PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, JUNE 17, 2016
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Food carts? You bet
The Keizer City Coun-
cil must take the side of free
enterprise and approve the
operation of food carts in the
city.
Keizer is decidedly not
Portland, but food carts are a
huge part of the culinary ex-
perience in our neighbor to
the north. Let us not hamper the
entrepreneurial spirit of someone
who thinks they can make a success
of a cart that sells food that might
not be available anywhere else in
Keizer.
There are two areas of the city
where food carts should be allowed:
along River Road and at Keizer
Station. A pod of carts on River
Road (where exactly needs to be
negotiated between cart owner and
land owners) would add an element
of vitality that is missing.
There should be a waiver of the
city’s code that addresses color of
brick and mortar buildings to allow
carts to be painted and decorated
with panache which would be a vi-
brant addition to the city’s core.
There are a num-
ber of cuisines that
could be served at
a food cart that is
now not available.
Pho is a very popular
Asian dish but it not
available anywhere
in Keizer. Imagine
the foods from around the globe
that could be served, enriching the
fabric of life of our community—
Korean, Argentine, Indian. The list
goes on. A certain winner would be
a food cart that serves pizza by the
slice. You cannot fi nd pizza by the
slice anywhere in town, including
grocery store deli counters.
The addition of food carts to
Keizer’s business mix would benefi t
all. Food carts would certainly be
competition for existing restaurants
but that is what capitalism and free
enterprise is all about.
Approval of food carts in Keizer
is a good bet for competition and
appetites alike.
—LAZ
editorial
When love fails to conquer
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Andrew was the fi rst friend I made
at Auburn University.
It had been two weeks since leaving
home for college, and I’d found a job
at the on-campus housing department.
There were a number of
other students working
there giving tours and
fi lling a myriad number
of other functions, but I
was put in offi ce out of
view from the scuttle of
daily operations.
Andrew was the fi rst
student who went out of his way to
come and introduce himself. It’s some-
thing I remember vividly because An-
drew wore a pink turtleneck with bib
overalls, one strap unhooked.
A year later, we were sharing an
apartment on campus. Andrew, an in-
terior design major, handled decora-
tions, and I would proudly boast that
ours was the best appointed set of
rooms on campus.
I found a bit of smug satisfaction
in rooming with a gay man. A few
months before my departure for col-
lege, one of my favorite relatives and
I were talking about the mostly unre-
alistic possibilities I might be facing as
far as roommates.
“What if they put you with some-
one who is gay?” she opined. “Eww.”
To my knowledge, I had never had
close contact with a LGBTQ person.
It wasn’t something I feared, and I had
trouble understanding why she felt it
would be so potentially offensive. I
said nothing.
However, Andrew’s sexual prefer-
ence was something I omitted from
conversations with anyone beyond
my mother, father and sister. I could
have cared less what anyone thought
of me, I didn’t want judgement levied
on Andrew.
Even in the conversations I would
have on the subject, I started to dis-
cover there were huge gulfs of igno-
rance and intolerance. Some people
coded it differently, but there were
moments when I wondered how we
might ever bridge the gaps.
To my great surprise and relief,
LGBTQ-positive views are spreading
at meteoric speed. Twenty years ago,
the idea of gay marriage becoming a
social norm seemed like a moonshot,
but it’s happening. Then, of course, a
man with an assault rifl e murders 49
people at a gay nightclub in Orlando,
Fla., and I’m questioning just how far
we maybe haven’t progressed.
Within hours, the labels were fl y-
ing, but labels are reductive by nature.
They allow us to distance ourselves
from the social “others” that we share
the planet with. It makes it easier for
us to say, “I’m not that,” and then go
about our merry business.
In addressing the nation after the
shooting, President Barack Obama re-
minded us that doing nothing is still
a choice. It reminded me of talking
to that relative so many
years ago and making a
choice with my silence.
I thought it was better to
stay quiet than risk what-
ever minor umbrage my
own thoughts might have
incurred.
In the years since meet-
ing Andrew, I’ve amassed many more
LGBTQ friends. They are some of my
closest confi dants, and I’m infuriated
that they might view this incident as
reason to be something less than their
true selves. I’m reasonably confi dent
that they won’t, but I also volunteer
at McNary High School with students
interested in creative writing where,
every year for fi ve years, I’ve had at
least one LGBTQ student. I’m less
certain they are able to digest an in-
cident like Orlando with the benefi t
of the perspective granted by time and
perseverance.
I wish telling them there are
more good people than bad ones
was enough to settle their minds and
hearts, but I lack concrete evidence to
prove such claims.
According to fi vethirtyeight.com,
there were 15,351 violent, anti-LG-
BTQ hate crimes reported between
1995 and 2008. A little more than two
percent of the population identifi es as
LGBTQ, but they account for 17.4
percent of the total reported. At that
rate, LGBTQ individuals are more
then eight times more likely to be vic-
timized than any of the other group.
And it’s easy to imagine a lot of these
types of crime aren’t reported at all.
That’s an inordinate amount of
hate slung at people who are only
trying to be themselves. We can cre-
ate all the safe spaces that we want
but, eventually, LGBTQ individuals
are going to need to venture beyond
them. I would fear less for their safety
if we could offer something more
than hopeful assurance that they or
someone they love won’t be gunned
down in hatred.
As someone who makes his living
on the protections granted by the fi rst
amendment, I’m obligated to support
rights of speakers who say things I
don’t agree with. But those protec-
tions don’t extend to a thrown fi st, the
heel of a boot or the bark of a gun.
Speaking out against such virulent
hate seems like the ultimate in tepid
defenses, but it is my choice.
moments
of lucidity
Keizertimes
Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303
phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com
SUBSCRIPTIONS
NEWS EDITOR
Eric A. Howald
editor@keizertimes.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Derek Wiley
news@keizertimes.com
One year:
$25 in Marion County,
$33 outside Marion County,
$45 outside Oregon
PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY
ADVERTISING
Publication No: USPS 679-430
Paula Moseley
advertising@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER
Send address changes to:
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Andrew Jackson
Keizertimes Circulation
graphics@keizertimes.com
142 Chemawa Road N.
LEGAL NOTICES
Keizer, OR 97303
legals@keizertimes.com
EDITOR & PUBLISHER
Lyndon Zaitz
publisher@keizertimes.com
BUSINESS MANAGER
Laurie Painter
billing@keizertimes.com
Periodical postage paid at
Salem, Oregon
RECEPTION
Lori Beyeler
facebook.com/keizertimes
twitter.com/keizertimes
Will Orlando drive us from our corners?
By E.J. DIONNE JR.
It only compounded the horror
that the deadliest mass shooting in
U.S. history called forth talking points
that had been composed long before
50 innocents were murdered early
Sunday.
The immediate reactions on social
media to the killings at Pulse Orlando,
a popular gay dance club, etched a
portrait of our national divisions, our
mutual mistrust and our inclination to
know what we think even when we
lack all the facts.
Even before President Obama
spoke Sunday afternoon, there were
declarations of great certainty that
he would attribute the massacre to
guns and not “Islamism”—and would
therefore feed support for Donald
Trump.
Trump did not disappoint. At 12:43
p.m., he turned to his communica-
tions medium of choice and tweeted:
“Appreciate the congrats for being
right on radical Islamic terrorism, I
don’t want congrats, I want toughness
& vigilance. We must be smart!”
It is no day for partisanship, but
how could Trump even think of us-
ing a moment of national trauma and
mourning as an occasion to tout his
own genius—or to reach sweeping
conclusions on the fl y?
But it’s entirely true that those of us
who have long believed that our scan-
dalously lax national gun laws make
sickening slaughters inevitable had
predictable reactions of our own.
I freely admit that I identifi ed
entirely with Sen. Chris Murphy
(D-Conn.) when he declared: “This
phenomenon
of near constant
mass shootings
happens only
in America —
nowhere else.
Congress has
become com-
plicit in these
murders by its total, unconscionable
deafening silence.”
Note that phrase “near constant.”
We are far from alone in the world
in confronting terrorism. What is dif-
ferent about our nation—enragingly,
dispiritingly, depressingly different—
is that from Virginia Tech to Sandy
Hook to Orlando, attacks of this sort
happen here again and again and again.
Why can we never include a reap-
praisal of our weapons laws as part of
democracy’s arsenal of responses to
terrorism and mass violence?
Why are those who tout them-
selves as being the toughest among
us in calling out terrorism inspired by
Islam so timid as soon as any plausible
answer is labeled “gun control”?
Nonetheless, those of us who hold
these views must fi nd ways of reach-
ing out to fellow citizens with whom
we have been battling for decades.
Terrorism terrorizes advocates of gun
control and supporters of gun rights
alike.
And those on both sides of the gun
issue will want to know why three
FBI interviews with the killer, Omar
Mateen, did not raise more alarms
in light of evidence of his apparent
terrorist sympathies. What we know
so far underscores the challenges of
other
views
fi ghting terrorism in a free society.
When the president did address
the nation, his sobriety and restraint
refl ected the reaction of a man who
had been required too often to speak
about the unspeakable and whose calls
for action have gone unheeded.
He gave his critics who despise his
views on guns nothing, turning the
tables on them by saying simply that
failing to act to keep deadly weapons
out of the hands of those who would
use them against innocent fellow hu-
man beings “is a decision as well.” And
it is.
He also did something important,
showing how futile it is to force an act
of evil into the boxes we prefabricate.
The Orlando slaughter was, he said,
“an act of terror and an act of hate.”
We should despise what happened
if our fellow citizens were gunned
down by a man who was inspired by
foreign terrorists. And we should de-
spise what happened if people had
their lives snuffed out because of their
sexual orientation.
We gain nothing by arguing about
which form of moral revulsion is su-
perior or more appropriate. We set
ourselves back by responding to an act
of violence against Americans who are
gay by turning on Americans who are
Muslim.
The only appropriate response
to Orlando is solidarity harnessed to
intelligent determination. So far, no
body count, however repulsive, has
forced us to abandon our ideological
cul-de-sacs. The dead on the fl oor of a
night club cry out to us.
(Washington Post Writers Group)
America is a tapestry of world’s races
Because every grouping of people
in the world harbor among them an
assortment of the good, the bad and
the ugly, the Latinos, arguably, are no
exception as is any cross-section of the
U.S. population. Nevertheless, there
are some Americans who have chosen
to single Latinos out as mainly rapists,
murderers and drug peddlers.
Meanwhile, according to facts as
organized into a volume by author
Steve Phillips in Brown is the New
White: How the Demographic Revolu-
tion Has Created a New American Ma-
jority Latinos who come to the U.S.
constitute six subgroups, counting
63 percent from Mexico, 9.2 percent
from Puerto Rico, 3.5 percent from
Cuba, 3 percent from El Salvador and
the Dominican Republic and 2.1 per-
cent from Guatemala.
Population in the U.S. now num-
bers about 320 million. Whatever the
case of their numbers in past times,
Latinos are today the largest group of
color with 54 million and are followed
by African-Americans at 43 mil-
lion and Asian-Americans, counting
18 million and whom Phillips claims
are the fastest-growing ethnic group
in the U.S.
It may interest some to know, if
they don’t already, that 51 percent of
Latinos live in the U.S. states of Arizo-
na, California, Colorado, New Mexi-
co, and Texas. That huge area was part
of Mexico before the war between the
U.S. and Mexico that ended with the
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
and the surrender by Mexico.
History reports that the war start-
ed because Texas sought indepen-
dence from Mexico so it could con-
tinue practicing slavery. With the help
of President James Polk and many a
like-minded member of Congress
and other Americans, the U.S. militar-
ily intervened. In fact, many a Mexi-
can “visitor” refuses to accept “illegal”
to describe those without documents
and whose view often harbors the idea
that illegal is how the U.S. took Mex-
ico’s land at gunpoint 168 years ago.
Yet, time brings changes and though
some Mexicans
living in the
U.S. are fond
of saying, “We
didn’t cross the
border, the bor-
der crossed us,”
there have been
adjustments and accommodations
over the years. Since Mexicans came
north to occupy lands that were solely
occupied by native Americans in past
centuries, there remained many a fam-
ily of Mexican origin on land that be-
came part of the United States. Much
of the infl ux of Latinos to the U.S.
population in recent years is a result of
the 1965 Immigration and Nationality
Act which provided those south of the
border to reunite with families in Ari-
zona, California and other states.
Puerto Ricans and Cubans have
settled in the U.S. by way of historical
patterns. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citi-
zens and eligible to vote in U.S. elec-
tions. Many a Puerto Rican has settled
in the state of New York and states
nearby while economic challenges in
their home have encouraged them
more recently to relocate in Flori-
da and other areas of the American
South. Cuban immigrants also chose
gene h.
mcintyre
Florida as a destination for change of
living location. Fidel Castro’s regime
motivated many to fl ee Cuba after he
took over in 1959 which means that
at least half of Cuban-Americans were
born here.
By what Steve Phillips reports, 20
percent of Oregon’s current popula-
tion is Latino with the states of Ida-
ho and Washington counting a similar
number. The Oregon territory was
never part of Mexico any more than
it was ever claimed by a “south of
the border” entity. So, Latinos cannot
legitimately claim that Oregonians,
for one, played mix the borders with
them.
Whatever the case, the bottom line
is that the Latinos are here to stay,
Trump or no Trump. It’s believed that
the best advice anyone can offer is that
all races and people inside the U.S.
should try harder, much harder, to get
along with each other and not hold
immigrant origins against anyone
since we’re all immigrants. After all,
if we accept all who are document-
ed here and want to be citizens, we
thereby recognize the contributions
that all make to the standard of living
we enjoy,
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)