Our Readers’ Views

Confusing priorities at Clark College

As a Clark College student, I find myself continually frustrated by overcrowded classrooms, the scarcity of parking, and outrageously long waits for student services. With student enrollment in the neighborhood of 16,000, an open enrollment policy, and the college aggressively marketing itself on the radio and through the mail, it doesn’t look as though concerns about overenrollment will be addressed any time soon.

For spring term 2010, Clark recorded a 45 percent increase in full-time students from spring 2008, which coincided with a 14.5 percent increase in tuition rates. This surge in enrollment reflects the ill health of our local economy, where unemployment is typically around 15 percent — but with Clark graduating only 20 percent of its full-time students and transferring out only 22 percent, are the school’s enticements to enroll really serving the interests of its current students or the community?

Jordan A. Jordan

Vancouver

Close loopholes for the wealthy

Federal workers are upset about the president’s proposed wage freeze. Most people will support this proposal and see it as a reasonable sacrifice in order to reduce federal spending. Wake up, people. The wage freeze can only be fair if it is matched by closing all corporate tax loopholes and subsidies, ending the “trickle-down” Bush tax favoritism of the rich, and massive cutbacks in war spending. The wealthy are going to have to make some sacrifices, too. Why should federal workers sacrifice for the nation’s budget woes when so many of the tax and regulatory loopholes favor the rich and large corporations? Buy the politicians, outsource the workers, offshore the profits, and pay less taxes than the worker who actually makes the product. What a country.

What an injustice if the Democrats and Republicans pass the wage freeze, and at the same time deny unemployment support and keep the expiring tax cuts for the millionaires and billionaires. Forget the rhetoric. Focus on their actions.

A society can’t support the destruction of the middle class for the benefit of the wealthy class. The federal wage freeze is another assault in class warfare.

We are losing and our country is being eviscerated.

Jim Ebacher

Camas

Stand firm on foreign policy

The WikiLeaks documents show clearly that a nuclear-armed Iran is a deadly threat to the entire Middle East and Arab leaders fear Iran much more than they fear Israel.

With talks about to resume in Geneva between Iran and the EU, the administration must ensure that Tehran does not use the discussions as yet another delaying tactic while it moves ahead with its nuclear program.

President Obama should work for a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran and redouble efforts to enforce existing sanctions. All options must remain on the table.

The administration should stand firm with Israel in its quest for security and peace and not allow secondary issues to divide them.

Fred Mostoller

Vancouver

Patience expired with scam callers

Recently I received my second call from Texas from some foreign-sounding man telling me I had problems with my computer. The first time he called a week ago, he claimed “Windows is running slow.” I informed him this house always has been and always will be 100 percent Macintosh. I also informed him he was an idiot. I was being polite.

When he (or someone sounding just like him) called again, I was plumb out of polite. This time he told me “someone downloaded a lot of porn onto your computer and we can remove it.” He also told me that “Windows is running slow” again. Obviously this is a poor excuse to get into your computer and steal information.

This time I lost it a bit. I informed him we didn’t use Windows, didn’t like PC computers, and didn’t appreciate his calling. About then my 23 years of working on the waterfront kicked in and I unleashed my extensive X-rated vocabulary on him. The nicest word I used was “maggot.” Funny, he hung up.

Beware of these scams. By the way, these folks don’t seem to appreciate the use of X-rated vocabulary. Maybe I’m onto something here. Should I be ashamed? Aw, maybe not.

Charles S. Richardson

Vancouver

Upgrade head gear in contact sports

Nearly 175 concussions occur in the National Football League each season. Considering how serious concussions are, that is a fairly large number of men who are trying to “work” for a living. By implementing a new concussion policy, the NFL has taken a tremendous step towards treating head injuries. However, more must be done in order to prevent these concussions from occurring in the first place.

Although the brutal hits in the league may be impossible to fix, more emphasis must be placed on safer helmets.

In this technologically advanced world, there should be more than enough information out there to create better helmets. The NFL needs to put more money into this type of research. If the NFL needs any more incentive to improve their concussion policies, they can just look at the case of Andre Waters. Waters, a former NFL safety, killed himself in 2006. An analysis showed that Waters suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy — meaning his brain tissue resembled that of an 85-year-old. Let’s just hope the league doesn’t have to go through any similar reminders before the problem is completely fixed.

Ben Haugen

Vancouver

Partisan bickering creates gridlock

I can’t think of a better one, but our two-party government system hasn’t been working well lately. For the past two years, with a few exceptions, we’ve had a gridlocked Congress. I don’t think this is because our elected representatives are bad people; I’ve found most to be well-meaning, dedicated to serving their country and constituencies. But the two-party system seems to bring out the worst in people.

What worries me is the sinister intent of each party to destroy the other one, hence destroy even the system of government that legitimates them. Although verbalized mainly by the Republicans lately, this vindictive spirit has infected both parties and has become a component of congressional gridlock.

All great democratic institutions develop serious flaws when pushed too far. Competition between parties is generally a good thing until it becomes an end in itself. But when it crosses the line from being a force for good to being an agent of evil, from a guarantor of fair and representative government to that which undermines the very government it is meant to enable, then isn’t it time to ask why this is happening and what we need to do about it?

David C. Duncombe

White Salmon