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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 2006)
Clackamas Pjjnt Commentary 3^* Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006 joogle colludes with commies bogle, China work gether to keep some tfoi mation unavailable Derek Erickson fte Clackamas Print The Internet contains more bless crap in one place than I other venue of informa- i currently in existence, while we Americans are fing for smut or sports ts, there are people out re using the Internet for in China to fight this. Before bending over to censorship, the Chinese government would cut off a user’s Internet for a while if they searched for controversial topics. With the nation fighting itself, the information was still avail able. The Chinese people, those that want truth, were counting on Google not to give in. \ Google, how- ever, decided to make China’s ^M j battle their problem and used a new technology to further The Chinese people have lon-again, off-again access search engines. In 2002 jr being blocked by the inese government, Yahoo isored themselves and the inese gave up. Google was ng shut off or blocked :ause they wouldn’t isor themselves - il now. Google.cn has in created for Chinese peo no use while i uncensored sion, Google. 1, is blocked. Google cre- i this Chinese i to conform to ! Chinese gov- ments regula- ns. Now things e “democracy” or hiñese oppression” 11 cornel up with is., but Cameron £|f they.’re [aura iked the page will lommentari/ Editor ler be blocked or will lie to a government jndly site. 3 remembers the campaign ’resident v. 1.0: “Read Google has the Bush numbers new taxes”? It may have :ade or so, but it appears d has taken George H. W. Is to heart. J oppress the Chinese people. In order to provide the best service, Google uses geoloca tion to determine what part of the world a user’s IP is from. This way they can spam the surfer with ads pertaining to cultural priorities. Now, if a Chinese IP is located at non-government friendly sites, they will be blocked. This is effective in 90 percent of all cases, and for 80 percent of all IPs. The great too long. The Chinese people don’t care if Google gets shut down now and again, because they know it’s still out there. But what happens when no matter how well they’re con nected, no matter how long they stay connected, that information - that understand ing of what’s really going on - is no longer available? Google.cn is an abomina tion and a shame. I just hope that it’s not a sign of a trend of corporate cowardice the future of information. Cía cica mas Print vtter offers tax to save chools, legislature to blame ing here about Mayor Tom posed tax increase to help budget shortfalls facing lools. Potter’s plan would four-year 0.95 percent city- ie tax specifically to raise equality (Communism) is in bad shape over in China. It has been since Mao Zedong got it started - but that is no one else’s fight but China’s. Google is the most fre quently used search engine on the Internet, and I’m told that the Internet is pretty big. Google has more support in China than the govern ment itself, because they are a doorway to information - the information that has been kept from these people for angry at being asked to once again shell out to save the schools. But it’s not Potter’s fault. The fault lies squarely with the state legislature. The Multnomah County I-Tax was made temporary because it was assumed that the time it bought for schools would be used to work out their budgetary problems. The legisla ture was given three years to come up with a stable funding plan for Oregon schools, and they failed utterly. Sadly, their failure is now putting schools - and Potter - between the proverbial rock and hard place. If our readers will forgive the pun, we can not afford to underfund our children’s education. We cannot afford to leave our schools facing massive budget shortfalls - but perhaps, for a year, we should. If we refuse to come to the schools’ aid and leave them to their fate - and I admit, it makes me shudder to even suggest it - and simply stand back as they are forced to cut back farther and farther, perhaps the legislature will finally be shocked into address ing the school funding issue. If we let the schools flounder and constantly remind people that it’s because the legislature failed in their promise to straighten out the school funding mess, perhaps Oregon voters will finally be motivated to vote out the useless blow hards in the legislature and vote in people who will actually try to find viable solutions. The schools can’t afford for us to do that, of course. But it may prove to be a necessary evil. The last word on the parking issue: pay up or shut up! . Ben Maras | Editor-in-Chief It has been said that the be§t things in life are free. Whoever said this never tried to park. Yes, it’s time again to whip every one’s favorite dead horse: the park ing problem here at the college. It’s ridiculous that everyone complains about it without proposing any good ideas. Well here’s one: paid parking. Oh no, we can’t do that, I’m already broke from tuition and books and gassing up my 4x4 truck to get here every day. Tough. Deal with it. The bottom line is that we at Clackamas are blessed to not have to pay for our parking. Most other colleges require students to pay for parking, and you know what luxury they get in return? Better parking! Imagine that. It’s a simple matter of monetary flow really. Here’s how it works: you pay tuition, and combined with tax dollars, the college bigwigs allot the money to certain areas of col lege development, including parking. Things that are deemed less impor tant (such as parking) get pushed to the back of the pile, and receive' less of the meager amount of money. At this point, there are a few options if more money is needed: seek private donations, raise tuition, or ask students to pay for certain things ala carte (like Scan-Trons ... but that’s another story). So we can’t get something for nothing. It’s called capitalism folks. Sometimes if we want things, we have to pay for it. Now this is not to say I’m an Adam Smith by any means, I’m just observ ing how things work. Of these options, there is some middle ground. The college could make a “paid parking only” lot near the most important buildings, and leave the rest of us to park out in the boonies. The money collected could be dedicated to more parking devel opment (and filling Lake Barlow). This could also be accented by a tuition raise, if needed, which when spread out among the students of Clackamas could generate a large amount of money for less than the price of a slice of Chartwells pizza. Of course, we’d want to make sure that some money was given to benefit the bus riders in some way (maybe more covered space for when it rains?).' But in all reality, there’s always parking here at Clackamas. It may require some realistic thinking, and forgoing the “Rook Lot Shuffle” when one arrives at 9 a.m., realizing one’s doomed, and going to the Barlow Lot in order to make class on time. Need I even say how ridiculous it is for someone to circle a lot for 10 minutes to save a walk that would have taken them less than two? We all could use a little bit more walking too, let’s face it. But so what if we’re lazy bastards? . Hey, at least we’re greedy too.
