Letters to the editor: Career readiness, midterms, Paulette Jordan, Idaho Power

Career readiness

Many people don’t realize the process that takes place to get food from the farm to our tables, but my son Ethan is learning just that thanks to his career readiness classes at his online high school, Idaho Technical Career Academy (ITCA). These classes are exposing Ethan to new skills to help him find the perfect career path.

In his agriculture classes, Ethan is learning topics that aren’t taught in typical schools, like watersheds and weather patterns, which both have an important influence on crop growth. Ethan’s also learning about the equipment used in food processing and the steps taken to ensure our food is safe.

The knowledge and skills that he’s gained at such a young age thanks to his career readiness classes will surely set Ethan apart when searching for a job or applying to colleges. It’s encouraging to know that my son is prepared for wherever his future takes him.

Midterm election

This midterm election is over. Democrats won some and lost some but presaged that changes were happening after almost two years of Trump hijinks, no real leadership nor governing. Watching parts of the so-called press conference the day after the election (a bad circus with a thin-skinned clown) caused me to find that there are many words beginning with “d” that appropriately describe the golden-haired wonder, words such as divisive, duplicitous, deranged, demented, dotard, debunked, disdainful; there are two words (beginning with “d”) that will never be used to describe him now or in the future and certainly would not have described him in the past. Those words are decent and decency. They can’t be used in conjunction with Trump under any circumstances, not even a eulogy.

Paulette Jordan

No clearer sign of a political party at risk of becoming inbred, out-of-touch, and self-defeating than the barrage of attacks-from-within against Democrat gubernatorial candidate Paulette Jordan, intended to ensure the young Native woman would lose by at least as many points as the usual old white millionaire nominees do.

Andrus-era stalwarts expended vast amounts of oxygen and ink painting Jordan as lazy, corrupt, out-of-touch, privileged, insular, self-regarding, abusive, and hopelessly incompetent. Never quite clear whether these were meant as anti-Indian stereotypes, anti-women stereotypes, or both.

And what was Jordan’s actual sin? Energizing too many new and cross-over voters, and thereby upsetting the apple-cart of a party with one of the lowest share of legislative seats in the country and unable to win anything statewide.

Those who served as delegates for Bernie Sanders at the 2016 Democratic state convention saw this coming. New ideas? No thanks, get lost. Energized young and first-time voters? Not interested.

Idaho Power

On Nov. 10, the Idaho Statesman published the story “Idaho utility’s lawsuit against EPA involving salmon on hold” by Keith Ridler. Idaho Power claims that the change they advocate could “... reduce the cost of electricity, the company said, saving customers up to $100 million over 50 years.” So that means it could save $2 million a year, which is still a big number. However, based on the number of customers cited in the article, 534,000, that means this change would save each rate-payer less than $4 a year, or to put it another way, less than 35 cents a month. Assuming the numbers in the article are correct, it seems like Idaho Power is just trying to influence public opinion with scary big numbers that don’t actually represent the impact it will have on its customers. Don’t be fooled.