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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 28, 2016)
2 Wednesday, December 28, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O The Nugget will close at 3 p.m. on Friday, December 30. — Happy New Year! — 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: I’d like to thank several groups of people whose efforts may have gone unnoticed during the holiday season. Thanks to Paul B. and the crews that cleared the streets and sidewalks of snow, includ- ing much-needed downtown parking spaces. I hope I speak on behalf of many downtown shopkeepers who really appreciated all of your efforts, especially as several storms hit during the holiday shopping season. Thanks to ODOT and their crews who helped clear the main roads into Sisters. I commute on Highway 20 and this year it was no concern at all driving after the storms. Last but not least, a big round of applause to all who staff the Sisters Post Office. I had to send and receive many holiday packages and was always greeted with a smile and a great attitude. Despite only two windows at their front counter and tons of mislabeled and mis- addressed parcels they managed to once again make it through the busy season. I’m sure they’re still digging out from under the pack- ages that were mailed late. Steven Segal Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Partly cloudy Mostly sunny Mostly cloudy Mostly cloudy Mostly cloudy Mostly cloudy 35/19 38/21 34/14 31/18 32/17 24/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. N John Kass American Voices Author Tevi Troy begins his excellent book “Shall We Wake the President?: Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office,” with something innocent. A children’s song. It is much like other rhymes that children sing, or used to sing, the nursery rhymes we sang as kids on the South Side of Chicago, near the stockyards, with- out knowing what they meant, like “Ring Around the Rosie” or “London Bridge is Falling Down.” But this one involves a tiny bird named Enza: I had a little bird/ Its name was Enza/ I opened the window/ And in-flu-enza. And by the time it was over, the Spanish influ- enza epidemic of 1918 had infected people worldwide and killed more than 50 million. Some estimates put the global death count as high as 100 million. It killed millions more than World War I, which had already brought unimagina- ble horrors to Europe. The pandemic was so severe that in the U.S. alone, it knocked 10 years off the average American’s life expectancy. And one man was, in great measure, respon- sible for spreading the terrible disease. Through hubris and weakness and indecision, he sentenced his own soldiers to death while allowing it to wash across Europe: President Woodrow Wilson. “President Wilson was sending U.S. troop trans- ports to Europe to fight in WWI, even as the war was winding down,” Troy said. “He was told by the Navy that those troop transports were spreading the disease and that he should stop. But the chief of staff of the mil- itary objected. Wilson sided with him and the troop transports continued, even though it was only a month before hostilities in Europe ended.” Troy’s book is a hard- eyed look at history, and what presidents — and citizens — may learn from it and how to best deal with what will certainly come our way. So the rea- son to read “Shall We Wake the President?” isn’t about reliving old horrors. Instead, it should be read to examine decisions and indecision and bureaucratic traps inadvertently set by the most powerful being on the planet, the president of the United States. Bad planning and hubris can ripple out from the White House and com- pound disasters. “You can’t know what disasters you might face on your watch, but you must think about how you might deal with them,” Troy said. “And you can build a team that is prepared to react to them.” In our talk, I mentioned Wilson’s role in causing the influenza epidemic to spread, President Jimmy Carter’s mishandling of the New York power black- out, and President George W. Bush’s blunders — of organization and public relations — during the Katrina disaster that devas- tated New Orleans and his presidency. “In all the cases you mentioned, the presidents seemed unprepared and kind of knocked off their game by the disasters that struck them, and the American people can sense it,” he said. “So in my book I talk about communication strategies to reassure the American people, learning about the different mecha- nisms of government so that you’re ready, and mak- ing sure that your staff is trained and drilled to deal with these things.” To illustrate his point, Troy often uses a story of bureaucrats at some disas- ter site passing out business cards to one another. “Then you know you’ve already failed,” Troy said. “And the response will be a failed response, because it means they have not prepared, that they don’t know the other people who are dealing with the disas- ter, they don’t know their capabilities or lines of responsibility. “So if you’re out there handing out business cards at the site of a disaster, it’s going to be an even bigger disaster.” © 2016 Tribune Media Services, Inc. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.