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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 23, 2015)
2 Wednesday, September 23, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Rachel Marsden American Voices Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not neces- sarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. To the Editor: Re: youth sports, parents and coaches. Another excellent source of informa- tion relative to this issue comes from Mike Matheny, the current manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. “The Matheny Manifesto” and his recent book should be required reading by all parents who have youths in sports. Dave Seibel s s s To the Editor: This letter is in response to the events concerning the lacrosse program. As a senior at Sisters High School and a lacrosse player I hope my opinion sheds a new light on this subject. Coach Andrew Gorayeb expected that we maintain good grades, show up to practice with all our gear and that we gave our all. He taught us work ethic by showing us that hard work and determination pays off. Coach taught us what it meant to be an Outlaw by teach- ing us how to lose with dignity and win with honor. Coach Gorayeb never tolerated one of his players disrespecting another player, coach or referee. Now I would like to address the behavior of the parents from my point of view. Your son signed up to be coached by Coach Gorayeb. So let the coach do his job. I can guarantee that if Coach Gorayeb said some- thing derogatory or negative to your son, he deserved it. If he did not receive enough play- ing time then it was because your son did not work hard enough in practice. Coach Gorayeb knew what each one of us was capable of and expected us to live up to that standard. What kind of example are you setting for your highly impressionable teenage son? You’re telling your son that if someone pushes them mentally to be the best they can be, chew them out for causing trouble or prevents them from getting what they want, then you will be there to take care of the problem. We are high school students, we can decide if we want a coach or not. So please ask yourself this, is it appropriate for a team to lose the glue that held them together because of a few kids? David Keeton Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday thursday Friday Saturday Sunny Mostly sunny Slt. chance showers Mostly sunny 72/38 76/44 66/36 63/32 Sunday Monday Sunny Mostly sunny 63/33 62/na The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson News Editor: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Williver Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Advertising: Lisa Buckley Graphic Design: Jess Draper Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Accounting: Erin Bordonaro The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $40; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2014 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. Two of the biggest global challenges of the past decade — terrorism and the 2008 financial crisis — have given rise to some well-intentioned legislation that has missed the mark. T h e U . S . Tr e a s u r y Department is charged with maintaining the nation’s financial health. Things like money laundering and terror- ist financing jeopardize that health, but there’s so much shady dealing that it’s impos- sible for government bureau- crats to keep up. Nonetheless, rules are passed, and affected parties are expected to be able to show that they’ve paid some lip service to the new mandates. In the wake of the finan- cial crisis, new regulations were passed to prevent banks from failing. Nothing will prevent failure because markets can’t be controlled. These regulations are so Byz- antine that they’d be useless in a crisis situation where they had to be carried out quickly. Lawmakers have lever- aged the opportunity that the crisis presented by moving on to the regulation of insurers, then asset managers, then ... “conflict minerals” in Africa. A section of the Dodd- Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act compels U.S. compa- nies operating in the Congo and surrounding countries to file reports with the Secu- rities and Exchange Com- mission proving that they have executed due diligence along their entire supply chain to avoid using minerals determined “to be financing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo or an adjoining country” through slave labor, taxation or extor- tion by militias involved in the trade of such minerals. Yes, the U.S. government has managed to tie a domes- tic housing and lending bub- ble that crashed the economy to legislation aimed at pre- venting your iPhone and other electronics from con- taining African minerals that could be tied to the funding of local conflicts — on a dif- ferent continent. The government couldn’t even stop a meltdown on Wall Street. And it’s going to fix problems in Africa? Meanwhile, the Patriot Act legislation passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks has imposed due diligence requirements on parties to real estate transactions under the pretext of combating ter- rorism. Foreign ownership of pricey housing purchased in the names of opaque com- panies has led to concern about the laundering of funds through the real estate sec- tor by criminals and terror- ist groups. The government apparently believes that by forcing real estate agents, attorneys, insurers and banks involved in such transactions to check whether the buyer is on the U.S. Treasury’s sanc- tions list, it’s making Amer- ica safer. Due diligence is only as good as the motivation and capability of the people exe- cuting it. You get what you pay for. And with enforce- ment so lax — a recent Shearman & Sterling report noted that fewer than 20 people were charged under the Foreign Corrupt Prac- tices Act in each of the past two years — why spend the money if you can settle for paying lip service to tick- ing the boxes? Heck, the Treasury itself isn’t going to expend vast resources on its own investigation unless it’s certain that it can reap a return on its investment. Offenders know this. A business interested in cutting into a competitor’s market share is more likely to consider paying for a pri- vate investigator to dig up some dirt and drop it into the lap of the government or the media. However, private real estate transactions are a dif- ferent matter. They lack the financial motivation of com- petitive gain. Even when cash cows actually worth milking are caught running afoul of the rules, they just negotiate a fine and carry on with busi- ness as usual. In their current form, regulations passed under the pretext of combating terror- ism or preventing the next financial meltdown won’t make much of a dent on either front. They just create more paperwork and billable hours for those who ben- efit from it, while burdening average people — all while allowing the government to perpetuate the myth that it’s actually doing something to protect the public. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.