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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 18, 2017)
2 Wednesday, October 18, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N We are not enemies By Tiffany Lee Brown, a.k.a. “T” Guest Columnist 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: After breathing months of smoke due to wildfires we now apparently have to breathe another month or two of prescribed fire smoke. Well, I am saying enough is enough. I do not have a lung condition as do many peo- ple living in Sisters; however this being said almost five months of fire-related smoke has made me use an inhaler numerous times throughout the summer. Now I must endure prescribed burn smoke! Why? Haven’t we endured enough smoke? I should think there would be enough common sense not to inflict more damage to citizens’ lungs. So I say enough is enough! Stop making unnecessary smoke. I know there is money involved for those who are doing the pre- scribed burns, but again enough is enough! Deborah Lewis Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Partly Sunny Rain Likely Chance Rain Rain Likely Chance Rain Mostly Sunny 66/38 55/35 46/30 50/36 55/36 58/39 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 Easterling 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. mind? Why assume they wouldn’t be helpful neigh- bors in time of need? Hysterical television commentators and Twitter addicts want us to believe that having different opin- ions about abortion or immi- gration reform makes us enemies. For most people, it’s not true. Ask my progressive friend who drove around in his truck helping people and their animals evacuate dur- ing recent fires — he wasn’t quizzing anyone on whether they’d voted for Trump, Hillary, or Bernie. Ask the conservative Christian who took in my family during Milli. Ask the hundreds of guys and gals who went down to Houston with their boats during the flood (and let’s not assume every hunter and fisherman in camo is conservative, either! I know a lot of moderates and liber- als who hunt, fish, dress the part, and would come rescue anyone who needed it, in seconds flat). I’m not sure who ben- efits from the story that we all hate each other and have nothing in common. Some politicians, probably, and a bunch of extremist bloggers and actual-fake-news sites. I’m not buying that story. I don’t believe my neighbors would leave me to die in a forest fire because I’ve got piercings, tattoos, goofy haircolor, and an “In Our America...” sign. I sure wouldn’t leave them. Jennifer Hills is welcome to come have a cup of cof- fee with me. After that, if she wants to call me vacu- ous and unvirtuous, then OK, let’s hear about it. If the coffee goes really bad, we can both buy guns and chal- lenge each other to a duel. Anything would be better than the blanket assumption that everyone with a sign is a virtue-free, bad neighbor who wouldn’t have your back in an emergency. In the October 11 edition of The Nugget, Jennifer Hills describes wanting to buy a gun because she no longer believes she can count on neighbors to look out for each other in an emergency. Why not? Because she has seen people putting up signs that say, “In our America...”. The Nugget needs to print what the signs actu- ally say, if these letters are going to make any sense. The signs are in the shape of the American flag, and they read: “In our America— all people are equal. Love wins. Black lives matter. Immigrants & refugees are welcome. Disabilities are respected. Women are in charge of their bodies. People & planet are val- ued over profit. Diversity is celebrated.” Our family camped all summer this year. Our sign came with us from Cold Springs campground on Highway 242 to the slopes of Mt. St. Helens, from McKay Crossing Falls on Paulina Creek over to the Oregon Coast. All sorts of people stopped by to chat about it. Some were curi- ous. Some agreed with every word. One, a longtime Sisters resident, liked many of the sentiments but didn’t think women should be in charge of their pregnan- cies. It was good to have a chance to talk about these things — not through Fox News or NPR, but just talk- ing amiably in real life. We disagree about some stuff? Well, so it goes. One time, I thought this big-booted, enormous dude was com- ing over to kick our liberal asses; instead he thanked us for the sign, and he cried, talking about his disabled relatives and how hard their lives have been. Ms. Hills calls these put- ting out these signs “vacu- ous virtue-signaling” with- out offering any expla- nation for the insult. Has she spoken to folks who put those signs up, and found them to be lacking in virtue, PHOTO COURTESY RICK OBST (CREATIVE COMMONS) vacuous in Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.
