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The Columbian
Published: October 1, 2010, 12:00am

Criteria is based on myth

Let’s hear it for one more federal program based on supposed truths with little relationship to reality. According to The Columbian Sept. 24 story “New ‘action plan’ targets Columbia River pollution,” the new criteria for the cleanup effort is based on the need to make the contaminate levels in salmon from the river low enough that no health issue would exist for a person eating fish 23 times a month. This criteria was selected because of a belief by our federal officials that the Native American tribes along the river are subsistence fishing and living off of salmon. Oh, come on, you Washington, D.C., nerds. Do you really believe that the local Indians are eating salmon five days a week? What they are doing is selling salmon to us nonnative Americans five days a week from parking lots all along the river. That is what substance fishing means in this day and age.

Brett Hockley, Vancouver

Wise foresight in planning safe route

A heartfelt thank-you to Clark County roads, planning and board of commissioners. The center lines all over the northwest side of the county have new yellow reflectors, enhancing safety for driving at night. I appreciate them, especially on our county’s only north-south route west of Interstate 5. This road from Felida north to Ridgefield helps us avoid construction at the Ridgefield junction with I-5.

It will be even more important as the construction of the new 134th Street and I-5 interchange proceeds. My thanks for the foresight to plan for the safety of this alternative route.

Sydney Reisbick, Ridgefield

Move story off front page

Bethany Storro’s self-inflicted injury is horrific, and her problems have been well-documented in the newspaper. But it’s time to move her story off the front page.

There are many problems facing our nation: the economy, lack of jobs, plummeting property values, foreclosures, etc. There’s unrest in Israel, North Korea and Iran. The USA will have an election in five weeks. Our citizens need to be informed of the issues, candidates and world events.

Politically educational articles should be in the front pages. Storro’s story belongs in the Life section.

Linda Bakshas, Vancouver

Permissiveness threatens our nation

Blacks have about a 70 percent rate of illegitimacy, a school dropout rate of 53 percent for black males (compared to 22 percent for white males) and greater imprisonment rates. We know single parenthood is the greatest source of poverty, delinquency and illiteracy, and we pay for all the social damages.

So now liberals say we can reduce arrests by legalizing marijuana? (Also reducing electrical brain energy by as much as 50 percent as per a Case Western University study.) We’ve already dropped globally from first to 14th in college degrees and to the bottom for science and math achievement.

Liberals keep demanding more “freedoms” that they will abuse at our expense, making arguments designed to put cowards in fear of their having to live up to the same standards they chose for society. We know that civil war can become the only way to correct social anarchy resulting from ignoring rules that are natural to our human nature. Immorality has us moving that direction.

The problem is not the use of marijuana; it is an undisciplined and already debilitated nation with liberal cowards celebrating our denial of the spiritual human soul.

John Cannon, Vancouver

Recognize and teach responsibility

When my stepson and son each entered middle school, we bought them bus passes. I remember being reprimanded by a couple of friends for this; neither could believe we’d make a 12-year-old take a city bus by himself. When they couldn’t take a bus and the location was close by, they walked.

Parents can try to teach kids how to budget, manage a checking account, pay bills, do laundry, shop and cook — we did — but there’s a lot of pressure to excuse kids from participation in household tasks in order to free up time for extracurricular activities and the mountains of homework American schools assign. When our son was a Cub Scout, the den leader once begged me to exempt him from taking the garbage out that night so he could complete requirements for a badge, activities he had chosen to postpone that weekend. I explained to her that if I did, he wouldn’t learn that sometimes we have to delay gratification in order to reach goals. She gave him the badge anyway.

And let’s face it, kids get social recognition for superachieving in sports, academics and other activities, not for being a responsible young adult or contributing to household life.

Geri Hoekzema, Vancouver

Comedy plays in Congress

The Democratic-controlled Congress showed us just how disrespectful they are of the offices that they hold — they had a lousy comedian, Stephen Colbert, come to testify regarding our pitiful immigration situation.

Perhaps the Democrats think our immigration situation is funny, but the rest of the United States doesn’t. This is the correct time of the year for them to show their true colors, vote those idiots out of office and get our country back on track.

Jim Souder, Vancouver

Keeping us safe from freely speaking

In response to the Sept. 26 front-page story “Racist messages pose quandary for websites,” I just want to say bravo to The Columbian and The Associated Press for being right on the spot to protect us from ourselves. There is no doubt that we all need to be censored so that we don’t say things that will offend either The Associated Press, or The Columbian, or someone else. Good grief, if we were allowed to really express our thoughts, someone would get unhappy. So, thank you to both the newspaper and The Associated Press for keeping us from saying things that are not approved by the censors. In addition, I am really thankful that we place such a high value on free speech in America. Woo hoo!

Dick Fuller, Vancouver

Book details failure

If you are interested in a thoroughly documented indictment of the current fiasco with complete analyses of participants’ names, actions, and contributions to almost bringing down this country, I recommend Robert Scheer’s book, “The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.”

This should be mandatory reading by virtually every citizen in the country.

George Young, Vancouver

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