2
Wednesday, April 6, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I N I O
N
John
Kass
American Voices
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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:
Reading Jeff Mackey’s letter in the March
30 Nugget News I thought I had accidentally
happened upon that famous Monte Python
skit: “Why, we were so poor we lived in
a shoe box by the side of the road. Luxury!
We dreamed of living in a shoe box. We were
so poor the 12 of us had to live in a sardine
can and walk six miles barefoot through the
snow…”
Then Mr. Mackey tells us about his mini-
mum-wage jobs that he had ... wait for it …
“over 50 years ago.” Right, Mr. Mackey.
From 1960 to 1964 I worked my way
through college by completely supporting
myself on a job which paid $1.75 per hour
though I had to work 50 hours a week. But my
tuition was $250 per semester. My roommate
and I paid $90 per month for a two-bedroom
apartment. Gasoline was 30-something cents a
gallon and I could get a complete meal at my
favorite pub for $1.25 and chase it with a glass
of beer for a quarter. Ever heard of inflation,
Mr. Mackey?
Two states have now agreed to phase in
a $15-an-hour minimum wage over the next
four years. Two states, Oregon not included.
As for Mr. Mackey’s assumption that peo-
ple earning a minimum wage expect that to
be the apotheosis of their earning life is just
Conservative blather. If you want to get riled
up over such things, why not complain about
oil companies that get billions in government
subsidies. Or rich farmers and big agribusiness
living off the public trough. Maybe you’re OK
with giant defense contractors like GE raking
in millions in Pentagon largess while paying
virtually no income taxes.
Do you even read The Nugget? The same
issue has an article about the crisis of unaf-
fordable housing in Sisters. Minimum-wage
workers need a “living” wage in order to have
a place to sleep and food to eat. That doesn’t
seem unreasonable to me.
R.T. Tihista
s
s
s
See LeTTeRs on page 22
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
saturday
Sunny
Sunny
Slt. chance showers Partly sunny
74/38
77/40
70/36
61/31
sunday
Monday
Partly sunny
Partly sunny
60/32
60/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: Karen Kassy
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, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55.
Published Weekly. ©2016 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.
Hush, young Bernie
Sanders supporters. Shhh.
Hillary Clinton’s cam-
paign wants you to change
your tone. And when
you’ve changed it, tone it
down.
I don’t mind you mak-
ing noise. But Clinton’s
advisers don’t like it, and
they talk as if you’re still in
those pajamas with the feet.
The message?
Be still. Good night.
Hush. Go to sleep.
Why would Hillary
whisper “hush” to young
people feeling the Bern?
Because she wants to
be president of the United
States and rule the world,
and fulfill her destiny as
queen of the new American
political establishment.
And she doesn’t need
Sanders supporters ruining
things.
Sanders is the candidate
with the momentum on the
Democratic side. His vot-
ers believe that he believes
in something. And I think
he does. I disagree with his
views, but he does stand for
something.
And Hillary Clinton?
What does she stand for?
What does she believe in?
Herself. Power. That’s
about it. She’s like Frank
Underwood in pantsuits.
She’ll play the gender
card, she’ll pander to race,
she’ll force you to parse
her sentences. These are
tactics, not core principles.
But she is the candidate
with establishment support,
with her Wall Street friends
and those neoconserva-
tive war hawks leaving the
Republicans and rushing up
to her for great big hugs.
And though Sanders
wants to debate her in New
York, the Clinton cam-
paign has explained the
rules of silence. For weeks
now, liberal pundits and
Democratic senators have
been telling Sanders voters
to hush, to give up Bernie,
just close your eyes, roll
over and join Team Hillary.
They whisper in the
voice of reason in the
dark — the way all estab-
lishment whispers begin
— saying that for the sake
of party unity, just dump
Bernie. Then you may curl
up in Hillary’s lap for a
bedtime story.
What you may come
to realize is that establish-
ment Democrats and estab-
lishment Republicans are
quite similar. They’re the
two horns on the head of
the same goat. But don’t
think about this now. You’ll
never get to sleep.
There is something that
may make you shut your
eyes. It’s that monster hid-
ing under your bed: Donald
Trump. Trump is the bogey-
man now. And if you insist
on staying awake, Hillary
would like you to focus on
The Donald.
Trump says crazy things,
so crazy lately that I won-
der if he really wants to be
president, or if the pres-
sure has finally gotten to
him. He allows stupidity to
whoosh past his lips almost
daily now. Perhaps he just
wants out of the campaign.
A bipartisan pub-
lic freakout over a crazy
man saying crazy things
is sometimes entertain-
ing, and Trump’s nonsense
helps us forget the monster
hiding under Clinton’s own
bed:
The FBI. Her top aides
from her time as secretary
of state may soon be ques-
tioned by FBI agents inves-
tigating how top secret and
other classified documents
came to be kept on her
private server. And after
they’re questioned, it will
be her turn.
There’s no assurance
that her private server
wasn’t hacked by foreign
intelligence. At issue was
whether she was merely
negligent or willful, and
either puts her in real legal
and political jeopardy.
And so what she needs
is for Democrats to have
nightmares about Trump,
the better to ignore whether
their leading candidate may
very well be implicated in
a criminal probe. And with
so much stress on her, we
might as well put Hillary
back on the comfy chair in
the quiet room:
“Goodnight comb
and goodnight brush.
G o o d n i g h t n o b o d y.
Goodnight mush.
“And goodnight to
the old lady whispering,
‘hush.’”
© 2016 Tribune Content
Agency, LLC.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.