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 Unpublished items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.