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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (June 17, 2020)
2 Wednesday, June 17, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O Honoring the Class of 2020… N For what it’s worth By Jim Cornelius Editor in Chief School staff and City Public Works crews installed banners produced by Citizens4Community honoring each individual student of the Outlaws Class of 2020. The project was supported by generous donations from the Sisters community. PHOTO BY JERRY BALDOCK Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer¾s name, address and phone number. Letters 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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 10 a.m. Monday. To the Editor: I9m a <Pandemic= 2020 Graduate of Sisters High. More than a week ago I drove up to my house and not only did I smile at the grad sign that someone mysteriously put in my yard a while back, BUT there was also a card now taped to that sign. I hopped out of my car and excitedly opened the card: <From a Neighbor= and a $25 gift card to a book store! How thoughtful was that? In addition, another 2020 graduate that lives about three miles from me in a different neighborhood asked my own mom yesterday if she put a card on her sister9s sign. Nope. <From a Neighbor= struck their house, too! I9m not sure who this kind and generous neighbor is so this is the only way I know to properly thank them. While I9m at it 4 aren9t we all neighbors in the end? Love your neighbor. I know I do! Thank you, neighbor! Josie Aylor s s s To the Editor: Police reform, parental reform or both? God gave us both emotions and a brain to reason. Like road rage, emotions come before reasoning. Ideas about raising children have changed a lot! If I refused to obey my parents my father would remove his belt and strike me on my backside. What did I learn from this? Well, it taught me about authority and what the word no meant. When it comes to authority such as the police, I would never think of running or using violence against them. So many people today seem to think <Stop!= and <No!= are See LETTERS on page 7 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Monday Sunday Mostly Sunny Mostly Sunny Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy 71/44 77/49 83/53 87/55 84/54 85/55 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Email: 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 Creative Director: Jess Draper Community Marketing Partner: Vicki Curlett Classifieds & Circulation: Lisa May 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, $55; six months (or less), $30. First-class postage: one year, $95; six months, $65. Published Weekly. ©2020 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is pro- hibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. 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 unconditionally 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. The unlaid ghosts of Vietnam have risen in recent weeks, asserting their undy- ing influence over a cultural moment that lies 45 years beyond the fall of Saigon. Over the past weeks, we have seen scenes unfold on our streets that hearken back to Days of Rage in 1968. The ghosts are stirring. The Vietnam War era broke open cultural fis- sures that have never really closed. As history podcaster Dan Carlin points out, if you were to take a snap- shot of America in 1963 and a snapshot of America in 1973 4 at the end of the decade of America9s intense direct involvement in Vietnam 4 you would see two very different countries. We can9t reach back to pre-963 America; it9s not there anymore, and no amount of yearning for a more united, stable, and wholesome America can conjure it back out of the mists of time. The 1950s, of course, weren9t anywhere near as stable and content as nostal- gia would have us believe. The fault lines of American culture were already drawn taut, tectonic plates of ten- sion and conflict grinding beneath the placid surface. The Civil Rights Movement that would gain unstop- pable momentum in the early 1960s was already aborning, and the frustra- tions that would explode in the Free Speech movement in 1964 were stirring long before they burst forth on the Berkeley campus and spread across the nation. Still, many Americans 4 white, middle class Americans, at any rate 4 really did lead quietly sat- isfying lives in safe, whole- some communities, with real reason to believe in the American Dream. Then the Vietnam War really got roll- ing and cultural and social ferment swiftly built to a boiling pitch, overflowing onto the streets and into American living rooms, forever transforming the nation9s perception of itself and the way we relate to one another. Yo u n g , r e b e l l i o u s protesters challenged every norm and article of faith of American soci- ety, from the legitimacy and righteousness of the nation9s Cold War against Communism to race rela- tions and traditional sexual mores. They called out lies and hypocrisy that had long gone unrecognized and unchallenged, and demanded near-absolute personal freedom in the pursuit of happiness. They were right about many things. They were also too often arrogant, self-righ- teous and destructive. Traditional Americans looked upon this iconoclasm with horror and disgust, see- ing in rebellion an attack on a way of life that was rich and good and true. And they were right about many things. They were also too often heedless, angry and reflexively authoritarian. The culture war that launched in the 1960s was a profound clash of differ- ent understandings of lib- erty and honor and duty, and what it means to be an American. It was, in part, generational, but only in part 4 which is why the conflict continues, a couple of generations on. We see it in different vis- ceral reactions to protests that exploded nationwide after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Some focus on peaceful mass action and see a spontaneous upsurge in support of long-overdue change; some focus on vio- lence and looting and see a tragedy being manipulated to attack police, indulge in opportunistic crime, and destroy the social order. Some look at defense of property and police as tacit acceptance of a racist order; some see any form of pro- test, no matter how peaceful and orderly, as an affront or a threat (which creates sur- real scenes like a driver on Cascade Avenue giving an angry thumbs-down reac- tion to a sign that read sim- ply <Love One Another=). The fissures that the era opened still exist, indeed have widened 4 wedged further and further apart by individuals, businesses and organizations whose agen- das and livelihoods are built on division. If our cultural chasms are ever to be bridged, it will require a real understanding of how and why they came to be, an honest assessment of what they mean 4 and a wary eye cast upon those who profit from them. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.