Letters: RSD tech plans, Pasco homeless site, open primaries problem and more | Feb. 9

RSD technology plans concern her

I am concerned about Richland School District’s “Technology Initiative.” Translation: a Chromebook for every child.

On the website, it states how its goal is for every child to have “constant access to technology,” and “teachers will move away from paper and pencil and rely more on technology-based tools.” Are these positive goals?

To concerned parents, educators and community members, I would like to pose a few questions. What are the effects of screen time (educational or not) on a child’s development? How much time on screens are they already experiencing outside of school? What are the effects of less “paper and pencil” on a child’s fine motor skills and learning? Are test scores improving? Is this replacing time to play outside, free-write or read? In what other ways could taxpayer dollars be spent? Are Chromebooks used to look at non-educational websites? How much time per day is spent using Chromebooks?

I am in support of technology education and skills. Our students should learn how to type, use Microsoft programs and have access to computer labs and computer science classes. What worries me is the constant and casual use of technology as a babysitter in our young children’s classrooms.

Small reactors are great idea

In regard to Annette Cary’s article about installing another reactor near the Tri-Cities: The U.S. Navy has been installing small reactors in submarines and aircraft carriers for more than 60 years. The big carriers contain four, six or more modular ones. Sailors have been living in close quarters in subs and more than 5,000 live on the big carriers. Using this well-developed technology to supply energy seems obvious.

Why has this taken so long and why wouldn’t it replace coal, natural gas, an oil fired plants?

East Pasco wrong site for homeless

Pasco City Council members were to surplus city land in East Pasco, and to immediately sell that land to Catholic Charities/Pasco Haven, LLC, to shelter the “chronically homeless” in a 52 units (of a) four-story facility adjacent to a new residential neighborhood.

Due largely to the protest by homeowners and a petition with 350 signatures, four of seven council members voted “No” to prevent “concentrating the problems” of the chronically homeless into the tranquil lives of families in east Pasco. They voted right for the right reasons.

Before the Fair Housing Act of 1968, east Pasco was designated by public policy makers as the location to segregate minorities. Poor public services were normal i.e., no paved streets, sewers, streetlights, sidewalks, parks. Railroad tracks, truck routes, junk yards, industrial parks and a toxic waste dump still enclose the area. Locating permanent housing there for the chronically homeless would have continued the segregation policy.

Major systemic causes of homelessness remain unaddressed, i.e., mental illness, substance abuse, skyrocketing rents, racism and greed. Catholic Charities’ excellent works with marginalized groups are well documented. However, given other viable options, locating the chronically homeless in east Pasco should not be the local solution to this national problem.

Food drives help feed TCs hungry

I’m a member of the Hindu Society of Eastern Washington (HSEW) and I want to thank the Tri-Cities Food Bank for sponsoring the HSEW’s food drives for more than a decade. In 2019, the HSEW raised more than 3,000 pounds of food for the Tri-Cities Food Bank. It is important to recognize this because there are many poor and homeless people in the area who don’t have enough money to buy food. By doing these food drives, we served all of those hungry mouths.

Open primaries are open to abuse

Conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt illustrated the problem I have with open primary elections when he said on “Meet the Press” that he will vote for Bernie Sanders in the Virginia Democratic primary but will vote for Donald Trump in the general election. Does he really prefer the avowed socialist in the Democratic race, or does he think Bernie is least likely to beat Donald Trump? Should a conservative Republican help choose a Democratic candidate?

We don’t get the best people running for the presidency because we no longer allow the parties to choose their own candidates. More than 20 states, including Washington, have open primaries. They are open to mischief — particularly in this election year when Trump is the presumptive Republican candidate and the GOP is even cancelling primaries in some states. In 2012, when incumbent Barack Obama was a shoo-in, did Democrats try to influence the Republicans’ choice? This year, will Republican voters cast primary votes for the perceived weakest candidate in the Democratic race?

One argument for open primaries is that they allow independents to participate. But there is nothing to prevent them from declaring a party affiliation if they wish to vote in a primary.

CO2 fixes need ‘big solutions’

The adoption of capitalism, to varying degrees around the world in the past century, has dramatically decreased poverty, doubled the world population several times, skyrocketed the middle class (about 400 million each in China and India), while requiring lots and lots of power. CO2 emissions have also skyrocketed.

Here are some suggestions to reduce annual CO2 emissions, within a year, by about half the current level, hopefully enough to stop “climate warming.” Eliminate half the people in the world and carbon sequester their bodies – meaning really, really deep burial. Remove 2 to 3 billion people from middle class ranking to poverty. (Have) Everyone in the whole world use no energy every other day.

The whole world economy would collapse for any of these options. Human misery would skyrocket. But CO2 emissions would be reduced to the 1920s rate.

Not so dire, five- to 10-year out options: Switch to nuclear power (500+ large plants for USA alone) and/or plant a billion trees where they can continue to grow.

The proposed Inslee carbon tax plans would be as effective as emptying the Columbia River with a measuring cup. Big problems require big solutions.

Sorting out our Bill of Rights

The Second Amendment states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” When the Bill of Rights was written, the colonists desired to avoid having a standing professional army, as had the British, rather preferring a militia comprising private citizens. Today we have an established army to preserve our free state. Is a militia no longer relevant? To solve this dilemma, interpretation of the Second Amendment shifted to bearing arms as a personal right rather than a communal security right.

Discussion of the Second Amendment now focuses on what military-type weapons are allowed to individuals. But it is concerning that when an individual exercises this right to bear such arms, others feel unsafe. The increasing prevalence of arms, and the hostile exchanges around this subject, cannot be denied. By the extreme exercising of this right, others are being denied their “pursuit of happiness.” A society in which many, even a majority, feel unsafe is not the one envisioned when the Bill of Rights was written. “We the people” means just that, not just individual empowerment.

This story was originally published February 9, 2020 at 12:01 AM with the headline "Letters: RSD tech plans, Pasco homeless site, open primaries problem and more | Feb. 9."