Our Readers’ Views

Area Scouts focus on service projects

Thanks to all of the Scouts of the Columbia Gorge District for a second year of outstanding service. Representing east Vancouver, Camas, Washougal, Battle Ground and all areas in between, these Scouts completed more 16,000 hours of service.

Every pack and troop participated in service from Walk & Knock, Goodwill Goodturn, Christmas tree recycling, litter cleanups, Veterans Day Parades and activities, as well as nearly 50 Eagle Scout projects. They remain as national leaders in Goodturn for America, a national service initiative. From the smallest Tiger Cub to Eagle Scouts to Venturers, they represent the best in Scouting.

Clark County should be proud of these young men and women as they learn about leadership while performing service for our citizens. Soon they will take their places as leaders in our community. Some will join the military, others will go to college, and many will become parents active in the schools and their churches. Southwest Washington is lucky to have great Scouting programs.

Our future is bright as these young men and women will go forth and continue to do their duty to God and country. They deserve a standing ovation for a job well done.

Mike Anderson

Vancouver

Questions linger about multivitamins

The Columbian’s Dec. 27 story “Multivitamins: Most likely myth, not magic” prompts several questions:

1. Who funded the referenced studies?

2. Who stands to benefit by the blanket assertion that a daily multivitamin is useless?

3. Did the multivitamin also include minerals?

4. What formula was used? There are many formulas; not all vitamin or mineral supplements are created equal.

5. What forms of the various vitamins were used? Same for any minerals. Some forms are useless because they are not biologically active. But they are cheap and therefore used in many common multivitamin products. The cheaper the product, the more likely it will, in fact, be useless.

Joyce Fahnestock

Ridgefield

Columnist’s TSA views are off base

Syndicated columnist/self-anointed masculinity expert Margaret Carlson advises those opposing the TSA’s new security regime of body image scanning and/or pat-downs (aka Peep or Grope) to “man up” — as if meekly submitting to whatever government wants in the name of “fighting terrorism” is now the epitome of virility. Carlson’s column — “Criticism of security ignores its benefits, goal” — was published Dec. 26 in The Columbian

Carlson is embarrassed by civilians (supposedly) shirking their part in averting another attack when our soldiers abroad must sacrifice so much more — as if surrendering both our Fourth Amendment rights and elemental norms of decency somehow honors our troops, who both swear oaths and risk injury or death expressly to protect our liberties and our way of life.

Carlson thinks the TSA’s invasiveness makes America safer, as if more selective and discerning security screens or the simple common-sense vigilance of the passengers themselves, wouldn’t be both more effective and less wasteful of money, liberty, and dignity.

Carlson finds collective sacrifice (“we are all in this together”) to these security rubrics alluring — as if the idiotic notion of everyone suffering equally for no good purpose is somehow noble.

While foolishness shouldn’t be politically suppressed, nor should it be socially condoned: Margaret Carlson — please be silent.

John Burke

Vancouver

Bureaucracy absorbs all in its path

Bureaucracy (reference: “Little Shop of Horrors”) starts small; its purpose is education, roads, societal needs. It begins to feed itself. It grows. Eventually, it only feeds itself and consumes all that there is. All around it collapses. It exists solely to feed itself.

All that I ever predicted has come to pass. Corruption, financial collapse, war, infrastructure collapse, etc. Education — don’t blame teachers — education money has been a big feeding trough for everything but education. A lot of teachers are so far in debt due to corruption in the student loan business that they will never see daylight. The money never even came close to where the rubber meets the road. Book publishers, bureaucracy, temple builders, construction, every finger that could get into the education money pie got into it.

Where are we now? Hold on to your hat; the ride ain’t nearly over. Lewis and Clark thought they would see the Pacific Ocean as they crested the Rockies. Well we just crested the Rockies and there ain’t no ocean.

I take no joy in being right in what I predicted years ago for outcomes of poor planning and unintelligent voting. I do agree with some friends; we have the best government money can buy.

Happy New Year.

John Clapp

Woodland

Congress acts like Armageddon is real

The people spoke loud and clear in November.

We are tired of fiscal irresponsibility, but apparently Democrats don’t understand why they were fired and Republicans don’t understand why they were hired. The passage of the Tax Hike Prevention Act of 2010 is once again proof that it doesn’t matter who runs Washington, D.C., they just don’t get it. Besides the fact they keep adding needless earmarks to bills, Congress again, rather than balance the budget and deal with the lack of tax revenues and excessive spending, just keeps creating a larger mess.

American business is primed to explode, but our irresponsible Congress keeps stopping the momentum by postponing new and permanent improvements to the tax codes. Business will not expand with the uncertainty of taxes looming. Whether we do a flat tax or national sales tax, the current income tax is grossly unfair to everyone.

This act reduces the amount of Social Security taxes taken out of employees paychecks to 4.2 percent. We keep hearing Social Security is going broke; how is this reduction in revenue going to help?

I guess it won’t matter, since according to some scholars, the world will end December of 2012 when this act ends. Or at least that seems to be how Congress thinks.

Scott Dalesandro

Vancouver