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Show A6 Wednesday, April 2, 2008 Vernal Express onoomi 0 p) f"- VERNAL Expre 0 P I N I 0 N ' v. TWO GREAT LOCATIONS FOR LIBRARY OFFERING ByKevmAshbv Express Publisher Sometimes what seems like a great idea is not always the right one. Several months ago, I wrote an editorial touting tout-ing the benefits of expanding the Uintah County Library system to a new building that would be located on the just beginning UBATCUSU campus across from Uintah High School. And there are still many reasons that make this a good idea. First of all, because of the money securing abilities of Rob Behunan and his staff at USU and the Uintah Impact Mitigation Special Service District, there is momentum is securing enough donated money to build a multi-million-dollar library facility. If construction costs are eliminated, county officials could then focus their efforts on designing a library for Uintah County's masses, including USU students. It would be fun creating a bricks and mortar learning center that would serve young and old alike with books, magazines, audio and video, computers and Web. ' Of course, plans would include easy access and lots of parking which would be a great improvement to the existing building. Plus, most importantly in my opinion, there would be a forced intermingling inter-mingling of our library visiting youth with a higher education campus. When our youth feel comfortable roaming around a college campus, it will help them see the benefits of continuing their education after high school. More time on campus allows younger students to feel the spirit of belonging to a society of post-high school learners. And in this case, that society would be made up of a unified Uintah Basin Applied Technology College and USU student body - the best of two worlds. But, as with most good ideas, there is another angle to this "great idea" that needs to be exposed and understood. There is no question that our current library facility is too small. Patron counts are increasing as are the demands for books, videos and discs. Our interest in library services is only going to increase in the coming years and already space is limited in its downtown location. But not for long. Within the next couple of years, the county complex in Vernal will find its halls and offices on the empty side after several county and state agencies, courts and others departments will move out to new facilities, such as the proposed safety complex. When this happens there will be plenty of room for the library to move its offices and maybe some of the services to the present county building, leaving space to expand book and DVD offerings. To go along with this plan, if the present jail building were torn down, additional parking would help all of downtown. With this plan, the library would remain being an anchor attraction to Vernal's downtown. Library improvements improve-ments to the existing building would be a very important and worthwhile part of downtown's future success and stability. To go along with desired downtown viability, we also need to expect that our elected officials spend tax money wisely and not raise taxes unless absolutely necessary. Expanding and remodeling the downtown library seems to be a way for our commissioners to prove this test of government frugality. In the end, there are at least two viable options on the table when discussing library improvements. I applaud our elected officials for seeing the need for improved and expanded library services. Good luck with the final decision deci-sion concerning where these services will be rendered. FIRE SEASOH CALLS FOR CAUTION By lis Bowen Express Associate Editor This week, fire officials in Uintah and Duchesne counties released the requirements for spring cleanup burning as well as agricultural burning. But even before the requirements were printed in the newspaper, Vernal firefighters responded to a fire Saturday north of Vernal - the first field fire for the year. And as we do at the start of every fire season, we hope that the fires will be few. Last year, the Basin looked on as communities were threatened and evacuated. And we pulled together in the aftermath of the North Neola Fire to mourn the loss of three lives and mitigate extensive property damage. Heavy snows this winter will help to recover the areas scorched by the flames last year. The land will repair, property will be rebuilt, but the fatalities of last year drove home the reality of the devastation caused by wildfires. We learned after the fires were out that it was not intentional and there was not indication of negligence. So while not all wildfires can be avoided, Uintah Basin residents this year should be all the more mindful of fire regulations. DIM. yflPfSfc , 1 -N - r. rut. imumum Mewt Web opinion poll Each week the Vernal Express offers an online poll to its readers. To participate in the poll, visit www.vernal.com and click on the opinion link. Polls are not scientific and represent the opinions of voluntary Internet users. New polls are posted weekly and printed results represent voting as of Tuesday morning. If you have an idea for an opinion poll, e-mail It to editorvernal.com. Results for this week Do you think the Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo is an asset to our community? a) Yes. (83) b) No. (17) A Question for next week How many years will it tuke before there is affordable housing for middle- to lower-income families. a) 1 to 2 years b) 2 to 5 years c) 5 to 10 years d) More than 10 years. BERTHA BUTTERBEAN Acronym overload By Dana Colovich 1 j Guest Writer There is an online dictionary dic-tionary of acronyms, ac-ronyms, and "initialisms" which boasts a database of more than 410,000 entries. en-tries. By the way, I am here to tell you that 290,000 of them were forged right here in Vernal. The Web site's tag line says it "exists purely to unravel the bewildering range of acronyms that impact daily life." So why do acronyms exist? Isn't that a little like regression? We hear the "lack of real communication" buzzwords all the time. There are whole books and whole college courses teaching us how to communicate. Many of the world's ills are traced to poor communication skills. Whatever the communication communica-tion culprits in modern life are, I nominate acronyms as one of them. We shorten the name of a title by using its initials, and then we need a whole new realm of word classification to catalogue and decipher the acronyms. It's like speaking two languages when one should do. If you are going to really understand what you are talking about when you use acronyms, you still have to know what they stand for. So your brain has to learn two symbols for the same thing, the actual words with their meanings and the acronym. I know, it gets kind of foggy here, but it gets worse. I am assuming that acronyms acro-nyms have come into popular usage because they save time in speaking or space in writing. writ-ing. For me they do neither. I will usually have to spend extra time dredging up the acronym ac-ronym (Is it JC or CJ?) which I will still probably mistake and have to explain anyway, and in the case of typing it, I will have to engage the caps lock key which I will forget to release and thereby necessitate neces-sitate retyping the following sentence anyway. So much for saving time. As for saving space in the interest of clarity, let's apply the Cadillac mentality. Bigger just might be better, as you will see. "What is the point of speed if you lose accuracy," as my life skills coach and type teacher used to say. Because they feel like real words, I don't object as much to the kind of initial letter acronyms that can actually be pronounced as a word like NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), radar (radio detecting and ranging), or wimp (weakly interacting massive particle) - never mind, I wouldn't be using that one anyway. But take USB for instance. .Every computer user knows that USB ports are incredible. But don't even try pronouncing pronounc-ing that one as a word. You will be laughed right out of the computer lab - or the medical lab (ultrasound-guided (ultrasound-guided aspiration biopsy), or off the soccer field (unsporting (unsport-ing behavior), or out of Iowa (United Soybean Board) or out of the U.S. Bank. One of my favorite adages is "words mean something," which indicates that some of us are having trouble communicating com-municating using words. The trouble with acronyms is that they mean less because they symbolize more. Just so you know, ACRONYM is the official acronym for "abbreviated "ab-breviated code rarely or never yieldingmeaning," according to thefreedictionary.com and seconded by Bertha. Raise your hand if you knew that USB means "universal "uni-versal serial bus." Lacking that bit of knowledge could cause you to mix the letters of your acronym and come up with SBU (small byte utility), util-ity), or SUB (synchronized uploading bridge) which are both probably some kind of geek speak, but not the one you want right now. Worse yet, you may be lacking any set of words to initialize in your head and be forced to come up with "that computer port where you plug in your little device that holds files" (portable memory storage or PMS). See what I mean? Just be careful if you use are usingyour laptop at a Des Moines soccer match to make a loan payment. Things could get a little messy. ITS PRETTY DEPRESSING WHENWERNEEDMO OF ESCWISW FROM CUR , FOMESCJM. (B-wj-t p' ''f " """"'r"""1"' 1 "m 1 V V ! sV I Public Forum - Letters to the Editor What is your opinion? The Vernal Express welcomes letters from its readers concerning any subject pertinent to the Uintah Basin. There are no restrictions on contents, if in good taste and not libelous or vindictive. Letters may be edited for grammar and style, length and content. All letters must be submitted exclusively to the Vernal Express and bear the full name, signature, phone number and address of the writer or writers. Letters for the sole purpose of expressing thanks to individuals or groups will not be printed in this forum. Submissions may be mailed to 54 N. Vernal Ave., Vernal, UT 84078; faxed to 435-789-8690 or sent by e-mail to editorvernal.com The name or names of the persons submitting letters must appear on all published letters. Letters express the opinion of the writer or writers and are not necessarily the opinion of the Vernal Express. Abortion is a holocaust Dear Editor, I can't stop you from murdering mur-dering your babies but don't use my tax dollars to do it! Jan. 22, 1973, was the blackest day in American history. Roe v. Wade was passed and abortion became legal. To date over 40 million babies have been killed. It is America's holocaust. At the beginning liberals said a fetus had no life and no feeling. Now, medical science has found a fetus has both. I've always maintained, if it isn't a human being, what is it? A dog? A monkey? No! It's a human being and we destroy it at our peril. God's justice will not slip forever. President Reagan discovered dis-covered that abortions were being paid for by U.S. taxpayers. taxpay-ers. He said that was wrong and the law was passed that stopped it. Now liberals are pushing to reinstate tax-paid abortions. There jsn't enough money for Social Security but we. can pay for abortions? Is that what you want? If taxpayer funding of abortion makes you furious then we've got to flood the White House with petitions, letters andor calls urging President Bush to hold to his promise to veto all anti-life legislation. Thank him for sticking to his guns thus far. Call or write: President of the United States, The White House, Washington, D.C. 205 10. Also, call or write Senators Orrin G. Hatch and Robert Bennett: United States Senate, Washington, D.C 20510-4402; telephone: 202-224-5251 Dorothy Luck La point Response to monument letter Dear editor, Lorraine Chure's recent letter regarding Dinosaur National Monument Bim-ply Bim-ply repeats Mary Risser's mischuracterizutions of the current program, while continuing con-tinuing to dismiss the contributions contri-butions of the positions that are being eliminated. Chure describes how the new program structure will be able to contract many different dif-ferent specialists needed for particular projects. She then offers examples of how specialists spe-cialists from BYU, University of Nebraska, University of Michigan and the University of Utah have been utilized - yet this was done under .the old program, without having to "streamline" it by eliminating two jobs. What she neglects to mention men-tion is additional assistance from: Utah Geological Survey University of Oklahoma Okla-homa Iowa Geologic Survey Geological Society of America interns Student Conservation Association interns, and Thousands of hours of local and national volunteers - all arranged by the field geologist ge-ologist position that is being eliminated. The spectacular skeleton of a new species of allosaurus was, as Chure states, found by a paleontologist from the University Uni-versity of Nebraska. What he found was a few inches of exposed bone in a sandstone outcrop. It took three years of excavation work by the monument's two staff field geologists (one of whom later became the curator, the other position that is being eliminated) and a workforce of volunteers, to actually remove the specimen from the outcrop. It took another 3 years of preparation work in the lab, by the field geologists, to fully reveal the excavated bones as an allosaurus. Other major accomplishments by these people have been: Apatosaurus - three years excavation, two years preparation. Unidentified sauropod - three years excavation. Cretaceous sauropod quarry - three years excavation, excava-tion, before being given to BYU. Educational institutions and museums rarely have the funding or staffing to accomplish such long term excavations. Theyusually can only commit to a few weeks in the summer. The Apatosaurus Apatosau-rus project was begun by the Milwaukee Public Museum, but was completed by field staff and local volunteers, Having a field staff allows the monument to excavate five days a week, three to six months a year, weather permitting. Locally based volunteers can also provide year-round assistance in lab preparation, unlike the limited availability of outside institutions. Chure's letter mentions the extremely important blocks from the cretaceous . sauropod quarry and BYU's "discovery" that the blocks contained three skulls. In fact, field preparation of those blocks by Dinosaur's geologists had revealed the existence of two of those skulls prior to BYU's involvement. involve-ment. In their two years of excavation at that site, the monument staff had also removed and prepared several blocks, one of which contained another sauropod skull that was the most complete of those found in that quarry so far. (This one wasn't mentioned - is it less valuable than the other three because it wasn't prepared for free?) And, during the two years that Dinosaur field staff worked that site, more than 1,500 visitors joined ranger-led ranger-led hikes to see the excavation in progress. In the four years that BYU has been permitted to work the site, its crew has spent all of about three weeks excavating it. "BYU has been a strong partner with the monument," says Chure. Yes, so strong that in early 2007 Mary Risser proposed to transfer ALL of the monument's fossil collection to it. The proposal was modified to include only key specimens, then abandoned aban-doned after local objections. The Monument's new program is supposed to gain "more flexibility" by using partnerships. Why, then, has Risser refused to accept the Utah Field House's offer to display for the public many of the exhibits and specimens currently located in the condemned quarry building - instead of sequestering the specimens in garages, as is currently being done? And, as visits to Dinosaur have decreased due to the quarry closure, so have monument revenues, since the quarry section is the only place where entrance fees are collected.' The monument's response is to get rid of well-paying local jobs that have produced an outstanding array of specimens, speci-mens, which visitors come to see but currently can't. Having an in-house field staff, the monument retained a high degree of flexibility in determining what got done and when, and was fully able to bring in specialists as needed. By relying solely on outside institutions, the monument will be subject to their interests, their resources, re-sources, and their schedules. Further, such institutions' main incentive is to take the excavated material back to their own facilities for preparation and study. For manyyears, perhaps decades, researchers and visitors will be traveling to other places instead of Vernal to study and see material from Dinosaur. The material from the cretaceous cre-taceous sauropod quarry is a current example: specimens excavated and prepared by the monument field geologist are still here; the material assigned as-signed to BYU is in Provo. Before and for several years after the monument's establishment, eastern museums mu-seums came to the quarry, removed as many bones as time and money allowed, and left with the material. Is this the new program that Dinosaur NM management is seeking? Dale Gray Vernal |