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About The Hood River news. (Hood River, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 2015)
A4 V IEWPOINT Hood River News, Wednesday, February 25, 2015 O ur readers write JOE PETSHOW Publisher/President, Eagle Newspapers, Inc. CHELSEA MARR General Manager JODY THOMPSON Advertising Manager DICK NAFSINGER Publisher, Emeritus (1933-2011) TOM LANCTOT Past President, Eagle Newspapers, Inc. KIRBY NEUMANN-REA Editor TONY METHVIN Columbia Gorge Press Manager DAVID MARVIN Production Manager Subscription $42 per year in Hood River trade area. $68 outside trade area. NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION Printed on OREGON NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION recycled paper. Official Newspaper, City of Hood River and Hood River County Published Every Wednesday & Saturday by Hood River News, P.O. Box 390, Hood River, Oregon 97031 • (541) 386-1234 • FAX 386-6796 Member of the Associated Press Youths Matter Keeping kids safe, and sustained, includes showing them support K eeping kids safe is the basic goal with our an- nual “Just Say No!/Soli Di No” special section in this edition. The coloring book contains ample informa- tion about prevention and tips for talking with kids about drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. It’s an annual partnership with Hood River Police and supporting sponsors. Most parents are in tune with the issues and con- cerns about kids’ exposure to unhealthy things, but this publication, along with other efforts by law enforcement and programs by the county Prevention Network, can serve as a helpful tune-up. The publication includes a variety of insights; per- haps the most basic one is this: “Help your children es- tablish realistic personal goals in academics, athletics and social life. “Encourage and help them to achieve these goals.” Italics are ours. We can all, not just parents, encourage our youth to participate and excel in positive activities. The opportu- nities are extensive for attending or otherwise support- ing the things kids are involved in, or projects that offer positive alternatives for youth in our communities. St. Francis House, The Next Door Inc., Start Making A Reader Today, Little League, middle school sports, and Community Education are just a few of the ongoing pro- grams always deserving support. In the near term, many events and programs are ready for anyone to show up and pay an admission price (if any). They include Kids Soup, scheduled Thursday at Springhouse, and the plays at Hood River Middle School and Hood River High School opening Thursday, Tongue Twister Tournament for SMART on Friday, and the Horizon Hawks’ playoff game, also on Friday. It’s not too late to form a team for the March 8 Bowl for Kids’ Sake for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of the Gorge, and mentors are always needed there. The high school and middle school AVID program (Advancement Via Individual Determination) seeks tu- tors; a training is planned Feb. 28 — call 541-387-5704 for details. Add to that the Community Work Day program by the high school, coming April 29: in it, HRVHS students spend a day working at a local business or organization, and turn their earnings over to a fund that is donated to a needy local organization to be determined. In Hood River County, young people are always up to something good. Supporting their efforts can be enter- taining or educational, or both, and has the immediate effect of bolstering what the kids happen to be doing, be it music, drama, or community service projects. In addition, it sends a signal to other kids, be they younger or less-involved. It says, “People who know you, as well as those who don’t, will make an investment of time or money to observe or help experience what you are pursuing.” Supporting these efforts shows kids they matter, and that their creative and positive pursuits are what drives them as individuals and the community as a whole. An interesting notion I am 13 years old and I’ve noticed as I am talking to my classmates that (in my opinion) more and more are be- coming ignorant of things going on in our own community. Though some people might disagree with my notion, this would be what I would say. One day I might be talking to a friend of mine and say, did you hear about what’s going on tomorrow over at the WAAAM museum or such? My class- mate’s answer … WHAT’S THAT? So as I am saying, why don’t parents and guardians maybe contemplate about well .. .let’s see ... teaching your kid something about their own communi- ty. But again, just sayin’. Jonathan Harris Hood River Shades of chicanery I am glad you published the hilari- ous cartoon (Feb. 21) titled “Fifty Shades of GOP.” It shows the Republi- can brain trust of Ben Carson, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney and Chris Christie smiling in an adorable, cartoony and lovable way. Your readers might wonder why these Republicans are so happy and lovable. Make sure you don’t tell your readers why Secure Rural Schools has not been reauthorized by the Republi- can controlled Congress. Don’t tell them income inequality from the Re- publican inspired 2007 Great Reces- sion is at levels not seen since before the 1929 Great Depression. What is not to love about successful- ly opposing any response to global warming? For these smiling men, dis- allowing health insurance coverage for female contraception is just a good joke. Gutting affordable health care for millions of low income Americans and diagnostic health care services for low income women gives them a happy tingle. They just changed the rule funding Social Security disability setting up a hilarious social security crisis for 2016. Happiness is holding the government hostage threatening to defund and cripple Homeland Secu- rity over their demand to deport 11 million immigrants. These lovable Republicans refuse to allow a vote on bipartisan immigra- tion reform in the House of Represen- tatives where the immigration reform bill would easily pass. They oppose fix- ing the Voting Rights Act. They are creating Voter ID laws that make it harder for college students, poor peo- ple and minorities to vote. They are gleefully obstructing an increase in the minimum wage for everyone and pay equality for women. They have an activist majority of Republican ideo- logues on the Supreme Court where they plan to kill affordable health care. They managed to destabilize the Mid- dle East with disastrous wars and failed states in Iraq and Afghanistan empowering terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al Shabaab. Yes, there is much for these Repub- licans to smile about. Grifting their supporters and extracting donations with coded racist rants is hugely prof- itable. These are the public faces of chicanery that has no policy solutions except racial animus, world war and most important, tax cuts for the rich. John Kramer White Salmon, Wash. Corporate takeover I applaud Eric Cohn for his writing in Another Voice Hood River News Feb. 21 concerning standardized test- ing. The answer to his question, who started this and what was their intent is simple: corporate America for prof- it. The single biggest influence has come from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with funding documented at 250 million (but potentially as high as 2.3 billion according to Jack Has- sard, Professor Emeritus at Georgia State) all in the interest of implemen- tation and advocacy of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) The Gates Foundation has partnered with the British corporation Pearson, the giant textbook publisher, to create on- line curriculum for CCSS which will drive the volume of testing. The prof- its here are staggering. According to surveys by the Pew Center on the States and the Brook- ings Institution, state spending on standardized testing rose from $552 million in 2001 to $1.7 billion in 2012. As an example of individual state impact, let’s look at Texas. Pearson is the exclusive testing contractor for the State of Texas. According to Pearson’s year end review for 2011-2012, more than 11.5 million tests were adminis- tered to Texas public education stu- dents in grades 3 through 12 for the State of Texas Academic Readiness, or STARR. The cost was more than $89 million! By 2015 the cost for standard- ized testing, is expected to cost Texans nearly $100 million. Based on figures provided by Texas Education Agency, Pearson’s five year contract with Texas from 2010-2015 will total more than $468 million. Even more stagger- ing is the grand total from 2000 -2015 that Texas taxpayers will have paid Pearson — nearly $1.2 billion for de- veloping standardized tests and relat- ed materials. In spite of our Constitutional rights, Bill Gates and corporations have attempted to set public policy by funding and marketing CCSS to Amer- icans and thereby circumventing vot- ers on educational issues. The 10th Amendment leaves education to state and local control. Allowing private corporations to set public policy and to control American education is dan- gerous and must be stopped. The movement against standardized test- ing is growing and is shared across party lines. To learn more, google United Opt Out, or Opt Out Oregon and remember, Standardized Testing = Standardized Thinking. Gregory Shepherd Hood River Fairness and water While I may lean more towards David Michalek’s views towards Nes- tle regarding the water bottle industry in general (Viewpoint, Feb. 21) his statements on what Nestle is doing re- garding “privatizing the public’s water” create false perceptions around Oregon water law and the premise of western water law. Under Oregon water law, the state and the people own all of the water in the state. It is granted for use for free for all users, mostly private. So for Mr. Michalek to attack one company for using the water legally for its intended purpose is to attack all private users of water in this state, including the farm- ers that grow our food, the other in- dustries that make our products, and the breweries that brew our beer. The Oregon Water Resources Department does not discriminate over individual water users, as long as the water is being put to full and beneficial use as it was intended. If Mr. Michalek chooses to discrim- inate, that is his choice, but I do not want my state to regulate and decide which private group, company or indi- vidual can have access to water. He does bring up an excellent point re- garding charging for the use of water like oil. Again, you are playing a dan- gerous game in charging every private user (no discrimination allowed) the true value for water, which then cre- ates significant issues for those less fortunate and poor. Ryland Moore Hood River YOUNG VOICES W HERE TO WRITE President — Barack Obama, White House, 1600 Pennsylva- nia Ave., Washington D.C., 20500 E-mail: president@whitehouse.gov U.S. Senators — Jeff Merkley, SDB-40B, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington D.C., 20510. Phone: 202-224-3753; E-mail: oregon@merkley.senate.gov; Ron Wyden, 717 Hart Office Build- ing, Washington D.C., 20510. Phone: 202-224-5244. Web address: www.senate.gov/member/or/wyden/general/ 2nd Congressional District Representative — Greg Walden, 14 N. Central Ave., Suite 112, Medford, OR 97504. Phone: 541-776-4646; E-mail: www.walden.house.gov/contactgreg Governor — John Kitzhaber, 254 State Capitol, Salem, OR 97310. Phone: 503-378-3111; E-mail: www.governor.state.or.us/email.htm District 26 State Senator — Chuck Thomsen, 900 Court St. N.E., S-307, State Capitol, Salem, OR 97301. Phone: 503-986- 1726; E-mail sen.chuckthomsen@state.or.us District 52 State Representative — Mark Johnson, 900 Court St. N.E., Bldg. H-385, State Capitol, Salem, OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1452; E-mail: rep.markjohnson@state.or.us Hood River County Board of Commissioners — Chair Ron Rivers, Vice Chair Maui Meyer, members Les Perkins, Bob Ben- ton and Karen Joplin, Hood River County Courthouse, Hood River, OR, 97031. Phone: 541-386-3970. County Administrator — Dave Meriwether, Hood River County Courthouse, Hood River, OR, 97031. Phone: 541-386- 3970. Hood River City Council — Mayor Paul Blackburn, members Laurent Picard, Mark Zanmiller, Kate McBride, Becky Brun, Peter Cornelison and Susan Johnson Hood River City Hall, Hood River, OR, 97031. Phone: 541-386-1488. E-mail: cohr@gorge.net Is the media killing our confidence? By MADI WOFFORD F ing money. But what if we stopped buying into all this nonsense? We all know that these images are un- realistic, so why do we even bother feeling bad about it? I think it’s time that we stopped feeling bad about ourselves and started feeling confident instead. I mean, ask any man; confidence is way more attrac- tive than a ribcage sticking out of your sides. If we stop idolizing these photo shopped women and started idolizing ourselves instead, maybe society would finally see that “being perfect” isn’t about the way you look on the outside, but the way you feel and act on the inside. HRVHS rom the time we are born, even before understanding what we are seeing, we are hit with a barrage of unreal- istic and unattainable im- ages. This is what is bred into our psyche in the media world we live in today. The question is; how can a per- son’s confidence not be killed in this generation? Everywhere you look, TV, movies, magazines, cloth- ing adds, billboards, and even video games, are all littered with images of (mostly) women, who probably only 1 percent of us will ever look like in our lives. That leaves the other 99 percent of us feeling any- thing but perfect. Then, once you consider that the images we’re look- ing at, of these perfect people, are photo shopped and retouched so they’re even more perfect, it makes you realize that even the super mod- els aren’t good enough. The media is constantly retouching and photo shopping to create the image of what they see as perfect, hoping that everyone else buys into it, which we do. The more and more we buy into it, the worse we feel ■ Madi Wofford about ourselves. Considering the media is practi- cally unavoidable these days, this is a social conflict teens and women will probably have to deal with for the rest of their lives. But who says “skin and bones” is perfect? Of course the fashion designers and magazine publishers want us to think that so we keep purchasing their products and they keep mak- Madi Wofford, a junior at Hood River Valley High School, wrote this essay as part of Judy Miller’s Well- ness class. It was among a select number of projects Miller posts in the hallway outside her class- room.“Madi was working off of dis- cussions we had about how our cul- ture socializes us into gender roles and expectations. We also talked a lot about the increasing influence of both mainstream and social media in that socialization process,” notes Miller, who also teaches Global Stud- ies and Psychology.
