A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
Montrose Daily Press, May 21, on gas prices:
We’re a few days from the Memorial Day Weekend. It’s the kickoff to the summer tourism season. With it, the ritual of rising fuel prices. According to the Lundberg Letter, fuel prices, adjusted for inflation, are at the highest ever in the U.S.
According to AAA, the average gallon of gas in the U.S. is $3.18, up 32 cents from a year ago. In Colorado, it’s $3.22, up 40 cents from 2006. Over in Aspen, it’s more than four bucks a gallon.
The public continues to purchase gas in the usual amounts, but what’s interesting is that a recent CNN poll says that only one in five Americans say they’re impacted. That raises the question: Are we used to $3 gas?
Further, oil/fuel industry analysts believe that in the long term, higher prices will be a part of the norm and how Americans should “get used to it.” Some U.S. refineries have been off-line with renovations and accidents, and the ongoing instability in the Middle East is cited for increasing prices. U.S. inventories are low as well, which doesn’t bode well for any price relief. Meanwhile, U.S. oil companies are socking away once again record profits. Exxon/Mobil made $9.3 billion in the last quarter; Chevron, $4.7 billion.
One irony. Paul Wolfowitz is the former Bush Administration official who recently resigned from the World Bank and is generally cited as one of the primary architects for the Iraqi War during his days at the Pentagon. Wolfowitz told a Congressional committee five years ago how the invasion of Iraq “would pay for itself” in oil revenues, and would insure low fuel prices for U.S. drivers. Gas prices today are $1.60 higher per gallon, on average, than pre-invasion.
What’s really needed, as we’ve said before, is a continued push for alternative fuel sources and the reduction of dependence on foreign oil. Yet, energy independence from traditional fuels and moving to alternatives like ethanol is “naive,” says John Hofmeister, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. Then again, his company made almost $7 billion in profits in the last quarter. Regardless of how Big Oil feels, the shift is attractive, particularly every time one fills his or her tank.
Editorial:
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The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo., May 18, on the notion that talks with Iran are worth a try:
We have modest expectations but cautious optimism about U.S.-Iran talks on the security situation in Iraq, based on Winston Churchill’s observation that it’s better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. It may all come to nothing. The Iranians may only be interested in posturing and pontificating. And there’s a chance the situation could somehow backfire. But given the collision course the two countries are on, and the terrible consequences if the situation escalates into armed conflict, a diplomatic meeting is certainly worth the risk.
The first bilateral talks on trying to reduce the chaos in Iraq are scheduled for May 28 in Baghdad. The announcement comes even as the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded that Iran has solved certain technological problems and is beginning to enrich uranium on a larger scale than before—though still far from the scale required to produce uranium enriched enough for a nuclear weapon, apparently.
The Bush administration has declared it will talk with Iran only about the security situation in Iraq, and not about any wider issues, such as Iranian nuclear efforts or the deplorable human-rights situation in Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran is “ready and prepared” for talks with the United States, though he offered no details about the scope of the discussions.
It’s a nose-holding situation, no doubt. Evidence points to Iran’s involvement in stirring up the insurgency and possibly providing the bomb technology that’s killing and maiming Americans—so their hands, and motives, aren’t clean. Iran also hopes to have a Shia-dominated, potentially friendly government in control of Iraq. So, at least on the surface, the Iranians don’t seem very interested in helping advance American interests in the region.
But for all Ahmadinejad’s bluster, the Iranian regime’s hold on power is potentially precarious. There’s unrest, including an active resistance movement, inside the mullahcracy. Younger Iranians and students are said to be chafing under the regime’s social and political restrictions. State management of Iran’s huge oil reserves has led to declining revenues, and, because of a lack of refinery capacity, Iran actually has to import gasoline. There are other potential pressure points to exploit.
If Iran and the United States are realistic, they could take steps toward a reasonably stable Iraq that is not a threat to its neighbors or the rest of the world. This could lead to a reduced U.S. presence in the region, which would be in the interest of both nations.
It would be even more helpful if these talks eventually led to consideration of reopening diplomatic and commercial relations. One can understand the emotional appeal of refusing to recognize countries of which one disapproves strongly, but the Godfather knew better. Keep your friends close, he said, and your enemies closer.
The United States is justifiably concerned that Iran wants to be the dominant power in the Middle East and seems bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. Some Americans are so concerned about this that they back preventive military action to disrupt Iran’s nuclear programs.
However, America knows less about what’s really going on in Iran than we knew before beginning the invasion of Iraq—and our lack of knowledge in that case had catastrophic consequences. One way to help remedy this would be to re-establish an embassy in, and commercial relations with, Tehran. This would offer opportunities to gather more reliable intelligence, through open and clandestine means.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration trapped itself in a box by declaring it would never negotiate directly with Iran unless Iran stopped enriching uranium. That makes it almost impossible to change course without looking like a U.S. cave-in. Ahmadinejad’s irresponsible anti-American rants also have painted him into a corner.
We would expect no major breakthroughs from these talks. But even if they reduce tensions a bit, the risk is worth it.
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STATE/REGIONAL:
Rocky Mountain News, Denver, May 21, on a recent recommendation involving University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill:
For anyone who cares about the integrity of American higher education, recent reports that the University of Colorado’s Privilege and Tenure Committee has recommended professor Ward Churchill be suspended for a year but not fired is a blow to the stomach. And bad news for CU, too.
Don’t get us wrong. We don’t believe for a moment that President Hank Brown will actually adopt the committee’s advice and let Churchill remain as a permanent blight on the Boulder campus. At the end of this month Brown will, we remain confident, concur with recommendations made last year by the then-acting chancellor and the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct. They said Churchill should be fired.
So why is the latest recommendation such a depressing development? Because it undermines the united front that CU—that any university—should present to a member of its community who indulges in academic misconduct that includes plagiarism and the falsification of the historical record. Secondly, because the recommendation is yet another piece of evidence that a significant portion of the CU faculty rejects all meaningful accountability.
After all, the committee freely acknowledges the gravity of Churchill’s transgressions. It concludes that he “committed multiple acts of plagiarism, fabrication and falsification.” It says his behavior falls “below minimum standards of professional integrity”—the minimum, mind you—and therefore “requires severe sanctions.”
And yet for three of the five committee members, a one-year suspension qualifies as “severe.”
Why such leniency? Because while the Churchill case “shows misbehavior,” the committee concluded, it is “not the worst possible misbehavior.”
We readily grant the point. A professor could behave worse than Churchill did. So? People are fired all of the time for behavior that is patently intolerable but that could have been worse.
Come to think of it, most people in prison could have behaved worse. The question is whether the crime they committed warrants incarceration, not whether they sank as low as they possibly could go.
A community of scholars should not tolerate a fraud in its midst. It should expel him as it would a saboteur.
In Churchill’s case, the “multiple acts of plagiarism, fabrication and falsification” are compounded by a total, arrogant state of denial; he does not even consider what he did to be wrong, much less pledge to reform his ways. His behavior is likely to continue, in other words, if he returns to his old haunts.
Unfortunately, the vote of the Privilege and Tenure Committee is not the first indication that some professors, and perhaps many, would raise the bar of tenured job security so high as to shield them from any meaningful accountability.
Even the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct, which thankfully voted last year in favor of firing Churchill, included three dissenting votes of nine cast. And those dissents occurred despite the fact that the committee concluded Churchill had engaged in a “pattern of repeated, intentional misrepresentation.”
Perhaps even more disappointing, only one of five members of the investigative committee that first documented Churchill’s gross misconduct in a lengthy report last year recommended termination. The others preferred varying periods of suspension without pay.
Churchill’s case already proves how hard it is to take decisive action even in what should be an easy case: a tenured professor whose gross misconduct is conceded by all but a crackpot fringe. The process ensures that the case drags on for years. Committee after committee must weigh in with an opinion, as well as individual university officials, before any recommendation ultimately goes to the regents. All the while costs skyrocket.
If Churchill isn’t fired, it will signal that CU has no interest in policing itself and that it puts the lifetime tenure of its faculty above its own reputation. It will devalue the truly remarkable research and writing done by so many other faculty members. It’s too bad that a majority on the Privilege and Tenure Committee can’t understand that. Thank heaven they don’t have the final word.
Editorial: ,2777,DRMN—23964—5 546890,00.html
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The Denver Post, May 20, on plans for a new wind farm near Sterling:
Everybody’s gabbing about the potential of renewable energy these days, but all that talk often seems to be in the future tense.
So, it’s worth noting when a concrete step is taken toward a more diversified energy supply, such as the new wind farm near Sterling. It will be built, start to finish, in just a year’s time.
It makes one wonder why Colorado didn’t make a bigger push to develop wind energy sooner.
The 400-megawatt Peetz Table project will power 120,000 homes through Xcel Energy, which will buy the entire electric output. Xcel also is purchasing energy from three other wind farms, enabling it to meet the state’s new renewable energy standards several years early. Those standards require power companies to generate 20 percent of their power from renewable energy by 2020.
Colorado is the 11th windiest state in the nation, by some measures, and wind is a commodity without a price tag, unlike coal, oil, uranium and other fuels. The wind farm also will provide a boost to the local economy, because the people on whose land the 267 windmills are located will be paid a fee and can still use their land for farming. And the farm will provide more than 300 jobs during the construction phase and 20 jobs once the project is completed.
Gov. Bill Ritter and the legislature deserve credit for helping move Colorado into the renewable energy age in a serious way. During his campaign for governor, Ritter vowed to create a new energy economy. He got a good start during this past legislative session. Lawmakers passed at least eight bills that will enhance renewable energy development in addition to another dozen efficiency and conservation laws.
The Peetz Table project is just one good sign. Vestas, the world’s leading maker of wind turbines, announced in March that it will build a turbine factory in Windsor that could employ more than 400 people. As the industry ramps up, there will be other trickle-down benefits, such as employment in businesses that serve the industry and increased sales tax revenues.
Renewable energy sources have great potential to protect the environment and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But Coloradans should remember that one wind farm doesn’t change everything, and that future energy needs will have to be met with a combination of renewables, conservation and traditional energy sources.
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