Letters

Student workers don’t need to pay

Student group leaders should consider themselves lucky to get paid at all [“SFC makes poor decision” editorial, Nov. 2]. While their classmates struggle with demanding bosses, jobs that are not flexible, and no one caring at all that you have midterms this week, student groupies apparently are beholden only to their social group. There is a mass of students who pay for these student fee-funded stipend positions, but will never have the time to so much as read The Vanguard, much less have anyone even consider a 5 percent nonperformance-based raise for them. And with the drop in real wages all the job market is experiencing due to the rise of the cost of living, those really suffering are those that can’t even make it to college. But you just keep worrying about yourselves, student groupies. Welcome to the real world.

Alex D’Aurora

Applause for Portland program

It is nice to see that the collaboration between PDX and PSU is expanding and considered successful [“Sustainable skies,” Nov. 6]. I had noted a story in The New York Times about Seattle’s waste management program. I think Portland needs more national recognition of its more advanced program. I’ve met some of the PSU students in this program, and a more dedicated bunch I have not found.

Richard BluePSU alumnus

OSPIRG over-funded

Hear, hear! [“How does OSPIRG spend your money?” Nov. 2]. I am running a new student group and have a meager $800 to put together events all year for recruitment, advertising, equipment, food, supplies, etc., etc., etc; they are sucking up such a huge amount of our student fees, and what do we see for it as PSU students? Although I may not totally advocate for them to get no funding at all, I certainly believe that they shouldn’t be taking a lion’s share of the pot either. Having the state program leeching off student fees is simply gross negligence, and that needs to stop.

Alicyn

OSPIRG makes me so angry

Oh my god, this ticks me off [“How does OSPIRG spend your money?” Nov. 2]. This is my fourth year at Portland State, and this is the first time that I’ve seen their expenses itemized beyond the token 10 or 20 bucks they’ve itemized for “printing expenses.” Every year they’ve gotten zero-funded for a short time when it became obvious that they are not a PSU student group, but the students who work for them yelled and screamed, and they’d soon get their hands on over $100,000 of our student fees that all goes off campus. A majority of the money went toward paying the salaries of non-students. I hope this is the year that we get OSPIRG’s hands off of our student fees for good.

Anonymous

Roads are for sharing

Just because passenger cars are the fastest type of road traffic doesn’t mean that they earn a free pass to dominate the road. Several passenger cars will often back up behind school buses, tractor semi-trailers, city buses, dump trucks, mail trucks and other types of vehicles. All are entitled to fair, respectful sharing of the road.

Anonymous

Avoiding close calls

Your idea that “close calls” [“Bikers beware,” Nov. 2] would be minimized if cyclists ride as far to the right as possible is completely preposterous. This is exactly when cars will try to squeeze by a cyclist and graze them in the process (also, have you looked at the sections of road within a meter of the edge-that’s most often a death trap waiting to happen!) At any rate, especially in the downtown area with the lights being synchronized for cyclist speeds, I see no problem with taking the entire lane. This makes the cyclist more visible and would therefore avoid such “close calls.”

Anonymous

A slightly sarcastic biker speaks

Throughout most of downtown Portland, the traffic-light timing is such that bicycle speeds are about as fast as a car can go, and the rush-hour traffic is such that I am often waiting behind cars than the other way around. However, I won’t complain too much if your car cannot get out of my way, because you obviously have some kind of health issue that prevents you from riding yourself, or you’re transporting organs to the hospital for transplant, or you really think that ol’ ice cap needs to melt anyway, or maybe it’s a good idea to keep our population down by killing 42,000 people a year (which is what cars do in this country; it’s over a million a year worldwide).

Something else to think about when you wait a couple of extra seconds for a bike to safely navigate a narrow road: The roads in this country were first paved because of bicycles. Cars came later, and only in the fifties were they allowed to become the dominant form of transport in this country. And we have much to thank: suburban sprawl, pollution, death and destruction every day on our highways, and a nation of overweight, unhealthy drivers.

My bicycle is a vehicle which I shall operate as one, as I am entitled to do so by Oregon law, and I’ll feel good about doing it, too. I hope you feel good driving your car, and not even a little guilty, because, really, you shouldn’t. It’s OK-I’m sure you really could only do that trip in a car.

Anonymous