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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 2017)
2 Wednesday, February 15, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Rachel Marsden 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: I am writing to say thank you to the Oregon DOT and to the City of Sisters councilors who had the lives of the residents of Sisters in mind when they approved the roundabout at Barclay and Highway 20. If you will just “Google” “US DOT round- abouts” it will take you to the website “https:// safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/innovative/ roundabouts/” where you will see the facts that have been presented at public meet- ings concerning the Sisters roundabout. You will find there “The FHWA Office of Safety identified roundabouts as a Proven Safety Countermeasure because of their ability to substantially reduce the types of crashes that result in injury or loss of life.” Also that “Most significantly, roundabouts REDUCE the types of crashes where people are seriously hurt or killed by 78-82 percent when compared to conventional stop-controlled and signal- ized intersections, per the AASHTO Highway Safety Manual.” This fact was also cited when ODOT repre- sentatives related that when traffic lights were placed in several high accident intersections in the Bend area the number of accidents DID NOT go down. The roundabout at Barclay and Highway 20 has the main benefit of reducing the speed of vehicles coming into Sisters. Many driv- ers do not make the transition from highway speeds coming into town. The roundabout will slow traffic to 15-25 mph and prevent the high-speed “T-bone” type accidents that have plagued that intersection. A traffic light doesn’t do that. A roundabout forces you to slow (curbs) and prevents “T-bone” impacts See LETTERS on page 22 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Rain Rain Mostly cloudy Chance rain Chance rain Chance rain 47/34 43/26 40/26 40/25 40/25 41/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. ©2017 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 — In the run-up to the recent U.S. presidential election, a lot of conserva- tives began using the term “cuck” to describe “cuck- olded” males beholden to leftist policies. Lately, some conservatives have been applying that rather unflatter- ing term to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, one of the few Western leaders staying the globalist course while other countries opt for a greater degree of national security. When U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 90-day immigration ban on refugees and visa hold- ers from certain Muslim- majority nations, Trudeau responded on Twitter: “To those fleeing per- secution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada.” The tweet was celebrated by open-borders activists worldwide. What was much less reported than Trudeau’s wel- come to refugees was the fact that Canada has actually capped private sponsorship of Syrian and Iraqi refugees for this year at 1,000. So that’s good news for Canadians worried about national security, right? Don’t worry about Trudeau’s tweet, because the govern- ment is putting a tight cap on refugee sponsorship. Except that it’s the much greater number of govern- ment-sponsored Syrian refu- gees that isn’t being capped so strictly. Canada has taken in 39,671 Syrian refugees since November 2015. According to the government’s own data, most of them are unskilled, lack higher educa- tion and don’t speak either English or French. A recent survey by the Immigrant Services Society of British Columbia noted that only about 17 percent of B.C.’s government-sponsored refu- gees are actually working. Most of those who have found jobs are working in retail, hospitality, manufac- turing and construction — relatively unskilled sectors that pit them against locals for employment. Many of those among the first wave of refugees are now com- plaining about their one- year resettlement assistance money running out. Trudeau consistently leverages discrepancies between image and reality — illusions that can be used to appease both the left and right sides of the political spectrum. Take Trudeau’s repeated declarations about the impor- tance of climate change, which have helped him win over environmental activ- ists. Trudeau nonetheless applauded Trump’s recent revival of the Keystone XL pipeline despite the project being at the top of environ- mentalists’ hit list in both Canada and the U.S. It’s not a foolish strategy that Trudeau is employing. It’s difficult to convince peo- ple to rebel against a leader who appeases potential opponents by saying all the things they want to hear. The manner in which a country’s citizens react to the adverse effects of global- ization can be significantly attributed to that country’s history. Canada doesn’t have the revolutionary history of the United States or France, and Canadians tend to pride themselves on diplomatic thoughtfulness over brute force in response to chal- lenges. Canadians usually just “vote the buggers out” long before protests spill into the streets. Trudeau benefits from the fact that Canada never fully bought into globalism. The country has had the good sense to avoid donning the economic straightjacket that Europe got itself into, favor- ing the sort of balanced trade agreements that the United Kingdom is now seeking in the wake of the Brexit vote. Canada also benefits from having a lot of space and an ocean separating it from the cultural tsunami that Europe is currently experiencing. Canada doesn’t have the same sense of urgency that other Western nations have in this era of anti-glo- balist backlash. The two- faced approach currently being taken by Trudeau and the Canadian government mostly has citizens blissfully ignorant or confused. Fog of war isn’t a bad strategy as long as people don’t notice a negative change in their daily lives — and the Canadian government has yet to see what happens when people do. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.