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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 14, 2019)
2 Wednesday, August 14, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Don’t give a pass to false narratives By 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: This letter is addressed to the low-life who stole my garage sale signs around noon on Friday, August 9, from the intersection of east-bound Highway 126 and Holmes Road, as well as Holmes and Fadjur Lane. Good job! Let me tell you what this sale was all about. I, along with a lot of other amazing ladies, came together to donate quilting, sewing and crafting items to raise funds for another mem- ber of our quilting group who has fallen on hard times. She is losing the room that she has rented for quite some time at the end of this month and as of now has no idea of where she is going to live. She also is on a very limited budget, living on $900 a month. She is a most giving person, volunteering for Friends of the Library and the Senior Center in Redmond. I hosted the sale because I have a three-bay garage. We set up over 20 tables loaded with her fabric stash as well as that donated by oth- ers. We did a bang-up job Friday morning but only had three people show up that afternoon. Thank heavens for their tenacity to take the time to find us! To make up for the dismal results on Friday we discounted everything by 40 percent the following day. Our goal was to raise $1,500. We barely made half that amount. Sisters is better than this! So to everyone else, if you ever see really nice garage sale signs made from unclaimed election signs, covered with blank newsprint with a hot pink sign in the center that says G SALE with an arrow, just know that they will lead you to a See LETTERS on page 27 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Mostly Sunny 88/56 83/48 84/50 86/52 86/53 85/54 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. 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. Two presidential candi- dates did a very bad thing last weekend: Kamala Harris tweeted that <Michael Brown9s murder forever changed Ferguson and America. His tragic death sparked a desperately needed conversation and nationwide movement. We must fight for stronger accountability and racial equity in our jus- tice system.= Elizabeth Warren upped the ante: <5 years ago Michael Brown was mur- dered by a white police offi- cer in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael was unarmed yet he was shot six times. I stand with activists and organiz- ers who continue to fight for justice for Michael. We must confront systemic racism and police violence head on.= They are promulgating a false narrative 4 a narrative that was comprehensively debunked by the investiga- tion and report of the Obama Justice Department in 2015. The report is readily avail- able online. Brown9s kill- ing may have been tragic 4 nobody wants to see a young man9s life snuffed out 4 but calling it murder is inflammatory. Harris and Warren are intelligent, highly articulate women; they know better. They know exactly what their words mean and the effect they are seeking to create with them. The persistent narra- tive that Brown was <mur- dered= 4 as some persist in claiming, shot in the back while running away or with his hands up (<Hands up! Don9t shoot!=) 4 is clearly debunked by the forensics and witness testimony. The report states: <The physical evidence establishes that (Officer Darren) Wilson shot Brown once in the hand, at close range, while Wilson sat in his police SUV, struggling with Brown for control of Wilson9s gun. Wilson then shot Brown several more times from a distance of at least two feet after Brown ran away from Wilson and then turned and faced him. There are no witness accounts that federal pros- ecutors, and likewise a jury, would credit to support the conclusion that Wilson fired at Brown from behind. With the two exceptions of the wounds to Brown9s right arm which indicate neither bullet trajectory nor the direction in which Brown was moving when he was struck, the medical examin- ers9 reports are in agreement that the entry wounds from the latter gunshots were to the front of Brown9s body, establishing that Brown was facing Wilson when those shots were fired. This includes the fatal shot to the top of Brown9s head. The physical evidence also estab- lishes that Brown moved forward toward Wilson after he turned around to face him. The physical evidence is corroborated by multiple eyewitnesses.= Those who 4 rightly 4 criticize President Donald Trump for his lies and inflammatory rhetoric must hold <progressive= candi- dates to the same standard. Apologists for Warren and Harris may wave off their use of the word <murder= as mere semantics 4 but they know better, too. At least they should. Condemning the rhetoric of <their guy= while giving a pass for the same kind of rhetoric from <our guy= is part of the reason we9re in the divided, hyper-partisan state of affairs we9re in. Those who are promoting civil discourse in Sisters and elsewhere will never get to goal unless they9re willing to hold everyone in the arena to the same standard. Bad police shootings hap- pen. Racism exists. A cop in Charleston, South Carolina, who really did shoot an unarmed black man in the back while he was running away is sitting right where he belongs 4 in prison for 20 years. Facts matter. The rule of law is a precious gift the founders of the republic gave us. It is the final protec- tion of the smallest minority 4 the individual 4 from the tyranny of the majority. That we have failed to truly apply the concept of <liberty and justice for all= through our history brings us shame 4 but you cannot fix that by abrogating the concept in the present. Each case must be judged on its individual merits and on the facts as best they can be determined 4 not on what people want to believe or, worse, what is politi- cally expedient for them to believe.