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Wednesday, September 6, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Editorial…
The best of us
It’s been a rough August in Sisters. Smoke
from wildfires as far away as Canada was
already impacting the area when the Milli Fire
broke out and turned into a 26,000-acre con-
flagration. The smoke has been terrible. The
effects of the fire have kicked people out their
homes for days and disrupted business dur-
ing the height of the busy season. The health
impacts range from irritating to downright
dangerous. People’s nerves have frayed.
And yet we can all be grateful that we’re
not in Houston, which is enduring biblical
tribulations.
What we’ve seen both here and in Houston
in the midst of all these trials is the best of us.
We are constantly surprised and amazed at the
power of the human spirit to overcome and
set aside petty differences and pull together in
times of need.
In Sisters, people have opened their homes
to evacuees and stranded hikers, provided
shelter for displaced pets, and fed firefighters,
while in Houston ordinary citizens are taking
extraordinary measures to help strangers, with-
out question and without hesitation.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the sturm
and drang of the big, noisy world and forget
who we really are. We’re sold false notions of
identity, where whom we vote for president
defines who we are, where disdaining just the
right people in just the right way, using just the
right words becomes a litmus test for virtue.
Ultimately, though, we are defined by what
we do. And when push comes to shove, when
we’re called upon to step up and act, what
we do shows that what we are is pretty damn
impressive.
The smoke will dissipate in Sisters and
the flood waters will recede in Houston. But
maybe we can hold onto a little of the spirit
we’ve all partaken of this August of 2017 and
carry it as we return to the day-to-day.
It’s the best of us.
Jim Cornelius
News Editor
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
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To the Editor:
Craig Rullman, columnist for The Nugget
Newspaper, thinks that America is not insti-
tutionally racist and that “America continues
a historically remarkable record of self-cor-
rection in the matters of race.” Using some
twisted logic, he believes the real tragedy of
Charlottesville will be used (if it’s further
exploited) to suggest otherwise.
If you call yourself a Nazi, you’re a rac-
ist. I think we can all agree on that. I believe
Trump is racist. But what Trump did in his role
as President of the United States, by using his
office to pardon racist ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio,
is the perfect example of institutional racism.
Arpaio, in his role as sheriff, targeting Latinos
at traffic stops whether or not they commit-
ted a traffic violation, is another example of
institutional racism.
The group Black Lives Matter is a direct
response to institutional racism in the police
force.
The right-wing media, especially Fox
News, basically a State-sanctioned organiza-
tion, perpetuates institutional racism by, for
example, making the claim of moral equiva-
lency between white supremacists and coun-
ter-protestors or claiming that if you agree that
the statue of Robert E. Lee is offensive, you
must also believe that all other statues you
don’t approve of should be taken down. These
are false choices.
I agree with John Mapes that one of the
United States’ most admired principles, that
all people are created equal, is under attack.
Terry Weygandt
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
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Sunday
Monday
Haze/Partly Sunny
Smoke/Cloudy
Smoke/Partly Sunny Haze/Smoke/Sunny Haze/Smoke/Sunny Haze/Smoke/Sunny
89/57
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77/46
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83/45
86/54
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Jonah
Goldberg
Even hurricanes have a
silver lining: The downpour
washes away a lot of bull.
Don’t get me wrong.
This is a tragedy for untold
thousands of people. And no
upside could possibly bal-
ance the scale against the
downside. The full human
toll of Harvey, now a tropi-
cal storm, remains to be
determined, but it’s already
steep. As of this writing, the
official count of fatalities
was up to 14, and that num-
ber will probably rise. The
economic cost will take a
long time to calculate. And
the emotional price—lost
homes, heirlooms, pictures,
worry, stress—can never be
calculated.
And yet, I couldn’t help
but notice that there is a
“feel good” aspect to the
whole catastrophe. The best
example is the hyper-viral
story of two men loading up
their boat and driving into the
storm. CNN’s Ed Lavandera
found them under a highway
overpass readying the vessel.
“You guys just jumping
in to help out?” Lavandera
asked.
“Yes, sir,” says one of the
men.
“What are you going to
do?” Lavandera asks him.
“Go try to save some
lives.”
That man was African-
American. His partner
appeared to be Caucasian or
maybe Latino. But it doesn’t
matter at all. We don’t know
if they’re Republican or
Democrat, pro-Trump or
anti-Trump, NRA members
or fans of gun control. All
they wanted to do was help.
All weekend, TV and
social media highlighted sto-
ries like this. Granted, there
were plenty of attempts to
politicize the storm. Some
had superficial legitimacy.
Did Texas officials — par-
ticularly the Democratic
mayor of Houston and the
Republican governor of
Texas — drop the ball in
not ordering a mandatory
evacuation? But even these
debates lacked the bitter vit-
riol that marked coverage of
Hurricane Katrina or even
Hurricane Sandy.
Other attempts to bend an
apolitical event to a preferred
political narrative were more
desperate and despicable. The
Twitter account for an outfit
called Charitable Humans
unleashed a Cat-5 gale of
schadenfreude at Houston’s
woes. Over a satellite image
of Harvey: “Texas has been
bitten by Karma, but they
still have a huge debt to the
bank of Karma.” “I just can’t
bring myself to even consider
providing aid to any red state,
let them clean up their own
mess.”
To its credit, the organiza-
tion later deleted its account
and released an apologetic
statement saying its lead-
ers were “horrified” by their
social media coordinator’s
actions.
But the point was already
made. We live in an ugly,
tribal moment in American
history. Indeed, the more rep-
resentative story of the week-
end came out of Berkeley,
where “antifa” goons beat
up nonviolent protesters they
unilaterally deemed to be
fascist.
By comparison, despite
the terrible plight of its vic-
tims, Harvey was the happy
story, at least in one narrow
respect. Politics is becom-
ing a substitute for identity,
even religion, for millions of
Americans. How you vote,
what team you root for on
the cable shout shows, is
becoming a signifier of who
you are. The media fuel this
attitude, in large ways and
small, by turning the news
into “narratives” of good
people and bad people. This
is an unhealthy development,
regardless of which ideologi-
cal uniform you wear.
But politics and ideol-
ogy are, or should be, down-
stream from all of the most
important things in life, at
least in America. Under nor-
mal circumstances this can
be hard to see, never mind
appreciate, because we are
lucky to live in a fabulously
rich and free society where
people can afford to make
politics into a sport or fash-
ion statement.
Most of us can see this
within our own networks of
friends and family, where
political differences rarely
trump more meaningful
bonds. But on a mass scale,
it becomes apparent only
in dire circumstances, like
when floodwaters wash away
the nonsense and reveal the
decency of the American
people.
© 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.