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I severely disagree with Sobriety Checkpoints. I moved to Oregon from the state of Georgia 5 years ago, where the police force uses Sobriety Checkpoints. In my opinion, they don't actually work as intended. They are a huge pain in the rear for ordinary citizens, take  up a lot of time and they make me feel like I live behind the iron curtain (where I had a job for a short time). The points are usually easy to spot from a distance away, even if you don't have friends that can let you know where it is -- so that if a drunk driver, for example, is aware of their state they can turn around and avoid it. 

I feel that Sobriety Checkpoints are lazy policing and pick apart normal law abiding citizens for things like break lights out and other silliness. I realize one should have a car on the road in good working order, but having lived in an area where Sobriety Checkpoints ARE used, they seem grossly ineffective and border on harassment. If the state legislature is looking for something to use to improve crime rates further, perhaps they can look into implementing courses for the police force that promote better communication skills, since Portland police are especially infamous for shooting first and asking questions later or not at all.

Thank you. 

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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I feel very much like I've just gone through this myself and am starting to come out on the other side. I am now 30 years old. Growing up in the eighties, I feel that it was a very different economic climate than what is currently on the table. I was part of the technology push that occurred for high school graduates of the later 90's and early 2000's. (I was class of 1997.) What happened was that there was this huge push for kids that tested with the correct aptitude and IQ to become scientists and engineers. What wasn't tested for was whether any of these children were actually really into these fields.... so I went and got my engineering degree and was vastly unhappy. I felt like my spirit was crushed. I was making enough money and worked for a couple fortune 500 companies and liked the field even less. Finally, after going to teach English in Hungary in 2006 and moving to Portland from Atlanta in 2007, I met my wonderful and supportive partner who told me to stop doing things that made me unhappy. So that's what I did and am in the process of changing my career from engineer to working artist. I will go to PNCA for a degree that I really want in 2012.

I feel that perhaps more valid career counseling should be available to high school students either through their own school or an outside resource. That option was not available to me at a time when I believe it would have made a difference in my life. Perhaps if it had been, this quarter-life crisis would not have been a topic of discussion today. With the deflation of the economy, it presents a much more visceral look into how we as human beings shape our world. This is an insight that was not so obvious a decade or two ago. We, as up-and-coming world shapers, must really put a great lot of thought into what we do and where we go, because all these 'unlimited' types of resources available to us as children are very limited resources available to us as  adults -- whether these resources are water, affordable housing or fluffy jobs.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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