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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (May 28, 2008)
lackamas Print Jtters to the Editor I ___ J___________________ :_______ , I have to say, your victory in the ASG elec- extremely hollow and rather embarrassing one. What dn isfltet? Certainly nothing to brag about! n thejbction to be president of ASG. Yea, I was the ,ce offered, but I won.” really wanted to prove yourself to even be worthy, you fought for the other candidate’s right (that candidate Izso) to run against you. sitting back and winning the way you did - shame on Opinion 3 Wednesday, May 28, 2008 The never-ending search for someone to blame ‘grumble* ‘grumble* Stupid Republicans and their oil company cronies! ... damn hippies... *grumble* id Bikes bite back cd [ up »latest issue of The Clackamas Print (v41, Issue ge 2, Isaw your byline and picture on the “Sound-off ’ MMBtveled at what I found there. trying to decide which is more amazing - that one s of the newspaper would hijack the public forum ■ that the editor in chief of the paper would pri nt your “abag of douche.” ^^»appropriate for you to commandeer this col- our person 11 use, but to do so in such a shrill, unprofes- inner really begs the question: “Who the hell let her on -, rver, there is the issue that you are simply flat wrong. jrrently a motorcycl ist, but 1 have been in the past, and I 8 you that a motorcycle is no different than a car when it parking privileges at CCC or anywhere else ■ the ^y few) designated spaces, if you look closely, see thanKey are for motorcycles only. Kayla Berge Clackamas Print er words, they are reserved preferentially, both as a way using a lower-impact transportation and in onthatBers may be arriving in inclement weather, ey would like to get art of quickly. bly the mo ' disturbing part of your tirade was the ad lattajO someone you don’t even know. Well, that and picture df their bike, so at least some of us will figure out »mpe»tn y for a low self esteem” that makes “your for aqSeb;ll bat” "di ng to flic goals stated in the masthead, The Clackamas ns to report the news in an honest, unbiased, professional And while disclaims any responsibility for the expressed therein, that disclaimer cannot by definition, the staff who publish it said. I’m not expecting the New York Times, but I’m not ; a juniorhigh school poop sheet either Save it for your ¡page. lIw Coastable ■think that you had turned your paper around; me much more professional and well-written couple of terms than it lias ever been. you reviews the presidential race and gave opinions cling and tuition and other big issues, I page was finally starting to cover subjects explain them to me in a way that I can er, youi stupid opinion columnist trashing my bike ^Hailing me “a bag of douche” and threatening bat and a mob attack just goes to show how crappy your rag can really be. like mewho ride are passionate about our wheels. How ________ _ of my bike without my permission in your me without ever once talking to me. id columnist should look around next time car people park. Maybe we riders don’t _____ ignated spots” because you idiots with have runinto our bikes in the designated spots more I cap recall. an issue with my self-esteem, I’d be driving a huge 4x4 truck jacked up on a 12-inch lift ^motorcycle that is four times as gas-efficient than a tenth as miKjh pollution and, unlike ist says, I can’t text-message or afford you apparently do on a daily basis. ^dariirrThenexttimeyouhaveaques- are thinking, maybe you should asA them stuffup about them. why you are such a terrible writer, because to do your own job and instead you pull stuff a page. I’d say to go back to writing about t that good abort sports, either. me an apology, and I expect one. fifeg, mem ... grew weed NADER!? ARMON DO BORBOA O pinion E ditor Global warming, illegal immi gration, celebrity feuds on TV, fat school kids out of control, spoiled pets eating their owners, aliens controlling government ... it never stops. You know what I mean. No matter how serious or totally ridiculous the cause, everyday sci entists and researchers, celebrities and rock stars and any number of talking heads are all saying a whole lot of nothing and never really fix ing anything. In most cases, these high-func tioning idiots actually make things worse the more they try to “fix” what they think is wrong. down their thermostats and learn to live without their big gas-guz zling SUV’s and fancy-shmancy air conditioners. Are you kidding me? Seriously? I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong - the high price of oil is a serious problem, and our dependence on foreign sources of supply is a critical national secu rity issue. However, thinking that Americans can significantly make a difference cutting back on their use of fuel by wearing sweaters and driving less is not only unrealistic, it also shows a complete lack of understanding of the root cause of our national problem. Not really a disaster The last time America had a fuel crisis, it was way back in the early ’70’s, and that crisis makes the current one look like a joke in comparison. Gas prices would have to get to well over $9 a gallon in order to be as expensive in today’s dollars as it An issue of my very own was back then when you take infla My favorite cause I love to hate tion into account. Even the most inefficient road is the high price of gas at the pump and all the morons who blame beast SUV of today, the GM everything under the sun, yet never Hummer 2.0, has a better gas mile age and overall emissions stan quite manage to figure it out. You would have to be hiding dards than the average family sta under a rock to not have noticed the tion wagon did 30-something years nearly quadrupling increase in gas ago. They also have more safety fea prices the past few years. At more than $4 a gallon already, tures, a longer useful road life and the price of fuel is going higher on use fewer non-renewable resources a daily basis without any signs of in their construction. We just happen to drive an expo abating any time soon. At the same time, you can’t turn nentially larger number of cars now on a TV or radio without some pun versus back then. Our home appliances, refrig dit screaming about the imminent collapse of America and our need erators, TVs, microwaves, etc. are more than twice as electricity effi to start riding bicycles to work. cient as they were in the ’70s. Oh, please. Again, we just happen to own a Presidential candidate Barack Obama, in a speech reminiscent lot more of them in each house now of one given in the late 1970s than we did then. I don’t know about you, but I by the unknown Marx brother» Jimmy Carter, recently suggested happen to like my air conditioner. I like having a TV in each room, Americans need to start turning a dishwasher and microwave, a second fridge just to keep my sodas cold, an X-box in my office and owning all the other electronic junk cluttering up my house. It is unlimited access to energy that has made American the envy of the world. I enjoy my comforts, and I feel no shame in admitting it. Call me what you will, but being an American means having a higher standard of living than everybody else and I am simply not ready to give up my luxuries. However, oil is a finite resource no matter how you look at it. The answer to the energy crunch lies not in consuming less oil, because eventually we will run out of oil no matter how efficiently it is used. “OK, Mr. Smarty-pants,” you might say, “that is a no-brainer. So what is the solution?” Consequences The answer is not just the devel opment of alternative energy sourc es, but the proper implementation that will not cause more problems than it solves. Right now, the developments of ethanol or cellulose fuels are considered to be promising tech nologies capable of someday com pletely replacing oil. The problem with using com for ethanol is utilizing a food crop as a fuel source is creating a domino effect on other commodity prices such as milk, cheese and bread, which are dependent on com. A devastating long-term effect of developing ethanol is the mas sive damage caused to the envi ronment by nations such as Brazil clear-cutting the rain forest to cre ate fannable land for com. Any solutions our science can come up with will always carry their own price. We need to be sure we properly identify what our problems are. More importantly, we must be willing to pay the price. ,1 :kamas Print ickamas Print >. Molalla Ave. i City, OR 97045 '-6958, feet. 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 A d M anager : Meredith James P roduction A ssistant : Mallory Bashaw S taff W riters / P hotographers : Kenton Benfield, Robert Crawford, Matthew Garrison, 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 student body, college admin istration, its faculty or The Print. E-mail comments to chiefed@clackamas.edu.
