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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 2019)
2 Wednesday, December 18, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O Happy Holidays from The Nugget! During the holiday season, please be mindful of our deadlines and special closings that allow our staff time with family (while still delivering The Nugget to each of you every week). Tuesday, December 24 ... Closing Early Thursday, December 26 ... Closed Tuesday, December 31 ... Closing Early Due to adjusted press times in December, we are unable to accept advertising or content past deadline. Display Advertising, Announcements, Events, Meeting Calendar ... 5 p.m. on Friday Classifieds, Letters to the Editor ... 12 noon on Monday 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: I like growth. We have lived here part-time since 1962. I guess there were 500-600 people in town then, and the main industry 4 logging 4 was end- ing. In my opinion, Sisters needs to grow to 4,000-5,000 people in the next 5-10 years for the following reasons: " Schools. My barometer for growth is school system enrollment. The Sisters School District has been struggling for years with no student growth. According to the Sisters School District office, they now enroll 1,126 children, and I9m told they need about 1,250 to thrive. " A multigenerational community. A refer- ence was made to retirees. I9m <retired.= If you want to fossilize Sisters because there are too many young people here, then move to Del Webbs Sun City4gated communities, no one under 55 allowed 4 it9s perfect. I love the mix of generations, it keeps me young. Friday night lights (football), The Nugget with pages and pictures of our next generation playing sports, and competing and learning all manner of new things. What9s more Americana than being served by our young kids at the Sno Cap or Sisters Coffee Co.? They are the future and they9re learning how to work and save money for their future. (By the way, where was your first job?) " Healthcare. We need an urgent-care cen- ter here, we all agree. If not 24/7 service then at least seven days a week, 8 to 5 p.m. St. Charles can9t afford to offer this vital service without a larger client base: i.e., more people living here. " Commercial. We9re fine in this depart- ment, but I9d like to see a full-service dry cleaning service here with on-premises cleaning. We9ve seen the growth here for nearly 60 years and it9s been great. So many new and interesting people from everywhere. It9s not quite <Our Town= yet, but we9re getting there. Bruce Rognlien Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Partly cloudy Rain Showers Showers Rain/snow Snow showers 43/35 44/42 48/36 46/32 41/29 39/24 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 & Lisa May Community Marketing Partners: Patti Jo Beal & Vicki Curlett Classifieds & Circulation: Kema Clark 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. N Jonah Goldberg Stop me if you9ve heard this one before. An Asian guy, two black guys, three white women (one of whom spent much of her life claim- ing to be Native American), a Pacific Islander woman, a gay guy, a Hispanic guy, two elderly Caucasian Jews (one a billionaire, the other a socialist), a self-styled Irishman and a few nonde- script white guys walk into a bar, and the bartender yells, <Get the hell out! We value diversity here!= I didn9t say it was a good joke, but it9s kind of funny all the same, because some folks in the press and the Democratic Party are freak- ing out over the shrinking diversity of the Democratic field. The diversity panic was set off by the withdrawal of California Sen. Kamala Harris on December 3. In the words of Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, <the famously inclusive party wasn9t looking very inclusive anymore.= The real issue is that not many people of color qualified for the December 19 debate in Los Angeles. As New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, an African American, complained, <There are more billionaires than black people who9ve made the December debate stage 4 that9s a problem.= It9s debatable whether it9s a problem for anyone other than Booker himself, which is why he9s been raising this alarm vociferously. Perhaps a broader per- spective would help. All of the first 43 presidents were white men. About half were Episcopalian or Presbyterian, most of the rest belonged to other prominent denominations, and three were Christians of no formal affiliation. Then, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American presi- dent, winning two terms. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the Democrats9 first female nominee. She won the popular vote but lost the election to Donald Trump. Given these facts, it9s hard for me to see a diver- sity crisis. The top four candidates right now are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren. Biden would be only the second Catholic president. Sanders would be the first Jewish president and the first socialist one. Buttigieg would be the first openly gay (and youngest) president. Warren would be the first female president. What a devastating blow to diversity! It got dumber. Partisan supporters of various candi- dates weaponized the white- ness of white candidates. I think that9s gross, but there9s at least an internal logic for, say, Booker, Castro or Yang supporters to play that game. But supporters of white candidates attacked other white candidates for their whiteness. The Twitter hashtag #PrimariesSoWhite started trending. A Warren supporter tweeted <#PrimariesSoWhite because Joe Biden kept a very strong plurality of black support that elimi- nated the paths for Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.= Huh. Did Biden force black voters to support him? Did he refuse to tell them to back a black candidate? Are those black people at fault for liking Biden? If those black voters swung their support to the equally white Warren, would she suddenly be at fault? Lots of Democrats are talking about the <structural racism= of the primary sys- tem. But none of the non- white candidates complained about the rules at the begin- ning. Is it only structurally racist if Democratic voters support white candidates? No doubt many of these activists are sincere in their beliefs. But some are just grabbing the most conve- nient weapon they can to tear down other candidates or get more oxygen for their candidates. The bigger problem for these activists4and for the journalists who hype them4 is that they don9t speak for most Democrats. In April, a Monmouth poll found that 87 percent of likely Democratic voters don9t think the race of the nominee matters. In the historical sweep of America9s struggle with rac- ism, that should be cheered as unequivocally great news. But these are strange times. © 2019 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.