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Wednesday, August 16, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Early Deadlines
for 8-23 issue of The Nugget:
Jonah
Goldberg
Deadline for display advertising
and events calendar is Thursday,
August 17 at 5 p.m.
Normal deadlines apply for all other items.
Monday, August 21
The Nugget will close
from 9:30 to 11 a.m.
so staff can enjoy the eclipse.
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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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:
While the article in The Nugget of August
9 (“Protect your eyes during solar eclipse,”
Page 1, ) is correct in its text, a headline above
the continuation on page 19 is dead wrong and
may mislead observers in Sisters to the extent
that they will not observe the phenomenon
which is the reason for all the interest in this
eclipse.
That is the observation of the solar corona,
which is only visible to the unaided eye during
a total solar eclipse and then only within the
band of totality. While the duration of total-
ity varies from none at all about one-half mile
south of Cascade Avenue to over one min-
ute on the northern edges of Sisters, most of
Sisters has some duration of totality to enjoy.
If the advice shown in this headline
“ECLIPSE: Wear glasses for entirety of
eclipse in Sisters” is followed local observers
will miss the most exciting and beautiful part
of the eclipse.
As soon as none of the sun’s surface is vis-
ible while viewing through eclipse glasses or
other devices, the viewer should remove the
glasses and view the eclipse with their naked
eyes or binoculars until a bright part of the sun
becomes visible after totality. Then any further
viewing needs to be done using the glasses or
a filter.
Jim Hammond
s
s
s
To the Editor:
My compliment to our Sisters Christian
community which brought together an esti-
mated 500 or more parents and children
together for worship. The gathering took place
See LETTERS on page 23
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In 2005, the Los Angeles
Times hired me as a colum-
nist. That was great news
(for me). But the best part
was when Barbra Streisand
canceled her subscription in
protest.
Her real complaint wasn’t
so much that the Times had
hired me, but that it had
dropped Robert Scheer, an
old-style, left-wing writer, in
the same editorial shakeup.
“The greater Southern Cali-
fornia community is one that
not only proudly embraces
its diversity, but demands it,”
Streisand wrote in an “open
letter” to the newspaper.
“Your decision to fire Robert
Scheer is a great disservice to
the spirit of our community.
“It seems that your new
leadership ... is entirely out
of touch with your read-
ers and their desire to be
exposed to views that stretch
them beyond their own
paradigms.”
Without intending to,
Streisand actually managed
to synthesize the problem
with diversity mania. You
see, by bringing me and
some other writers aboard,
the Times did diversify its
editorial fare. In theory,
Streisand touted the impor-
tance of presenting readers
with diverse views. But in
reality, she wanted to read
only views she agreed with.
Not only was Scheer a friend
of hers, she was his biggest
fan. Scheer did not “stretch”
her paradigms; he confirmed
them.
Moreover, ethnically
Scheer and I are almost indis-
tinguishable. We’re also both
white males. The only mean-
ingful difference between us,
besides age, is that I’m a con-
servative. When Streisand
talked about diversity, she
meant a diversity of attributes
— sex, ethnicity, skin color,
etc. — but not viewpoints.
The Streisand episode
came to mind while I was
watching the ridiculous
media feeding frenzy over
a memo written by a since-
fired Google employee,
James Damore, titled
“Google’s Ideological Echo
Chamber.” In it, he extolled
diversity and praised many
of the company’s efforts to
hire more women. But he
argued that many of these
efforts were counterproduc-
tive and at odds with other
forms of diversity.
His real “crime,”
however, was his suggestion
that the obsession with hiring
more female engineers ran
into some structural prob-
lems that could not be solved
with ever-more-aggressive
outreach. Whether for rea-
sons of culture or biology
(or both), women are more
reluctant than men to pursue
degrees in engineering and
computer science.
The data are on his side.
More than 80 percent of
computer science and engi-
neering majors are male,
while women receive about
60 percent of biology degrees
and 75 percent of psychology
degrees.
To listen to the hysterics,
this can be explained entirely
by the sexist bias of the com-
puter science and engineering
fields — and the big corpora-
tions that depend on them.
This is nuts. It’s abso-
lutely true that women were
once blocked from many
careers. But since those bar-
riers were lifted, women
have flooded into, or even
have come to dominate, all
manner of fields. Is it really
plausible that sexism is the
primary, never mind sole,
explanation for female under-
representation in computer
science and engineering?
No doubt there are real
injustices out there. The
demands of motherhood and
the culture of Silicon Valley
surely pose challenges. But
these disparities are none-
theless a sign of great social
progress. Women are choos-
ing the careers they want.
I don’t hear many people
bleating about the lack of
sexual diversity among trash
collectors.
The issue here isn’t diver-
sity, but conformity. Every-
one must agree with a very
narrow dogma about not
just sexual equality but the
approved ways of enforcing
it. At a shareholders meeting
in June, Eric Schmidt, chair-
man of Google parent com-
pany Alphabet, said, “The
company was founded under
the principles of freedom of
expression, diversity, inclu-
siveness and science-based
thinking.” He also added:
“You’ll also find that all of
the other companies in our
industry agree with us.”
Exactly: Our gamut is
undiluted and our paradigms
are made of oak.
© 2017 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.