The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

6- The Oakville Beaver, Friday June 20, 2008 www.oakvillebeaver.com OPINION & LETTERS The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. NEIL OLIVER Publisher DAVID HARVEY General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA ANCHOR Circ. Manager Time to walk the walk With all the doom and gloom in the news today, you would think the world was on a fast track to Armageddon. Gas prices are at record highs, with speculation that a litre of the liquid gold will cost us a toonie in the not-too-distant future. Air pollution in Ontario is causing the premature deaths of people in increasing numbers, according to a report by the Ontario Medical Association. Finally, a Statistics Canada survey released on Wednesday found that 16 per cent of us are obese and nearly one-inthree (32 per cent) are overweight. Yet another recent news report has us wondering if our nation's struggles with obesity and air pollution might be tackled simultaneously. A GTA resident has started a one-man crusade against drive-throughs after calculating that idling traffic through 29 of the convenience windows across his city wastes more than 435,000 litres of gasoline each year. He also found that drivethrough lineups create large amounts of air pollution -- a position disputed by one fast food giant that has drivethroughs at most of its 3,100 locations in Canada and the U.S. A spokesperson for the fast food company countered that a consulting firm it hired concluded that drive-through traffic actually creates less pollution compared to a car creeping through a parking lot in search of a space, stopping, restarting and driving back out of the same lot. However, the drive-through crusader's point seems to be more about the need for more of us to park our cars and walk to our shorter destinations. Which brings us to a really simple solution. If we could all adopt a mindset of taking a walk to any destination of say, less than two kilometres, and agree to avoid engine idling of any kind -- from drivethrough to driveway -- we could significantly reduce automobile emissions, a primary source of the smog that is killing us. By agreeing to park our vehicles and "walk the walk" at least some of the time, we could reduce our reliance on gasoline, improve our air quality and find ourselves becoming slimmer and trimmer for the effort. We all talk about wanting to be greener, but how many of us are prepared to make a real difference by choosing a healthier, cleaner and more affordable method of travelling from point A to point B? Sure, walking takes a little longer, but it's an important first step to undoing some of the damage we've done to our world -- and to ourselves. The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR I am a grade 10 student at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Oakville. I recently read the article on the school board's decision not to provide the HPV vaccination at Catholic schools ( Catholic board shuts door on HPV vaccine, Oakville Beaver, June 5) and it made me sick to my stomach. I've been going to Catholic schools my whole life and they always stress the fact that you should save sex for marriage. I understand that and I really believe in it, but Mistake to ban HPV vaccine in Catholic schools says student if the school board thinks that students are not sexually active then they are just naïve. I can guarantee that a lot of girls don't even know what HPV is. If the school board thinks that giving a shot will give girls the idea of having sex they are mistaken. If anything, wouldn't it scare the girls into not having sex? I feel fortunate that the Hepatitis B and Meningitis shots were given to me at my elementary school. Many children don't have that opportunity and have to pay large sums to get those shots. The school trustees can feel however they want on the situation, but it is not their place to dictate a health situation without consulting parents or students. In the wise words of Pierre Trudeau, "The state has no place in the bedroom of the nation" (the state being the school board and the nation being the students). Many of us respect the Catholic values and beliefs, but this shot can prevent HPV and it is a fortunate thing to have. We need to be ready for anything that can come like rape. The school board needs to make decisions that will positively affect us in the future, not just today. Just because we get a shot doesn't mean we're going to run out and have sex, some of us aren't that stupid. JAIME PERRIN Pud BY STEVE NEASE snease@haltonsearch.com Parents have right to speak up So Halton District School Board Director Wayne Joudrie thinks people should keep their mouths shut while the school board decides the fate of public schools in southeast Oakville ( Director critical of parents, Oakville Beaver, June 16). Like so many bureaucrats and Canadian politicians, he is upset at the audacity of people exercising what remains of our right of free speech. His excuse is lame: "Students have been exposed to pres See Director's page 7 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone 416-340-1981.Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline.