Cheers: To lawful protest. President Donald Trump’s actions, including his decision to put billionaire industrialist Elon Musk in charge of a Department of Government Efficiency, have drawn protests around the country, including in Vancouver. Some of those protests have targeted Musk’s Tesla auto dealerships, resulting in arson, vandalism and other crimes.
Not here. While protests have been regularly occurring at the Vancouver Tesla dealership on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the demonstrators have — so far — kept it civil. That’s also been the case at other anti-Trump protests at Esther Short Park, the office of U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and the Fort Vancouver National Site. The protesters, a group called Indivisible Greater Vancouver, are loosely aligned with local Democrats. Whether their views are right or not, they are going about it in the right way, exercising their rights without violence or property damage.
Jeers: To a canceled band trip. The 21 members of Clark College’s Jazz Ensemble were set to travel to Cuba last week when they received a letter from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, disallowing the trip because it was “inconsistent with U.S. policy.” While it is unclear why the Trump administration would have policies against learning about Cuban jazz from the experts, and playing music with students from the Amadeo Roldan Music School and the Centro Cultural Fellini, the Clark students did learn lessons about politics, retribution and pettiness.
Cheers: To good driving. Response to a fire, medical emergency or other urgent call needs to be both fast and safe. So Fire District 6’s battalion chiefs recently spent some time with Vancouver Police Department driving experts at Portland International Raceway, then slipped behind the steering wheels of their large red SUVs to practice high-speed driving on the raceway’s closed course. “It is really good training for us because all of us at the battalion chief level, we are by ourselves in the command vehicles, and so we’re driving, we’re talking on the radio, we’re doing multiple things while responding to the call,” explained Nick McCarty, one of the participants.
