Wednesday, August 30, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Jonah
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Letters to the Editor…
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ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
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To the Editor:
In your August 27 article regarding school
bond projects (“Work continues on school
bond projects,” page 1) you mentioned the
consideration of a “turf” field at Reed Stadium.
I am unclear as to your meaning as “turf”
refers to grass. And Reed Stadium has the best
grass “turf” football field in the tri-counties.
Did you mean to say that the board is consid-
ering installing an artificial turf football field?.
Please clarify the intent of the Sisters School
Board.
Thanks.
Rob Phelps
Editor’s reply: The district has consid-
ered installation of an artificial turf playing
surface, using additional funds that became
available in the bond process. Discussions on
that issue have been tabled.
s
s
s
To the Editor:
With the new school year upon us, parents
turn their attention to school clothes, school
supplies, and school food. Yes, school food!
More than 31 million children rely on
school meals for their daily nutrition, which
too often consists of highly processed food
laden with saturated fat. Not surprisingly, one-
third of our children have become overweight
or obese. Their early dietary flaws become
lifelong addictions, raising their risk of diabe-
tes, heart disease, and stroke.
To compound the problem, the Trump
administration has loosened Obama’s 2010
school lunch rules calling for whole grains,
fat-free milk, and reduced salt content. The
rules had an 86 percent approval rating.
Fortunately, many U.S. school districts
now offer vegetarian options. More than
120 schools, including the entire school dis-
tricts of Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Detroit,
Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Oakland,
Philadelphia, and San Diego have imple-
mented Meatless Monday.
As parents, we need to involve our own
children and school cafeteria managers in pro-
moting healthy, plant-based foods in our local
schools. Entering “vegan options in schools”
in a search engine provides lots of useful
resources.
Skyler Nash
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
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You hear it constantly
these days: “This can’t
go on.” “Something’s got
to give.” The hope that
impeachment is around
the corner is an unspoken
assumption in much media
coverage. “Trump Is Just
Six Senate Votes Away
From Impeachment” blared
a recent Newsweek headline.
(News flash: He’s not.)
The Los Angeles Times
ran a forceful — and largely
persuasive — editorial
titled “Enough is Enough.”
It began, “These are not
normal times,” and then
followed with a blister-
ing indictment of elected
Republicans who refuse to
stand up and speak out about
the damage the president is
doing to the country and his
own party.
But maybe the new
abnormal is the new normal,
as the last line of the piece
suggests: “This is the sev-
enth in a series.”
Part of the problem is that
President Trump, in terms of
both his personality and his
behavior, is like a magnet
next to a compass, making it
very difficult to get accurate
bearings. Just as his can-
didacy was a symptom of
larger forces — the triumph
of entertainment culture, the
breakdown in confidence
in elites and their institu-
tions, etc. — his presidency
may likewise be masking
more permanent changes to
politics.
We won’t know if things
will return to “normal” until
we separate the magnet and
the compass. Until then, all
of the proposed remedies
for the problem of political
chaos only promise more
chaos.
Consider the departure
of Stephen Bannon from the
White House. Contrary to a
lot of punditry, it is unlikely
that the White House will
become less gonzo with his
absence. But it is almost
surely true that the climate
outside of the White House
will get more absurd with
Bannon back at Breitbart.
com.
Bannon has boasted that
he is a “Leninist.” Like so
much of what Bannon says,
that’s hyperbole, but he does
share with the Soviet revolu-
tionary a worldview of “the
worse, the better.” Bannon
believes that racial anxiety,
populist fervor and wide-
spread resentment help his
cause.
It may indeed be the
right thing for Republicans
to stand up to Trump more.
But that won’t restore order
either. It will infuriate the
president and his biggest
supporters and further split
the Republican Party.
Likewise the widespread
call for Republican legisla-
tors to stop voting with the
president even when they
agree with him. This is
insane advice on the merits.
Voting against Trump out
of spite would be political
malpractice. It would also
be a gift to the Bannons and
Sean Hannitys who are des-
perate to craft a “stabbed in
the back” explanation for the
president’s failures.
Republicans are stuck
in a Trump-22 for as far as
the eye can see. They cannot
afford to alienate the core
Trump base by being too
critical of the president, and
they cannot afford to alien-
ate the Trump-critical ele-
ments in the party by being
too supportive.
There’s a similar prob-
lem with the calls for mass
resignations from the White
House. There are still good
people there. If they quit,
they’ll all be replaced with
members of the “let Trump
be Trump” school.
Meanwhile
the
Democrats, who have their
own populist challenges,
see GOP dysfunction as an
excuse not to remedy their
own shortcomings — many
of which made Trump’s vic-
tory possible.
Then there’s impeach-
ment. If Democrats win the
House — a big “if” right
now — they will probably
get to work on impeachment
hearings. If they succeeded,
they’d still need roughly half
of the Republicans to vote to
remove him. How reserved
and sober-minded would
you expect the president —
or his supporters — to be
during that process? How
about after the Senate fails
to remove him?
Face it: It’s gonna be
weird for a very long time.
© 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.