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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (April 30, 2008)
Clackamas Print EDITORIAL jveJue policy needs | updating, part II Opinion 3 Wednesday, April 30, 2008 EARLY POLITICAL TRAINING W weeks ago, this page explored business i Utilized by other colleges to raise operating of hiking tuition fees, le options do exist for us. these options are simply passive ing operating funds and generat- and are important in maintaining affordable cost and keeping the ol on abound financial basis. LE, a number of concerned brought to this editorial board’s lack of a definitive recycling pro- ■MWollege. recycling bins are scattered around is not a comprehensive system of sable materials from the mounds of ; Clackamas generates on a daily basis. to research, an aggressive recy- progran i instituted on all levels of the >1 would immediately pay for itself in lesser ill operating expenses and services. j^^Bg to universities and “great” activist t’s Web sites, better than 90 percent of all i ¡produced by commercial or educa- I institutions is simple paper or cardboard. Iso, the hundreds of plastic and aluminum and bottles disposed of every day each have '^^■d price that quickly add up. ■jj^Bali fori li a and Oregon schools already oy the'5-cent deposit value to help fund a^fivitios or pay for other programs that Id otherv isc go lacking in funds, te lowers i ty of Oregon even has an excel- (^^■iage online that details the step-by- i^^Hfrom scratch of a campus recycling ram that co vers every angle. he dramas ASG would do well to check iatUa Kon.edu/~recycle/howto_texthtm. PASSIVE MEANS of saving ty is the simple expedient of installing flue nt lights and automatic timers in every office dassroom many rooms do have them, enough >t that it becomes an issue. gathered from Consumer Reports «^■ratchdog groups have consistently ii long-term benefits and savings to both te consumer and commercial users. /iffi fluorescci 11 lighting using 80 patent less icit thin conventional bulbs and including -icity •gs from automatic lights, the cost ofinstalla- lSUaBy pays for itself in ¡ess than a year. ARMONDO borboa O pinion editor Especially in election years, a popular American pastime seems to be watching public figures becoming increasingly out of touch with reality. The only challenge to the viewer at home is wondering which individuals will stick their foot in their mouth next Personally, I always bet on the guy whose lips are moving. In the real world ASTLY, with emerging alternative energy es, fee-loncept of homegrown electricity is rang more and more common. lair/ new buildings in the downtown md area are starting to incorporate solar s and wind turbines into lheir construction, ,:e advantage of lowered costs of heating and edwith these technologies, benefit comes when more power si consumed. Utility companies energy “credits” to business and residents i excess power is salt onto the local grid, nlya snpnsmgly small number of genera- H^Mbd in order to start seeing a return B a solar/wind generator requires a $300 million for an Alaskan bridge to nowhere is clearly stupid and a waste of money, yet some politicians figured it was a great idea. Sending out a $600 government tax rebate check per person to kick-start the economy is clearly just picking our pockets and handing us back a tip. Millifins of taxpayer dollars are spent to encourage the use of ethanol fuels to reduce dependency on foreign oil. Too bad ethanol directly leads to higher food prices and an increase in greenhouse gasses. The list goes on and on. But then again, spending time on planet Earth with the rest ofus is apparently not ■tial investment the school can itt- something politicians do on a regular basis. fcority of costs are underwritten by If the Hillary show has demonstrated BmM^grants, state and local solar rebate nothing else this year, it has at least shown ams or ex credits. tire amazing difference between our reality one of these suggestions are new, radical or - a normal auport-landing in Bosnia - and irdofby most people. They are all tried and the way politicians tell it - a combat drop deas that have been proven time and again under sniper fire. Not that the other guys in this three- »■is known to be a leader in innova* legged race are any better. ndedkfcaiion. But at least McCain really did get the it’s lead by example. crap beat out of him in a Vietnam prison for five years; there is no doubt about that hap I fackamas Print Clackamas Print JO Molalla Ave. gon City, OR 97045 •657-6958, ext. 2309 Editor in Chief: Megan Koler Copy Editor: Colleen Watkins News Editor: Lydia E. Bashaw A&C Editor: Emily Walters Sports Editor: Andrea Simpson Feature Editor: Kyle Steele Photo Editor: Kayla Berge Opinion Editor: Armondo Borboa Photo Associate: John Shufelt News Associate: John Hurlburt pening whatsoever. Go, John. So why don’t most politicians get it? To paraphrase Arnold the Gubemator when he was running for office in California, “Most of these guys have no idea what it is like to sign on the front of a check” What the Terminator was trying to say actually does contain a fair bit of wisdom. Most public figures we see on the eve ning news, with their 30-second sound bites and “talking points,” have no clue what it takes to run a successfill and profitable com pany, something many private citizens do everyday. Most of them have no idea what makes an economy work or how to keep the unions happy while keeping a business in the black Most of them have no clue what moti vates a workforce to create new ideas or technologies. and cope with the occasional Godzilla attack This idea isn’t as far-fetched or silly as it might seem at first After all, modem fighter pilots spend lit erally hundreds of hours jacked into simula tors before they ever go up in a real bird. Same thing goes for Wall Street stock market traders. They spend countless hours and days going over charts, graphs, econom ic models and real-time reports before they ever input their first real buy order. Doctor^ lawyers and military officers have histoncaliy always been considered professionals, and they all have stringent requirements that must be met in order to be allowed into lheir ranks. We require proper training and licensing before we allow people to be trusted with our money or our safety. Why should we trust our society’s well being to anything less? What to do Cyber-nerds to the rescue Although a very broad generalization, a large majority of so-called “career politi cians” are lawyers who passed tire bar exam and then only held down a job long enough to run for public office. Funny enough, the only careers consid ered more despicable than politics are attor neys and news reporters. So what is a possible solution? We could require our elected officials to first successfully prove themselves in the boardroom before they can attempt to run our economy. But then again, self-made millionaires Mitt Romney and Ross Perot both spent plenty of their own dollars and still didn’t win their respective races. Personally, I like the idea of requiring anybody holding public office to fest qualify on strategic population simulator programs. Think of this as playing “SimCity” or “Civilization” in expert mode. To even qualify to run for office, they would have to not only keep an approval rating better than 70 percent, but also stay within a budget, deal with natural disasters With modem technology growing smart er and smarter each day, simulator games are becoming as close to the real thing as you can get without actually being there. Anybody who has ever played a strategic sim game knows what happens when you raise the tax base without increasing your resources first-common knowledge to any gamer, but apparently a totally foreign con cept to our elected officials. Your population gets unhappy and soon goes somewhere else to live. The same concept is true for projects and public works that do not serve the needs of your population. You blow all your gold, you get no bonuses and again, the people leave. If teenage gamers can master archaic con cepts like budgeting, resource management, population expansion, supply and demand, forms of government and military strategy all by sitting on their butts playing video games, then anybody can do it Is it too much to ask for people who are playing witii our real lives and tax dollars to do the same? A d M anager : Meredith James P roduction A ssistant : Mallory Bashaw S taff W riters / P hotographers : Kenton Benfield, Robert Crawford, Matthew Garrison, John Petty, Lisa Sellars, Jess Sheppard D epartment A dviser : Melissa Jones D epartment S ecretary : Pat Thompson G oals : The Clackamas Print aims to report the news in an honest, unbiased, professional manner. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the stu dent body, college administration, its faculty or The Print. E-mail comments to chiefed@dackamas. edu.
