Visit a library this summer
The library’s summer reading program became an important part of our lives the year my boys started school. The past four years, we know summer’s here when the boys start looking for their library cards and pestering us to take them to the library, all for the sake of earning summer reading points.
The big prize at the end of summer was to have ice cream with their school principal for completing the program. How cool is that?
We started with board books and have now migrated to the big kids’ chapter books section. During this educational evolution, my boys have developed a wonderful love for reading and discovered a world of imagination. We love the quiet car/plane rides when they have books in their hands. We love to listen to the boys discuss their books’ characters in the dark as they settle in for the night. Most of all, we love how reading has become so much a part of their lives.
Through the summer reading program, the library has made reading fun in a way that transcends school requirements.
Get signed up for 2010 summer reading program, and take a break from the Wii and the video games.
Maureen Chan-Hefflin
Vancouver
Don’t judge by actions of just a few
In response to Kermit Baker’s June 20 letter, “Incompetence passes as standard,” generalizing incompetency and laziness within the civil service, it took me awhile to equate his view that the activities of the few justify the damning of the many.
I re-read his letter to see that he spent 22 years of service in the military. Ironically during my six years in the Navy he would have been considered a “lifer,” a disparaging term that was associated with being too lazy and incompetent to hold a civilian job, thus re-enlist and hide in the military until retirement. This stereotype was based on the few “lifers” who were lazy and/or incompetent, not the majority who pulled their weight and did their jobs professionally. This too was an unfair generalization and one that I think Baker would take exception to undoubtedly.
The majority of us civil servants are former veterans who do our jobs with skill and integrity each day. As is true in life, the few can give the many a bad name.
Continuing the practice of damning the whole does nothing more than breed undeserved contempt for those who serve faithfully.
Jerry Spinney
Vancouver
Farmers market values its patrons
Recently the Vancouver Farmers Market has received a number of comments regarding political activities within the market. Under no circumstances does the market endorse or encourage any specific political point of view.
We are an apolitical organization and seek to provide a place where families can come and enjoy themselves while shopping locally. We are committed to promoting local produce and artisan products among our community, not political viewpoints.
However, recently we were flooded with political action groups surrounding the state Republican Party convention held at the Hilton Vancouver Washington. A number of groups were asked to please locate their booths in previously approved areas on the north side of Esther Short Park, and most readily complied.
However, as many are aware, one group refused. There is only so much we as an organization can do and the situation quickly became beyond our control. We did everything we could to have them move out of the market, but to no avail.
As market manager, I regret that this happened and that so many customers were upset by these issues. We do not encourage or specifically allow the market to be used as a political forum, and in the future will make every effort to keep those activities out of the market.
Jordan Boldt
Vancouver
BP is admitting responsibility
I am fed up with the hypocritical, pompous, self-righteous congressmen who were chastising the BP CEO for “recklessly” allowing the oil spill in the Gulf when they have recklessly passed so many huge spending bills, driving up the federal deficit so high that it won’t be long before we can’t even pay the interest on the debt.
Yes, BP is responsible for plugging the spewing oil well and cleaning up the mess and providing financial help for those who have been harmed. But the oil spill was an accident and BP has said it is responsible for cleaning it up.
Congress and the White House, on the other hand, have intentionally caused the “spewing” of borrowed dollars — no, dollars stolen — from us and our children.
It’s time to vote them all out and put some common-sense people in office who value our Constitution and don’t just want to be career politicians.
Brian Hanneman
Vancouver
Sowell’s columns earn no respect
Thomas Sowell’s June 15 guest opinion column, “Obama’s bungling spreads like oil spill,” reads like the witness to a murder who calls the sheriff incompetent because he cannot raise the dead and then demands the murderer be allowed to go on his own recognizance to make amends because, hey, he’s clearly the most knowledgeable person regarding murder.
The fact of the matter is that BP’s conduct just prior to, during, and after the Gulf of Mexico disaster has been geared entirely towards protecting BP’s assets and brand. It has done more only where public opinion and the acts and attitude of the government have made it attend to the environmental calamity and the millions harmed by its willful negligence.
These things are not a “distraction,” they are all that gets anything done. Without them, BP’s most notable actions have been keeping people from taking more brand-damaging photos of the devastation.
Sowell’s columns are reflexively pro-big business beyond any respect for reality.
Benjamin Kuhner
Vancouver
Trend will not save any wild fish
The June 11 Columbian story reported on “Sports, commercial fishermen feud over chinook.” Rejecting pleas from sportsman groups, the commercial fleet will catch over their allotment, and keep wild fish. (Gee, no use trying to save any wild fish here).
Back in the 1940s and 1950s when I first fished for June Hogs, they were 40 to 60 pounds. But through commercial gill-netting, the average size now is 15 to 20 pounds. If this trend stays the same — by 2045 — the June Hogs will be 3 to 5 pounds and the commercial fleet that used 9-inch nets in the 1950s will be using 3-inch nets.
Jim Wells and the commercial group Salmon for All’s position translates to 50 percent commercial, 25 percent sea lions, 20 percent tribal fishing, and 5 percent sportsman.
