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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 20, 2019)
2 Wednesday, March 20, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O Editorial… Monopoly Still time to step up With all eyes focused on the November 2020 presidential election, it9s easy to over- look a small off-year election for local offices. Yet, the offices filled in those elections are the ones that most directly affect our lives. A letter-writer this week notes that unfilled posi- tions, even on a local road district, can have major negative consequences. There9s still time 4 barely 4 to step up if you9re interested in serving the Sisters com- munity on a variety of elected boards. The Sisters School Board has two positions open; one candidate has stepped up for each. A sin- gle candidate running for a post isn9t really an election. The Sisters Park & Recreation District Board also has one candidate each for two positions. As of press time, one position on the Cloverdale Rural Fire Protection District Board of Directors did not have a candidate filed. Across Deschutes County, there were, as of Monday, 52 candidates filed for 66 available posts. We all have concerns about the state of our great republic, especially at the national level. But it9s at the local level 4 right here in Sisters 4 where the heart of the republic beats. And its lifeblood is participation. The filing deadline for the May 21 election is Thursday, March 21. For information visit https://www. deschutes.org/clerk. Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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 being out of town for a couple of weeks, I returned to find an article in the March 6 Nugget that is, literally, very near to my heart. The article honors the Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District for their service and devotes attention to their recent annual awards banquet. The article notes that, during the ceremony, firefighters and others were recog- nized <for saving two lives from sudden car- diac arrest.= I am writing because I am one of those lives that was saved. Sudden cardiac arrest is also referred to as sudden cardiac death because it is fatal in the overwhelming majority of cases. The heart completely shuts down and the victim has essentially <dropped dead.= Saving a life from sudden cardiac arrest, or death, is an extraor- dinary feat. I survived only because I was blessed multiple times over on that fateful day. I collapsed at the Sisters Athletic Club, where staff were there to take immediate emergency response measures and contact the fire district. And, standing alongside me at the time was an individual 4 who I now refer to as my guardian angel 4 who is expert in CPR. He worked tirelessly to keep my heart pumping until the EMTs from the fire district arrived. Lastly, of course, were the EMTs. When they arrived, they imme- diately took charge, restored my heart- beat and transported me, and my wife, to St. Charles. There is no way to properly thank the Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District and the heroic individuals that saved me from certain death and gave me back the gift of life. But I just want to emphasize, from a very personal perspective, how extraordinary these individu- als truly are. They play a critical role in saving See LETTERS on page 14 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday AM Clouds/PM Sun PM Showers 53/37 53/34 Friday Saturday Sunday Monday PM Showers Partly Cloudy Sunny PM Showers 55/33 49/28 53/30 53/34 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC 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. N Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Graphic Design: Jess Draper Community Marketing Partners: Vicki Curlett & Patti Jo Beal Classifieds & Circulation: Lisa May Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Owner: J. Louis Mullen 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. ©2019 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. 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 Newspaper9s 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. By Tom Mullen Guest Columnist If you purchase an item from Amazon, they will, in what appears to be a modern miracle, deliver it your door, here in the remotest part of Montana, within a day or two. If you don9t like it, an even bigger miracle takes place. When the courier comes to retrieve the item, in that same box Amazon sent it you, the courier scans it at your door for delivery back to Amazon and you are instantaneously refunded the money. Amazon might be getting an empty box when they credit you, no questions asked. But that9s no miracle 4 their business model is unsustainable by anyone other than a company with monopolistic practices. When Amazon first started in 1997 it was mostly a book re-seller, so no one would begrudge that they didn9t show any profit until 2003. Its fourth-quar- ter profits in 2017 exceeded the combined profits of the prior 14 years. Along the way it drove the nation9s biggest bookseller out of business and then, as any economist would suspect, started mandating new rules for publishers. CEO Jeff Bezos (who until his divorce will be con- sidered the richest person in the world) long preached re- investment in his business as the reasons for the regu- lar losses. But that9s a lie. Amazon wouldn9t be in business if not for the stock market. It is investors who have fueled the growth and now domi- nance of the largest retailer the world has ever known. And they9ve done it through unfair trade prac- tices, inherently designed to eliminate their competition. Look around your favor- ite bricks-and-motor stores 4 those are what Amazon is unfairly trying to eliminate. Most Americans aren9t retailers, but we do depend upon local retail to pay for the lion9s share of our needs as citizens. Unlike your local retailers, Amazon paid little or no taxes in most of these United States, until a few years ago. If you can imagine a world without local retail- ers, you might want to imagine that same world without local police, clean water, and sewers. There is a laundry list of why it9s a better experience to walk into a locally owned (or even locally managed) shop to buy something. First and foremost for the buyer is service. That may mean there9s someone to help you pick out the right product, and if it9s the wrong prod- uct, just take it back to the store. When shopping online, a savvy buyer may be able to work miracles with a smart phone but good luck to the person who attempts to actually use that smart phone to discuss a problem. So there9s the proof of Amazon9s miracle : They9re eliminating jobs on Main Streets all across America, to feed the beast. And the beast is your desire for instant gratification. If you spend $100 with a local retailer, that money re- circulates in the community a multitude of times, bur- geoning the local economy. Spend that Benjamin with Amazon and you achieve the opposite effect for your community 4 you diminish your local economy by several hun- dred dollars with your $100 purchase. A recent investigative report on Amazon states that the company killed almost a million local retail jobs last year along with a staggering 62,000 local shops. If Teddy Roosevelt were president now, Amazon would be broken up by way of the Sherman Act, along with Facebook (which we believe is America9s real Public Enemy Number One), Google, and others who bamboozle the public into believing there is no long-term harm in unfair competitive schemes. But America is at its ebb in political courage. Greed, which was a few generations ago consid- ered one of the deadliest sins, seems now to be the American ideal. All those years of no profits also garnered Amazon billions in tax refunds 4 so the federal taxes you pay did, in some sense, pay for Amazon9s ability to create those mira- cles you enjoy online. Tom Mullen is co-owner of The Nugget. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.
