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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 2016)
2 Wednesday, June 15, 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: There has been a dramatic increase in air- craft noise in Sisters Country over the past few months. It sounds like plane after plane is fly- ing over Sisters, creating a dawn-to-dusk drone of noise. Originally only on weekends, the annoy- ing drone is now happening on weekdays as well. This is not due to random private planes transiting the area. Instead it is due to the new skydiver operation at Eagle Airport. The sky- diver plane makes numerous flights a day, endlessly circling over the area as they fight to gain altitude at full throttle. While the noise is not uncomfortably loud, it is nearly ever- present on days weather conditions allow operations. You can hear it from Crossroads to Squaw Creek Estates, Aspen Lakes to Tollgate. Sitting on your patio or at an outdoor restau- rant in town, the drone is there, like a neighbor endlessly using a leaf blower. You realize how annoying it is when silence finally returns after the skydivers drop and the plane lands. For the neighborhoods northeast of the airport, the many-fold increase in takeoffs is dramatic, as the skydiver plane is particularly loud. The airport expects the skydiver business to expand, and one could expect more planes and flights in the future as the operation gets established. The entire Sisters area is impacted by noise pollution just so a few folks can sky- dive for a few minutes. Talk about a negative cost-benefit ratio. What a price we all have to pay for one small business. This is only the first tiny step in the airport’s grand expansion plan, with 40-60 additional hangers, condos with hangers underneath and more. One should be ready for sightsee- ing choppers flying overhead and other com- mercial operations. The sky, so to speak, is the limit. The headgear of residents will need to change from cowboy hats to protective ear- muffs, as Sisters becomes known as “The Nosiest Little Town in Oregon.” Lets all encourage the good folks who own the airport to be good neighbors, limit the sky- diving, and undertake a more modest, Sisters- friendly expansion plan. Contact the City Council as well. BTW, I was a skydiver in years past, See LeTTeRS on page 23 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday friday Saturday Sunday Monday Chance Showers Chance Showers Chance Showers Mostly Sunny Mostly Sunny Sunny 58/36 56/36 59/35 67/39 75/42 78/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. The dead were still being collected at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando — the scene of the worst mass shooting in our nation’s his- tory — when I thought I heard something. On Twitter and the TV news, the facts were slow to arrive but the sweeping conclusions came instantly. Donald Trump, President Barack Obama and other members of the righteous right and left were pushing their agendas. I recognized the sound of the politics. It was like the barking of dogs. I walked out to my veg- etable garden, where I could pray for the souls of the dead and put my hands to work in the dirt and try to think things out in a quiet place. I mean no disrespect to the dead or their families. Nor do I mean to trivialize the weight of this tragedy. But working the dirt seemed better to me than listening to the barking on cable TV. So I started digging while saying prayers for the dead, the trowel working in my hand as I spoke the words for them. Out there alone, on my knees, cutting the earth with that trowel, I sang an Orthodox hymn asking that their memories be eternal. And I thought of their families. T h e s h o o t e r, O m a r Mateen, reportedly called 911, pledged his allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi, and then shouted “Allahu Akbar” as began pulling the trigger. Donald Trump, who has whipped the left into a frenzy by calling for a ban on Muslim immigration, bragged Sunday on Twitter that he was right about radi- cal Islam after all. Trump is putting himself at the front of the movement to do something — anything — about Muslim terrorists, but he isn’t advocating an all-out war with Islam. In fact, he’s a bit too non-inter- ventionist for many of the establishment Republicans who dominated foreign pol- icy in the Bush years. Some of them are already jump- ing to the Democratic war hawk, Hillary Clinton. Even among those who stay with the GOP there’s an impulse to target Islam, which could further demonize American Muslims and our allies like Jordan in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Obama infuriates Trump and many others by refusing to men- tion “Islam” and “terror” in the same sentence. And the president refused again Sunday. Obama’s presidential address to the nation began with the proper reveren- tial tone. But then he fell back on political tricks. He used his speech to make a push for gun control. And he avoided all mention of Islam. I don’t want a war with Islam, and I understand that many on the right would march us down that path or at least isolate the U.S. from the Muslim world. But the president appears ridiculous here. The 2009 terrorist attack at Ford Hood, Texas, by U.S. Army Major Nidal Hassan — killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 — was deemed mere “workplace violence” by the military under Obama’s command. Hassan referred to himself as a soldier of Allah. By refusing to say the words “Islam” and “ter- ror” in the same sentence, Obama stays his course and looks stubborn and foolish, as if he sees no pattern in the Boston Marathon bomb- ing, the San Bernardino rampage and the Orlando massacre. Truly, it would be wrong to target peaceful Muslims, but can’t there be some rational middle ground for discussion on this point? Self-radicalized terror- ists with Islamic ties, born or raised in the U.S., are the new threat. We need a real debate on what to do. Because there will be more attacks like the one in Orlando. © 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.