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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 23, 2020)
2 Wednesday, September 23, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N A stitch at a time 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. 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: I started my career as a licensed helicopter mechanic in the early 1970s. I worked heavy- lift helicopter for the good part of 46 years. We pioneered a real environmental-friendly way to yard timber-helicopter logging. All through the seventies and most of the eighties we were able to log year round with no issues. Then the Forest Service adopted a new policy, save the top-soil scheme. So all the years we logged the units and then YUM (yard unmer- chantable timber) we left the timber sale look- ing better than we found it. Under the new pol- icy logs were left to rot to enhance the topsoil. In the new era of <let it be= 4 let the natural fires go, it9s turning out to be a big mistake. I personally watched Yellowstone National Park burn to the ground in 1988 while the dif- ferent government agencies, ie: Forest Service, BLM, and National Park Service argued over whose fire it was and how to handle it. In the years after 1987, our forests have become a wasteland of fallen trees and rotting wood all very flammable fuel for wildfires. Sure, there have been years of drought and cycles in nature but leaving fuel everywhere and mismanaging highway weed control have left our national forests a wasteland. In my opinion, the private logging compa- nies on their own land do a much better job managing their timber holds than the Forest Service. Kelly Dodge s s s To the Editor: I prefer to deal in facts. In my former job, facts were what made a successful case. Sadly, the letters to the editor reflect personal bias toward the President rather than an analy- sis, based on facts of his successes or failures. Case in point, the last letter (from Bill Kemp, The Nugget, September 9 edition) talked about the President referring to mili- tary personnel as <losers and suckers.= The author of that letter failed to mention that The Atlantic Magazine retracted the validity of their anonymous <source.= This follows on the See LETTERS on page 15 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Monday Sunday Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Mostly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Sunny Sunny 76/48 63/43 61/45 72/45 80/47 84/49 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 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. The social fabric of America is fraying, torn by the economic, social, and psychological impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and by social unrest and politi- cal tensions the likes of which we haven9t seen for 50+ years. Here in Sisters, we have felt the blows of shutdowns, restrictions, event cancellations, disrup- tions to education 4 and in recent weeks, living in a thick, choking pall of smoke. Now we look ahead to a fall and winter partially cut off from the Willamette Valley as two of the major arteries into our part of the state remain closed, poten- tially for months. While we all recog- nize that our troubles are small next to the devasta- tion experienced by our neighbors to the west, in Blue River and Detroit and so many other communi- ties on the west side of the Cascades, we9re still feel- ing the sense of dread and dislocation that comes with troubled times. We9re heading into one of the most contentious elections in American his- tory, which just became even more so with the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the prospect of an raw, power-politics brawl over filling her seat on the Supreme Court. National politics can seep into the Sisters Country air as insidiously as wildfire smoke 4 and it could be just as toxic and hazardous to our commu- nity9s health. In an atmo- sphere where everything is politicized and all politics is weaponized, it can be easy for neighbors to turn on each other in anger and distrust 4 just when we need to be coming together to meet the many chal- lenges that will continue to face our community for many months to come. It would be naïve and childish to pretend that what happens on the national stage does not affect our lives in Sisters. Who sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office matters; who controls the Senate has an impact; the decisions made at the Supreme Court shape our lives. But we cannot repair and maintain the social fabric by whom we elect to national office. We mend the social fabric one stitch at a time, right here in our local communities. This weekend, Sisters will come together to reach out a helping hand to Oregonians who have expe- rienced devastating losses in catastrophic wildfires. There is no political litmus test required to participate. In fact, your politics are irrelevant. We mend the social fabric one stitch at a time, right here in our local communities. — Jim Cornelius This is liable to be a long, hard winter for many folks in Sisters, with ongo- ing COVID restrictions taking their toll, and the normal slowdown of the season exacerbated by road closures. Business own- ers will struggle; seniors will be more isolated than ever; workers9 paychecks will be leaner than usual. What we do to help folks who need it matters a whole lot more than what bubbles we fill in on our ballots. There are people who are making vast fortunes and accruing great power through the business of dividing Americans one from another. They have powerful tools of propa- ganda to wield, day in and day out, in convincing us that our neighbor who has political views that differ from our own is an existen- tial threat to everything we value and hold dear. The true threat lies in that division itself. If Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia could enjoy a warm friendship and shared values, despite hav- ing virtually polar opposite views on the law, we can certainly lend an ear to the neighbor whose political yard sign or letter to the editor infuriates us. Better yet, perhaps those who disagree on virtu- ally everything there is to disagree about in national politics can simply shut up about it for a minute, join together and find some- thing to agree on: That these tumultuous and trou- bled times are just the right time to reach out and help our neighbor.