Letters and comments for March 18, 2011

Raised in Oregon

To the Editor:

I wish to clarify the bill sponsored by Sen. Nelson on tuition rates. The only immigrants who could qualify will be students who have come up through our public schools and have learned a full curriculum just like their peers. They will be fluent in English and able to pass all exams required for college entrance.

This group will not be large or burdensome to our economy. Meanwhile, their parents have contributed many years of hard labor for our state, often working 12 hours or longer because they cannot get unemployment benefits when they are laid off. They will not be able to collect Social Security when they retire.

If these students have lived in Oregon and grown up with our native-born Oregonians, we have no just cause to charge them out-of-state tuition.

Mary Cooke

Cove

No original ideas

To the Editor:

“Computers make excellent servants, but I have no desire to serve under them. “ — Star Trek, “The Ultimate Computer.”

The game show “Jeopardy’’ recently created a sensation by pitting human contestants against a computer called Watson. And no surprise, Watson won! And the debate about mortals versus mechanics, electronics continues.

Something illustrated repeatedly by science fiction writers is “Computers are only as good as the people who build them. They reflect our positive and negative points.”

They can think lightning fast but only what they have been programmed to think. They cannot come up with original ideas, and they cannot feel anything, cannot play hunches.

There is never any substitute for the human brain come what may. Computers make fantastic tools, but never let them become tools for fools!

Ron R. Fischer

Elgin