NK pool
If everyone contributes …
Do we have 6,749 individuals willing to donate $52 to NK Save Our Pool? North Kitsap School District had an enrollment of 6,749 students in 2006-07 school year. To keep the pool open $350,000 needs to be raised before Aug. 15. When I look at that large figure I feel overwhelmed. However, one of the intelligent individuals on the Save Our Pool Committee figured this out. A $52 dollar donation given by 6,749 people makes it less overwhelming!
In 2007, North Kitsap School District had approximately 27,000 registered voters. If 24 percent of those voters donated $52 it would save our pool, so a long-term solution can be created. We will need the community’s help in accomplishing this also.
I know many of us live within a budget. I also know that going to the pool to learn to swim, swim laps, do water aerobics, compete in any of the aquatic sports, and for some, going there to socialize and exercise is well worth the savings on physical and mental health bills! Fifty-two dollars is cheap for that peace of mind.
You can pledge that amount and save it up over the next two months, so let’s see our community hit the 6,749 goal of $52 donations. I know the people of North Kitsap have it in them. Please donate or pledge now!
I am going to write my check! Don’t limit yourself if you can give more, it is tax deductible.
Gas prices
Why are gas
prices going up!?
Well, first of all, the cost of nearly everything goes up when the government prints more money. Where do you think that government stimulus check came from? Yes. it’s new money that the government put into the economy and it makes all U.S. money worth less world wide. Of course imported oil is going to go up. Treasury Bills being sold to China and Japan to the tune of $2.2 billion a day to fund the Iraq war is another way that the government is running the dollar into the ground, and thus making everything cost more.
Supply and demand is also a major factor, and big oil companies have been making record profits as a result of the perceived shortage. I just read a report stating that U.S. oil consumption has gone down over the last two years. Indeed that’s a good thing, but why the record profits?
Because they can, and they are in business to maximize their profits.
As a former prototype automotive mechanic and mechanical engineering student in Dearborn Michigan I have learned first hand how the automotive industry has put profits above the good of the people. The 2006 documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car” offers a small sample of how many companies can work in collusion with each other to increase profits for all. Electric cars have far less parts, lower maintenance costs and no need for gas. Thus, they present a problem with profits for both the automotive and oil companies that have taken over our government. They can buy more Senators and Congressmen than anybody.
In the late 19th century the railroad companies had monopolies on transportation and began to work in collusion with each other, rather than competitively. They began raising their rates to maximize profits without regard for the people. As a result, the Sherman Anti Trust Laws were created to break up the monopolies within the industry. This forced smaller companies to compete with each other, and thus brought prices under control.
Capitalism only works for the good of the people in a free market where there is fair competition. When large international companies buy out all the patent rights for the good inventions and work in collusion with other international companies to maximize their profits something needs to be done about it, or we all lose. Companies are created to make profits. Governments are created to make things fair and equitable. If our government was acting as it should, there wouldn’t be 35,000 lobbyists in D.C. writing our laws and stealing our tax money.
Val Torrens
Don’t blame
the victim
Val Torrens’ June 7 column sees the soaring oil prices and America’s energy crisis as the just desserts of its victims, the American people. According to this “progressive” commentator, we can ignore economist Paul Krugman’s analysis that oil prices tripled during the Bush years primarily because of the Iraq War. We can ignore our Banana Republic currency created during the Bush years. We can ignore the failure to control financial speculators in the oil futures markets. Just blame the vicitm.
So when Americans can’t drive to work because they can’t afford the gas; when food stamps run out after two weeks and the kids starve; when millions face foreclosure in our deregulated nirvana economy; when real wages have been plunging for a generation while the oil companies laugh all the way to the bank; we can just blame the victim.
When we see Americans in Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko” being dumped on Skid Row when they can’t pay their hospital bills; or deciding which fingers to have reattached and which fingers they can’t afford to keep; just blame the victim. It’s their fault.
When the government caters to special interests; when the Supreme Court decides not to count our votes; when our homes become casino chips in the Wall Street merry-go-round; just blame the victim. When the government failed for a generation to improve fuel-efficiency standards and exempted SUVs; when our government falsifies scientific data; when our government provides billions for oil companies’ subsidies while failing to provide funds for alternative energy research; just blame the victim. It’s so simple. And so untrue. Yes, we share the blame, but our government has failed us. Energy-efficient appliances, fuel-efficient cars, energy conserving buildings, funding for mass transit … individual Americans can’t make these changes.
