Your Voice: Aug. 3, 2022

I don’t know a lot about what always listening to the most appealing music does to your brain or watching what a computer thinks is your favorite type of show on Netflix or YouTube, but I think it’s not healthy for humans done over prolonged periods to not choose more for ourselves. We need to hear things or watch things that we don’t always like. There is something fundamental about being alive and I think that curiosity is lost or dented if we let high tech computer software choose our favorite everything.

It’s been incredibly successful for these companies because it keeps us “engaged” on their websites. The attention economy. I keep picturing myself over time becoming less and less able to seek out a wider range of topics of interest and only being shown things that some technology thinks I want to watch. To me it doesn’t feel healthy anymore and I am seeking out a change for myself.

I’m not the only one concerned about how we are fed information online and I will probably still use some form of AI software going forward with or without me being fully aware. But I can limit my exposure to the famous websites and the various sites they own (Google, Facebook, Amazon etc). I don’t think anyone fully knows what prolonged exposure to this AI software does to us, but I’m tired of participating without giving my full approval to this big internet experiment and am making efforts in my own life to take back control of how I’m fed information online.

Avery Hoyt

White Salmon

Better vote Yetter

I am moved to write this letter because today, Senate Republicans blocked the PACT Act, a bill that would have expanded health care to 3.5 million veterans exposed to and sickened by toxic burn pits — open pits where all kinds of nasty things like plastics, chemicals, and medical waste, were burned.

You would think there ought to be 10 Senate Republicans willing to do the right thing for the men and women who face life-threatening disease as a result of their military service. Apparently not.

The PACT Act already passed the House, with strong bi-partisan support (256-174).

But I’d like to remind voters in Congressional District 2 that our congressman, Cliff Bentz, was one of those who voted against the PACT Act in the House. And it wasn’t his only vote against veterans. He also voted against expanding GI Bill rights to National Guard and Reserve members, and against the EVEST Act to automatically enroll eligible veterans in the VA health care system.

If this is as unacceptable to you as it is to me, please join me in supporting Joe Yetter for Congress. Joe Yetter is a veteran AND a physician, and we can count on him to honor our nation’s sacred obligation to care for those who protect and defend America.

JoeForOregon.com

#BetterVoteYetter

Debi Ferrer

The Dalles

Good water for good food

I manage a small, local grocery store based in Hood River, Ore. Our mission is to transform the way people and communities grow, produce, and access food.

We do this to help build a robust regional food economy that enriches and connects the community, making it more economically and environmentally resilient.

We work with farms and ranches from all over Oregon and around the Pacific Northwest to provide our communities with great food to eat. This is food that is good for the consumer, the environment, and the people who grow and produce it.

This means starting with a consistent, clean source of water. Advocating for the protection of clean and reliable water sources is part of our core values. This is why Sen. Ron Wyden’s proposed River Democracy Act is so exciting to us.

In a time of rapid climate change, water and food shortages are becoming more commonplace around the world. We are lucky to live in a country where we have yet to see these effects on a large scale, and in a part of the U.S. that typically has abundant sources of natural clean water.

We must not take this for granted, and we must protect our sources of water as our lives depend on them. Sen. Wyden’s bill proposes to triple the amount of protected waterways in Oregon under the Wild and Scenic River system.

To put it in perspective, this will bring the amount of rivers under protection in Oregon from 2% to 6%. This is a giant step in the right direction as the rivers included are some of the most loved streams in the region.

Streams like Boulder Creek, the West Fork and Lake Branch Hood River, among others, deserve all the safeguards congress can afford them.

Reliable food sources depend on reliable water sources. Clean food sources depend on clean water sources. We as a people depend on all of these things. We need to make sure the River Democracy Act gets passed this year.

Lauren Heumann

Hood River

Fair contract now

I’ve been a labor and delivery nurse for more than 25 years. I’m now delivering the babies of babies I delivered in my first years at Providence Hood River. I take great pride in the care I provide to local families.

I also care about the health and safety of my coworkers. Coming out of the pandemic, nurses have never needed a fair contract more to allow my colleagues and me to care for ourselves so we can continue caring for our community.

We are hurting. There is a new term to describe nurses’ suffering: Moral distress. It happens when we know what care a patient needs but we’re unable to provide it.

There is no compensation that can undo the moral distress compounded by, but not exclusive to, working on health care’s frontlines over the last two years.

Nonetheless, we need better wages, benefits and safety to help us recruit and retain nurses so everyone in our community has access to excellent care now and in the future.

At Providence Hood River, nurses are seeking higher wages because we demonstrate excellence and compassion which exceeds the care standards of our Portland-area colleagues, yet our wages are consistently $8,000 to $18,000 lower than our Portland colleagues. This disparity makes living within 30 minutes of Hood River nearly impossible.

Additionally, due to the corporate structure of the Providence system, no independent bargaining unit can meaningfully improve our health care benefits. It is painfully ironic that Providence’s frontline workers do not have the best health care insurance benefits in the Gorge.

Most importantly, we are asking Providence for the basic safety standards we need to protect our patients, our coworkers and our families. Our top priority is improving care by addressing Providence’s staffing crisis and raising safety standards to recruit and retain caregivers.

Nurses are fighting to protect everyone. You can support us by contacting Providence Hood River’s hospital administrators by voicemail or email and asking them to work with nurses and agree to a fair contract now.

Nurses and patients can’t afford to wait.

Davina Craig

Mosier

The not so Supreme Court

In overturning Roe vs. Wade, the regressive extreme Republican jurists violated five amendments to the U.S. Constitution — the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and the 14th. When they chose to ignore that many parts of our country’s founding document, then the supreme court became just another extreme faction of the Republican party and its regressive agenda.

Our so-called Supreme Court has become worthless in its current political state.

What would our society look like if we all got to pick and choose only those parts of the Constitution we like and ignore the rest? I don’t think it would be pretty.

Gary Fields

Hood River