shambles, wars will break out over diminishing food and water supplies, diseases will run rampant and up to 90 percent of all plant and animal species could disappear.

Climate change realists would have us make rapid changes to how we create and use energy. If we follow the realists, the worst that could happen is:

• Climate changes will eventually return to a more normal and predictable pattern.

• Many jobs in the fossil fuel industries will be lost, but even more clean energy jobs will be created.

• Energy costs will decrease.

• We will have cleaner air and water with resultant better health.

We cannot afford to make the wrong decision — the future of the planet is at stake! Locally, support Oregon's Healthy Climate Bill.

David Lane

Ashland

Maybe I missed it

Maybe I missed it but you would think a search for "THC Fair" or "Fairgrounds" or "Hemp and Cannabis Fair" plus the date would have brought something up that MT had reported about the Hemp and Cannabis Fair going on at the fairgrounds last weekend.

What was the problem, Mail Tribune? If this were about wine, there would be full-page ads and stories all about it in print and on air. But marijuana? It's legal, folks. Marijuana will be bigger than wine here. How will you report it then?

The Pear Blossom Festival may as well be called the booze-fueled party weekend anymore 'cause that's all it is now — happily promoted by the MT — and that's just fine with you. But marijuana? Once some of the valley's wine investors switch to marijuana that will all change.

By the way, how much of the wine crop here is subsidized, pays reduced taxes, all that fun stuff the already wealthy and (local? or out-of-state?) growers suck out of the community? Just asking. Pot growers are doing it all on their own.

Sandra Martineau

Talent