A creamy plot to stuff our middles

6/6/2003

The guys and I were sitting around eating a deep-dish Chicago-style pizza and talking about the recent lawsuit alleging that Oreo cookies make you fat. We took a vote and we agreed that those Nabisco people are responsible for the extra 25 pounds that each of us is carrying around our double-stuffed middle.

We discussed how on television they break apart those delicious cookies and then the innocent-looking kid eats the middle. Little did we know that they were revealing their secret to fattening us up and getting us addicted.

I knew that I was not to blame because I could not stop eating them after just having one. Those cookies come in a package of 50. That alone should have tipped us off that they were setting us up to fail. We are all victims once again of corporate greed taking advantage of our American weakness for good-tasting cookies.

My 5-year-old loves these cookies. But I have suffered enough for the both of us, so it is my duty as a parent to save him from this addiction.

I hope that my insurance will cover the cost of Oreo therapy so I can get myself rehabilitated and away from this crunchy addiction. The guys and I became so upset over this Oreo lawsuit that we delayed our exercise program indefinitely.

And we have put down the cookies and have turned to a healthier sweet satisfier: rocky road ice cream topped with Snicker's bars. Too bad the Nabisco lawsuit was withdrawn - my dryer keeps shrinking my jeans and I need bigger Levi's.

Remember when black and white issues involved people, not cookies?

DAVID SALTZMAN

Alvada, Ohio

The disingenuous response of the Mt. Olive Pickle Co. to the March 26 rally by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee is a good example of how a cheap, exploitable work force is maintained.

Mt. Olive claims that it was not responsible for Raymundo Hernandez (whose widow led the demonstration) because he died in a tobacco field. However, the recruiter and employer of Raymundo was the North Carolina Growers Association, of which the Mt. Olive Pickle Co. was a prominent dues-paying member. The Mt. Olive growers that don't use this association's workers readily use undocumented workers brought in in similar fashion as those who recently perished in Victoria, Texas.

Raymundo died in a tobacco field but it could just as easily have been an association cucumber field. Urbano Ramirez died of heat stroke two summers ago harvesting pickles for a Mt. Olive supplier. Mamerto Chail, who would have died of appendicitis had not his co-workers paid a cab driver $70 to get him to the nearest hospital, worked for a Mt. Olive grower.

Raymundo's remains lay forgotten for four years in a North Carolina morgue. It took some high school kids from Toledo Christian School and Notre Dame Academy who rallied over the issue, took money to the widow, and wrote letters to the Secretary of Labor to spur the action that got Raymundo's remains home. No thanks are due to Mt. Olive or its growers association.

Mt. Olive begs to tell its side of the story. Sure, why not? This is why we boycott Mt. Olive, to get them to listen to the Raymundos' and Urbanos' sides of the story. Enron and WorldCom had their thieves who stole people's life savings, Mt. Olive's moral dilemma may be worse.

BALDEMAR VELASQUEZ

Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Broadway

I think Councilman Bob McCloskey is on the right track. We need to find other ways to fund the city and our schools. Instead of giving all these big companies like Owens Corning low rent, call their bluff and let them move out. A new casino would look very good and bring in a lot more money.

Let's not wait until everyone else has all the business and we have all the taxes. Let's move ahead now. This is 2003, and we are ready to stop paying taxes to support everything that comes along. I would like to use my hard-earned dollars for other things.

CHARLES McLANE

Ellis Avenue

In a recent letter, Linda Reider, coordinator of the Great Lakes Regional Office of the U.S. Humane Society, wrote about the “grisly discovery” of what were thought to be greyhound carcasses. When they were correctly identified as wild game, probably killed by hunters, she lamented the fact that readers were not as concerned about the deaths of these animals compared to that of a greyhound. She also stated, “The DNR does not keep track of the number of coyotes, foxes, and raccoons killed by hunters,” claiming this as proof that the animals were “killed for sport, not for any essential management purpose.”

To suggest the DNR is unconcerned or unaware of the population densities of wild animals is ridiculous. The Ohio DNR is one of the top wildlife departments in the country, led by dedicated and educated biologists. Keep track? Open your eyes next time you drive the turnpike. Dead deer, coyotes, raccoons, and opossums are seen every mile.

What bothered me most was the fact that whoever was responsible did not dispose of the carcasses properly.

Ohioans need not re-examine their reactions just because these were wild animals. Call it managing, hunting, or sport - wildlife is a highly renewable resource and the proper use of that resource is good. Her philosophy (i.e. hunting equates to murder) is based on the lie that we do not need to live in the natural world, that man can create artificial food and materials and continue to pollute the planet.

Sure, we don't need to clothe ourselves in hides, but is it wrong? No! Watching dead animals rot on the side of the road is. That's called waste. Let trained biologists set the policies to manage our wildlife, not Ms. Reider or her followers' emotions.

DANIEL M. MACUT

Ralphwood Drive

I am disgusted by the letters questioning the justification of military actions in Iraq. One said, “We tried to save those 116 men and women from making the ultimate sacrifice for their country.” How noble of him to try to save 116 lives. Yet how much nobler it was for 250,000 American to risk their lives, and in 116 cases lose them, for countless millions. He could have saved 116 (or 140 according to another person), but how many more lives have been saved because of these 116, as well as, hundreds of thousands of other military people who defend liberty around the world?

How many lives would have been “saved” if Saddam were left alone?

What did they die for? For 25 million Iraqis to taste freedom. For 280 million Americans to be threatened by one less enemy in the world. For billions of others who are threatened by terrorism.

I don't recall President Bush ever saying that the war on Iraq would end terrorism. So why is anyone surprised that more terrorist attacks have occurred? It sickens me that anti-war people are using the deaths of 116 Americans and a countless number of Iraqis for their own political agenda.

Another letter writer said we should consider these deaths in the 2004 election, which only shows the true motives of many anti-war protesters. Their questioning of 116 dead American soldiers only desecrates the noble sacrifice of those 116.

Stop using these soldiers' deaths to justify hatred of a president you do not agree with politically or ideologically. Though they died to defend your right to protest and to free speech, honor their death and realize they died for so much more than protesters' freedom.

DANIEL SUBLESKI

Sylvania

I'm wondering if the Bush cabal intends to include an Electoral College in its plans for the new Iraqi government. Now that would teach 'em the real meaning of the word “democracy”!

FRANK WARD

Goddard Road