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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (June 8, 2016)
2 Wednesday, June 8, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O WELCOME Rachel Marsden SISTERS RODEO American Voices PARTICIPANTS & PATRONS! 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: Please give a big Sisters “Hi, Hello or Howdy” to eight international college students! Having lived for 44 years in Central Oregon we are excited for the opportunity to welcome eight international college students to our community through a work and travel program. We believe there are extraordinary benefits of cultural exchange both personally and in our work place. We were so impressed with each student during their interview and how eager they are to experience the American culture. These stu- dents are from Turkey and China and their ma- jors include engineering, law, hospitality and tourism. These are bright young leaders and we want to introduce them to the American culture enabling them to develop positive American experiences that they will take back with them to their home countries. The students will be working to help pay for their travel and living expenses. While our international students are working in our restaurant there will not be any impact to our current staff and how many hours they are working. We continue to hire individuals from our community who are willing to work with passion and who are looking for opportunity. We believe in investing in our staff. We have a program called Archways to Opportunity, which offers free college tuition, high school completion programs and various management training programs — all for free! Our teams take care of us and we take care of them. These students had a choice where to trav- el and work for the summer and they chose to come to Sisters. When you come into our McDonald’s please introduce yourself and give them a big Sisters welcome. Say “Hi,” “Howdy” or “Merhaba” (“Hello” in Turkish) or “Huan ying” (“Welcome” in Chinese)! Nanette and Mick Bittler s s s To the Editor: This letter is a response to the guest col- umnist, Carol Lovegren Miller, writing about See letterS on page 13 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Chance t-storms Partly sunny Chance showers Partly sunny Mostly sunny Mostly sunny 75/42 68/40 60/37 58/36 67/41 67/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. N 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. PARIS — Russia is re- viving its military cadet program, Yunarmiya, which will be relaunched across the country later this year. The program’s goal is the “growing of a generation of citizens who treat the history with care, who are kind and responsive, ready to build a bright future for themselves and for their country,” ac- cording to General-colonel Alexander Kolmakov of the Russian Army. Critics promptly slammed the initiative as proof of Russian militarization. They’re missing the point. Why is anything that smacks of discipline and structure viewed negatively? Why do some people believe that unless kids are frittering away their time in an un- structured manner, they’re not properly living their childhood? Kids who grow up without structure end up woefully unprepared for adulthood. Characteristics such as discipline, indepen- dence and self-motivation aren’t simply bestowed upon people when they reach a certain age. They’re learned just like math or history. But how are kids sup- posed to acquire these skills nowadays? In constant com- petition with distractions ranging from video games to reality television to so- cial media, schoolteachers are already challenged to drill the basics into students’ heads during limited class- room time, and extracur- ricular activities are increas- ingly falling victim to budget cuts. Knowledge alone is fine, but a lot of book-smart people fail to reach their full potential because they haven’t learned how to apply themselves. That’s where the Russian youth initiative comes in. Tied to Russia’s defense de- partment, Yunarmiya teaches kids skills such as rifle-han- dling. Naturally, paranoid Russophobes are having hair- trigger visions of a Soviet- style youth army marching in unison. The Soviet Union may have been Marxist, but these days Russia is lead- ing the fight against cul- tural Marxism—the Western brand of Marxism that has sabotaged our culture and so- cial fabric with an excessive focus on political correctness and multiculturalism. The primary symptom of this societal malady is a lack of discipline, structure and standards. It’s fine, for example, to welcome new citizens into a country. But instead of insist- ing they adopt our values and culture, we have increasingly insisted on adopting the val- ues and cultures of the societ- ies that these newcomers are fleeing. By accommodating every whim, we’re diluting what we stand for. By stand- ing for everything, we there- fore stand for nothing. There is a pervasive no- tion in Western democracies that values and principles are for fascists who hate freedom. If you live in a so- called free country, you’ve probably been trained to keep your mouth shut when you see some kind of extreme so- cial or cultural weirdness. In America, some people have found a champion in pre- sumptive Republican presi- dential nominee and 2,000- pound anti-political correct- ness gorilla Donald Trump. I visited Moscow re- cently, and it reminded me of my Canadian home- town (Coquitlam, British Columbia) in the 1980s: pleasant, polite, quiet, re- spectful. Such places are, sadly, becoming increasingly rare. I now live in Paris, con- sidered one of the most liber- tine cities in the world. It’s a place where personal, sexual, cultural and social morals are all over the map, if they even exist. Ironically, about the only thing that’s banned out- right — and strictly enforced — is any criticism of non- French cultural practices. Shared values are the white blood cells of a democ- racy. Without shared values, cell division spirals out of control and societal cancers metastasize. What if young people in democratic nations stood shoulder to shoulder with their fellow citizens as ca- dets, learning respect for their country along with the principles and standards necessary for success in life? “But those kids would be brainwashed by govern- ment,” some would say. Whatever. It beats having them being brainwashed by leftists or jihadists. © 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.
