Portland State Magazine Spring 2009

Sustainable beef? "Sustainability: More "lhan Just Green" (winter 2009 issue), like so many discussions of sustainability, misses something rather important. A good example is che description of so-call ed sustainable beef. We arc cold chis beef is sustainable because no hormones or antibiotics are used and cattle graze on the open range. Perhaps this makes chem organic, but sustainable? 'There is no discussion of the native herbivore species char cattle displace, the large amounts of water needed to grow cattle, their effect on riparian areas, soil (e.g., compaction) and native grasses, and the slaughter of preda– tors to make the world safe for such dim-wined domestics. Perhaps sustainability is being defined to exclude these factors, bur if so sustainability means very little because it will do little or nothing to reduce the high rates of anthropogenic extinction and the degradation of ecosystems. Dt1vidJohns '76, McMinnville Real cost of transportation John Charles's assertion chat "motor vehicles pay their own way" is patently false (lerrer in winter 2009 issue). Highway vehicles receive significantly more subsidies, mostly indirect, than other form of transportation. Gasoline taxes do not come close ro pay– ing the cost of building and maintaining the roadway infrastructure. The American Lung Association stated chat if a tax were levied co suf– ficiently cover the medical costs from gasoline fumes alone, it would be 40 co 45 cents per gallon. And char does not include pollution-related damage to infrastructure, the high cost of highway trauma, roadway related erosion, pollution ro water systems, inflated sewerage costs from roadway runoff, costs of law enforcement and fire suppression, gunboat diplomacy to protect our addiction to oil ... need I go on? Dan L. Mcfarling, Beaverton Porcland Scare Magazine wants to hearfrom you. E-mailyour comments to psumag@pdx.edu or send them to Porcland Stace Magazine, Office of University Communicatiom, PO Box 751, Portland OR 97207-0751. We reserve the right to editfor space and clarity. 4 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2009 Are you FBI material? HIGH-TECH CAREER opportunities await you at: the first 5-digitprime of Fibonacci sequence. com. Yes, this is so difficult char it's cryptic ro many of us, and it's meant to be. Port– land State advertising students are using chis on signs, posters, and handbills in a campaign to recruit IT applicants for the FBI. Ir is based on a successful Google recruitment campaign. The Federal Bureau of Investigation asked students in Prof. Don Dickinson's advertising campaigns class to help in its recruitment efforts. Nationally, the FBI is in need of 3,000 employees in special– ized fields such as IT (information tech– nology) , engineering, intelligence, and languages. The local Bureau office sent agents to talk with the students about its needs and set a campaign budget at an underwhelming $2,500. But the students were up for the chal– lenge. They created a 94-page guidebook that can be used anyplace in che country. "Their campaign is off-campus ori– ented, grassroots, and very guerilla," says Dickinson with obvious pride. "Ir is not even specific to Portland. We call it our plug-and-play plan." This is the first year the FBI has received a student plan that reaches into professional and cultural communities. Thar's nor to say chat the PSU students didn't include the University in their recruitment materials. In fact, they wore FBI shirts and talked up the Bureau at a campus career fair. The Fibonacci sequence? Ir is being used for recruitment near the high-tech companies west of Porrland. If you're familiar with its 5-digir prime, then maybe you are FBI material.