PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, SEPTEMBER 25, 2015
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
A million pennies
Does anyone reach
down to pick up a penny
anymore? In earlier days
when a kid found a pen-
ny (or a nickle or a quar-
ter) it was like fi nding
treasure. Nowadays an er-
rant penny is passed over
with nary a glance.
One can only guess the value of
all the pennies laying on the ground
in Keizer. More importantly, one
can only imagine the value of the all
change in all the vehicles in Keizer.
That can add up to some serious
money, which would be good for
the Keizer Community Food Bank
which is holding a fundraiser start-
ing Oct. 1.
Originally conceived as “12
Miles of Pennies,” an effort to raise
more than $10,000 in the month of
October. But, $10,000 equals more
than 1million pennies, that’s unwei-
ldly. The food bank is still seeking
to raise the money to help fi ll its
shelves, which today are woefully
sparse.
Keizer kids are being asked to
pick up a penny if they fi nd one
on the ground and put them in
any number of collection cans that
will be popping up around town
late next week. Keizer drivers are
asked to clean out the change cache
in their vehicles and donate to the
food bank, too.
In one day Keizer generosity
with its ‘car change’ could raise the
money that is needed by the food
bank. Food donations are accepted
by community pantries but they are
able to leverage cash donations in
a way that public is not
able.
Food donations are
always needed at food
banks, not just during the
holiday season. There are
expansive food baskets
distributed by a number
of organizations in the
area including the Keizer Network
of Women, Marion County Fire
District #1 and the Keizer Elks
Club. Those gift baskets of food are
delivered during the holidays. The
Keizer Community Food Bank
serves people throughout the year;
not all their clients are recepients of
gift food baskets.
People think of donating food
during the holidays or during a
food drive by a club or organizaton.
Unfortunately the need is constant.
Food insecurity is a shameful con-
dition for any rsesident a country
as rich as the United States to face.
If there is a solution to eradicating
hunger in the world, let alone in our
own background, it has not been
presented yet. Until that happens
we must be our brother’s keeper and
give a hand to those who need it.
The coinage sitting in our cars
is often overlooked. Let’s put it to
good use and assure that the shelves
at our local food bank are fi lled now
and going into the holiday season.
And next spring, do the same thing,
we can all donate and we’ll barely
miss the pennies, nickles, dimes and
quarters that now just rattle around
in the ashtray or cup holder.
—LAZ
KFD equipment
bond request
pensive insurance
to have adequate
and
advanced
equipment avail-
able if I am ever
in need of fi re or
EMS services.
Please join me in voting YES for
Measure 24-389, the Keizer Fire Dis-
trict equipment bond measure.
Greg Ego
Keizer
editorial
To the Editor:
I am writing in support of Mea-
sure 24-389, the Keizer Fire District’s
request for a 20-year bond to replace
aging fi re apparatus and ambulances.
The staff at Keizer Fire District has
spent extra dollars and manpower in
an effort to maintain an aging fl eet of
vehicles. It is time to continue sup-
porting our emergency service pro-
viders by providing the monies nec-
essary to purchase new fi refi ghting
apparatus, new ambulances and associ-
ated equipment to fully furnish these
new units.
You may see the KFD apparatus
go by and say to yourself, “that looks
new” when in reality the newest en-
gine is now 11 years old, and our
newest ambulance is seven years old.
Recently one of the three ambulances
was towed for repair, putting it out of
service to respond.
By approving this bond request the
Keizer Fire District will be able to
establish and maintain a schedule of
vehicle replacement that will provide
years of service to the constituents of
Keizer Fire.
From me personally, I support this
worthy effort. I look at it as very inex-
letters
Church’s 25th
anniversary
To the Editor:
Truth Tabernacle Church of Keizer
would like to formally invite the pub-
lic to come and celebrate their 25-
year anniversary services on Sept. 25,
26 and 27. Service times will be Fri-
day at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at noon, and
Sunday at 10 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Truth Tabernacle is located at 3795
Pleasant View Dr. N.E., in Keizer.
Transportation is available. Phone
503-393-1352. Guest speakers will be
Pastors Danny Perdew (Greeley, CO),
Russell Frazier (Fontana, CA), and
Robert Davis (Wheelersburg, OH).
Michael R. Hearn
Truth Tabernacle Church
Keizer
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Republicans stoke fi re of bigotry
By MICHAEL GERSON
What is the proper response from a
prospective president to the question:
Is being a Muslim disqualifying for the
presidency?
Ben Carson answered that he
“would not advocate that we put a
Muslim in charge of this nation” be-
cause Islam is incompatible with the
Constitution. The Constitution offers
a different reply: “No religious Test
shall ever be required as a Qualifi ca-
tion to any Offi ce or public Trust un-
der the United States.”
What is the right answer from a
presidential candidate to the question:
Is being an adherent of Hinduism—
which in some nationalist versions is
politically oppressive and anti-Muslim
disqualifying for the presidency? The
proper response: “No religious Test
shall ever be required as a Qualifi ca-
tion to any Offi ce or public Trust un-
der the United States.”
What of practicing Buddhism, a
faith that has Theravada followers in
Myanmar who stoke ethnic and reli-
gious hatred? What of following Mor-
monism, a faith that once had semi-
theocratic dominance of Utah and was
in armed revolution against the federal
government from May 1857 until July
1858? What of Catholicism, a version
of which was employed to justify the
murder of Protestants in Ireland?
The proper answer to all these:
While voters can make individual
judgments about qualifi cations for the
presidency, no one can be barred from
running or serving because of his or
her religion. No religious test shall
ever be required.
And what of an evangelical Chris-
tian who rejects evolution and traces
the roots of radical Islam back to “the
battle between Jacob and Esau”? This
is where Car-
son and some
other evangeli-
cals show an as-
tounding lack of
self-conscious-
ness. Carson ar-
gues that Mus-
lims are unfi t for
high offi ce because they hold a con-
ception of divine law that is inconsis-
tent with a liberal, democratic order.
A signifi cant portion of the country
would disqualify Carson for exactly
the same reason.
Because of the Supreme Court’s
decision on same-sex marriage, con-
servative Christians are currently (and
appropriately) focused on the defense
of religious liberty. But how is it psy-
chologically possible to combine a
zeal for pluralism with such overt
prejudice against one faith? Imagine
an evangelical participating in a pro-
test against the siting of a mosque.
Now imagine him going across the
street to a rally in favor of religious
freedom. Wouldn’t the sign he carries
have to be altered pretty dramatically?
The response of some evangeli-
cals is that Islam is different—that it
is inherently oriented toward violent
jihad and the imposition of a seventh-
century version of Shariah law. This is
a theological claim, which is also made
by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
I sincerely doubt that Ben Carson
and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi are the best
authorities to interpret 1,400 years
of Islamic theological refl ection and
political practice. The overwhelming
majority of Muslim scholars and Mus-
lims in the world would disagree with
their interpretation, as would nearly
all American Muslims.
Yet American Muslims see candi-
other
views
dates on the main stage of American
politics asserting that the worst, most
ugly interpretation of their faith is the
only correct one. The same could be
done to Hindus, Buddhists, Mormons,
Catholics or evangelicals. It would be
unfair in every case.
This is not to deny that some reli-
gious traditions have a more diffi cult
history when it comes to the separa-
tion of divine law from human law. It
is, on balance, easier to have a healthy
suspicion of the state when your
founder was a judicially murdered
itinerant preacher who said to turn
the other cheek. But even this did not
prevent the wars of religion following
the Protestant Reformation that fl at-
tened much of Europe (and were the
bloodiest until World War I). Every
religious tradition has the temptation
of tribalism. It is overcome by calling
people to the best of their traditions,
including respect for the other.
Carson, Donald Trump and other
Republican candidates need to step
back a moment and consider what
they are doing. By targeting various
groups for suspicion—calling Mus-
lims a danger to the Constitution or
attacking undocumented immigrants
as rapists and murderers—they are
opening up a space for some of the
worst elements of our society. A ques-
tioner at the Trump town hall began,
“We have a problem in this country.
It’s called Muslims.” People once on
the political fringes now feel part of
the national conversation. Trump will
look into their views. Carson concurs
with their fears.
What gain or goal is worth the cost
of breathing life into bigotry?
(Washington Post Writers Group)
Expenses force college tuition to spiral
It’s an expression that may not
be commonly heard these days:
“Those were the good old days.”
There are a few instances, however,
where it would seem that its use is ap-
propriate.
What’s in mind are the costs asso-
ciated with matriculating the number
of years required of college or univer-
sity course work to prepare one’s self
for a choice of vocation. A mere 50
years ago, it was my turn to decide for
or against more formal education be-
yond the 12th grade. The fi rst question
was whether I wanted to work full
time, for what was considered living
wage money among the abundance
of job choices back then, or prepare
for a profession that required at least
a four-year college degree.
My mother viewed the future as
one that would more and more of-
ten require a college degree to ob-
tain a good job. I found full-time
work after my senior year and earned
enough money that fi rst summer to
pay all the expenses of my frosh year.
I repeated the summer job routine for
three more years and completed my
college degree on time with grades
and know-how suffi cient to obtain an
Oregon teaching certifi cate and apply
successfully for a teaching position in
the Beaverton School District.
Now I can look back and appreci-
ate the fact that those were the good
old days because I was able to pay my
own way through college and walk
away debt free. In fact, having worked
at the university in dorm management
for four years, while earning scholar-
ships, I had money enough left over
from all expenses to pay my living
costs that fi rst summer after gradua-
tion until a check was issued by my
school district employer in September.
As most of us know, anyone these
days able to do what I did straight out
of high school
is nearly un-
known.
Our
society has be-
come expensive
in the extreme
in almost every
way and that in-
cludes the costs associated with com-
pleting the course work required for
a degree. Here’s a big part of the rea-
son: The president of Pacifi c Univer-
sity was paid a modest amount when
I attended while the current salary of
the president there, Leslie Hallick, is
paid $567,167 per year. Number one
honor for pay goes to the new presi-
dent at the University of Oregon, Mi-
chael Schill, at $660,000. Ed Ray at
OSU comes in third place at $485,088
(plus PERS retirement for Schill and
Ray and perks like free housing and
a car).
Paying these people what is de-
manded nowadays is just one of the rea-
sons that no child save he or she comes
from a wealthy family, one that’s will-
ing and able to foot the bills, can even
think of a college education under the
terms of yesteryear. Meanwhile, too,
many of the classroom instructors are
adjunct or part-time workers whose
pay is low due to abbreviated weekly
hours and who must do other things
to survive economically. The other
distractions mean that classroom pre-
sentations suffer and student learning
and development are marginalized.
Further, the professors in our universi-
ties too often use graduate assistants to
do the work they should be doing in
classrooms and student meetings of all
kinds and that results in short-sheeting
student educations.
The point of all this is that, yes,
infl ation has caused prices of every-
thing to rise, while costs in public
and private universities have gone
gene h.
mcintyre
stratospheric, mainly because of the
costs of paying those who run these
places the salaries and benefi ts of what
may be fairly categorized as modern
day potentates. By personal observa-
tion of what these people typically do
is that they do very little other than
appear for “celebrity” functions, make
e-mail and phone calls to solicit mon-
ey, and hire subordinates at high wages
to do the real work.
What’s happening is that we tax-
payers and the parents of those who
want to attend college or university
are paying excessively large, crippling,
debt-resulting amounts so that Or-
egon’s university administrators can
live lavishly. The money we pay has
become a keep-up-with-the-Jone-
ses craziness so that when a new head
is hired at UO, OSU, or wherever
in higher education here, we parents
and taxpayers end up paying ridicu-
lously high dollar amounts to hire the
“best” people who contribute practi-
cally nothing to the good of society.
They just make the big bucks and
then leave to retire in a gated com-
munity, typically out-of-state, and are
replaced by someone who’s paid even
more.
Those who have bright chil-
dren should consider having them
compete for admission to a school
with an impressive reputation such as
Stanford, Notre Dame or Yale which
are also known to pay their instruc-
tors well in full-time positions. Here
we pay exceedingly well only those in
the top administrative jobs and the
coaches. Meanwhile, our universi-
ty students can attend football games
but accumulate more debt by high
fees so UO, OSU and others can give
jocks, not from Oregon, but from
California and Hawaii, a free college
degree.
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column appears
weekly in the Keizertimes.)