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Wednesday, December 2, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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P
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Rachel
Marsden
American Voices
Letters to the Editor…
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number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not neces-
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To the Editor:
The KZSO frequency fiasco is a perfect
illustration of Murphy’s law.
An article in the October 28 edition of The
Nugget (“KZSO loses its frequency,” pg. 1)
alluded to KCOE’s interference “... with com-
munications for air traffic into Redmond air-
port.” Unable to reconcile how a commercial
FM station could interfere with aviation com-
munication, I spent hours researching KCOE
and frequency assignments in the FCC data-
base and discovered the answer.
KCOE-FM’s interference at 106.5 Mhz had
to do with transmitter siting on Powell Butte.
The interference appears to be due to a bizarre
coincidental gremlin in the nearby FAA radio
site. Though the FAA admits it will have to
address their problem, in this case their author-
ity trumped the FCC’s, forcing the FCC to
suspend KCOE’s testing and requiring KCOE
to change frequency from the frequency the
FCC reserved for covering Terrebonne. Links
to public correspondence between KCOE and
the FCC: http://bit.ly/1Rf0Iod and the techni-
cal “smoking gun”: http://bit.ly/1OoiKDF that
the problem is in the FAA equipment.
What needs investigation is why the FCC
originally assigned KZSO the “reserved”
frequency for Terrebonne coverage at 106.5
since other frequencies were available. After
I mapped FM channel allocations for our area,
it appears there are any number of frequencies
which could have been assigned to KZSO. It is
also unclear why 94.9 Mhz was assigned when
KCOE claimed 106.5, when 94.9 appears to
be the last available commercial station fre-
quency in our area, making it the only alter-
nate frequency for KCOE. Why hasn’t the
See LETTErS on page 24
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PARIS —The U.S. State
Department has issued a
blunt worldwide travel alert
for Americans. Nothing cuts
through murky rhetorical
waters and diplomatic plati-
tudes like a terrorist’s bomb.
Suddenly, reasonable people
are faced with a stark choice
between keeping safe and
taking the sort of laissez-
faire approach to security
that the Paris attackers were
able to exploit.
It should come as no
surprise that in the wake of
terrorist massacres, blunt
speakers with a clear, sim-
ple vision of how to make a
dent in the problem gain in
popularity. Since the Paris
attacks earlier this month,
far-right French National
Front leader Marine Le Pen
and Republican presidential
front-runner Donald Trump
have seen their vision trans-
late into polling victories in
their respective nations.
Le Pen faces a criminal
court judgment next month
on charges of inciting racial
hatred for comparing Mus-
lim prayer in the streets of
France to the Nazi occupa-
tion — even though the pros-
ecutor in the case has said
Le Pen should be acquitted.
Trump remains insistent on
deporting undocumented
migrants and building a wall
to keep them out.
Russia, long regarded as a
close-minded nation, is now
viewed by many as a white
knight. Russian President
Vladimir Putin has been vili-
fied by the West, but in the
absence of effective anti-
Islamic State action by the
U.S. and its allies, the world
finds itself counting on Putin
and his aggressive bombing
campaign.
U.S. President Barack
Obama has smarmily
implored the Russians to
direct their bombs at Islamic
State targets rather than at
opponents of Syrian Presi-
dent Bashar al-Assad —
apparently trying to con-
vince us that they’re not one
and the same. Such rhetoric
represents a political agenda
rather than a solution to a
global threat that has spiraled
out of control.
While the Russians are
trying to bomb the Islamic
State back to the Stone Age,
Turkey — a NATO member
that hosted an operational
staging area for the so-called
“Syrian rebels,” many of
whom ultimately became
Islamic State fighters — shot
down a Russian fighter jet.
NATO Secretary General
Jens Stoltenberg responded
with a rebuke ... for Russia.
I’m based about four
miles from the site of the
Islamic State-inspired mas-
sacres in Paris. Those of us
who literally live inside a ter-
rorist target have a very clear
idea of who the enemy is. It
isn’t Russia. Nor is it politi-
cians with hard-nosed opin-
ions on national security.
Nor is the enemy the French
police, as they execute
hundreds of raids on long-
watched terrorism suspects.
The enemy, obviously,
is the Islamic State and any
other group that seeks to kill
or injure innocent civilians.
But this enemy is abetted by
the so-called “intellectuals”
who deny their own survival
instincts and insist that oth-
ers do the same, lest they
be denounced as morally
flawed. We are faced with a
truly psychopathic threat that
has spiraled out of control
due in part to our insistence
on confusing tolerance with
self-sacrifice. It is insidious
to think that people should
suppress their self-preserva-
tion instincts.
In a recent New York
Times article, aggrieved
activists and academics
whined about the risk of
French authorities overreact-
ing and potentially violating
the civil rights of Muslim
residents. The attacks in
Paris killed 130 people and
wounded scores of others.
French authorities can cer-
tainly be forgiven for taking
additional security precau-
tions. Is there middle ground
between a total lockdown
and “anything goes”? Yes,
and Canada is providing an
example.
New Canadian Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau has
decided that his country will
accept Syrian refugees, but
only women, children and
full families. Single, unac-
companied males, who rep-
resent a greater security risk,
will not be granted asylum in
Canada.
By refusing to cater to
permissive leftists, Trudeau
was able to come up with a
sensible immigration policy.
It’s a lesson that Europe is
learning too late.
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Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.