PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, JUNE 23, 2017
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Time for a good buddy tale
By DEBRA SAUNDERS
Americans needed a good buddy
movie after a deranged gunman tar-
geted Republicans practicing for a
bipartisan ballgame to raise money
for charities last week.
The attack left House
Majority Whip Steve
Scalise, R-La., in critical
condition and sent others
to the hospital, including
Capitol Hill police of-
fi cers Crystal Griner and
David Bailey, who fought
off the shooter even after
he wounded them.
So while Griner and Bailey re-
covered, Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas,
and Michael Doyle, D-Pa.—man-
agers of the rival Republican and
Democratic teams—showed Ameri-
cans a side of Congress voters rarely
see on the news: partisans who dis-
agree but are still friends.
Neither Doyle nor Barton used
the violence to make a political
point. Barton told PBS NewsHour,
“We have an R or D by our name,
but our title is United States Repre-
sentative.”
Thursday, President Donald
Trump wondered if Scalise “in his
own way may have brought some
unity to our long-divided country.”
Can something good happen
from something so wrong?
Doyle suggested a path toward
civility. “When people see their
leaders being uncivil toward one an-
other, then you see the public being
uncivil toward one another and to-
ward their leaders.”
He wasn’t blaming anyone for
the lone-wolf shooter’s rampage. He
was acknowledging how Americans
look at Congress—and what mem-
bers can do to restore their image.
A recent Gallup poll found that 20
percent of Americans approve of
Congress, while 74 percent disap-
prove. And that’s up from December
2013 when fewer than 10 percent of
voters approved of Congress.
Mark Harkins, se-
nior fellow of the Gov-
ernment Affairs Insti-
tute at Georgetown
University, blames the
jet airplane. Since the
1970s, as air travel be-
came more ubiquitous,
House members have
gotten to know each other less and
treat each other worse.
Congressmen and women often
spend so little time in Washington,
said Harkins, a former staffer for
House Democrats, that they talk to
each other like users of “an internet
chatroom.”
Harkins noted that more than
half of House members have been
in Congress for less than eight years.
Today’s congressmen and women,
he said, “don’t have houses here.
They don’t bring their families here,
for the fear of seeming to have ‘gone
Washington.’”
House Speaker Paul Ryan built
his image as an anti-Washington
frugal spender because he slept on
a cot in his offi ce and showered in
the House gym. This is a model
for many lawmakers who say their
$174,000 salary cannot support two
homes.
Voters may well think that’s a
good thing. After all, who wants an
elected representative more behold-
en to the machine than the people
who sent him or her to Washington?
The downside of the new or-
der, however, is that members feel
little loyalty to the institution they
other
views
You can’t force people
The goal of identifying Keizer as
a welcoming, safe and inclusive city
is one that can be embraced by all
citizens.
The plea from a small group of
Keizer residents that went before
the city council was for a Inclusivity
resolution. Mayor
Cathy Clark rightly
asked the group to
come back to the
council with a plan
of action the city
could consider. The
group (it doesn’t
have a workable
name yet) reported that other cit-
ies around Oregon are working on
their own inclusivity resolutions.
The group is asking the city to
spend precious resources to establish
an offi cial body that would work
on language to put Keizer on the
correct side of the issue. Even the
simplest of city task forces or com-
mittees requires a meeting space, an
offi cial recorder and printed reports
and meeting mintues.
Keizer and other local govern-
ments operate under federal non-
discrimination guidelines. Many
federal mandates are written to as-
sure rights of individuals and orga-
nizations are maintained and pro-
tected.
What the inclusivity group is
seeking is to legislate beliefs and be-
havior.
You can not force people to do
what you want them to without
the threat of consequences. Unfor-
tunately, public messages meant to
infl uence the actions of the public
often falls deaf on the ears of those
who are the message’s target
audience.
Plus, you cannot pass an or-
dinance calling for the average
citizen to welcome into their
hearts and minds people they
disagree with.
The best the city council
should do is assure that the city
charter uses inclusive language from
top to bottom. The truest way to af-
fect change is through action rather
than word. City leaders can work to
invite underrepresented commu-
nities into the civic fold—it is sad
when almost a fi fth of Keizer’s pop-
ulation is Hispanic and we’ve only
had one Hispanic sit on the council
in the city’s 35-year history.
To be inclusive Hispanics and
other groups need to be invited to
the table, appointed to city commis-
sions, invited to take leadership roles
in both civic and private organiza-
tions.
You can’t change people’s hearts
and minds with ordiances so you
have to do it with persistent mes-
sages of respect and invitation.
—LAZ
Fees
our nation to control im-
migration. Should such
people be welcomed and
made to feel included?
A nation that doesn’t
have respected and en-
forced immigration con-
trols, quite simply, cannot
endure. The U.S. has clear borders,
and a federal immigration system.
Every person entering the U.S. is
supposed to be inspected by federal
agents before being admitted. The
agents will check that the person is
either a returning citizen, or has a
valid visa or other offi cial proof of
identity giving that person the right
to enter. Anyone who sneaks in un-
inspected, or overstays a visa, is by
law defi ned as an illegal alien.
Sadly, many Americans have died
overdosing on drugs smuggled into
the U.S. across our southern border
by vicious illegal alien gang members
now entrenched in Oregon. Our
country has suffered deadly terrorist
attacks made easy by poor immigra-
tion controls. Excessive immigration
has increased U.S. population beyond
environmental carrying capacity,
threatening natural resources.
Our new president is dedicated
to restoring integrity in immigration
management.
Oregon and Keizer should coop-
erate in these efforts, not try to stop
them.
Elizabeth Van Staaveren
McMinnville
our
opinion
To the Editor:
This is in regard to the
city council imposing a
free for additional money
for police and parks in
Keizer.
After watching Police
Chief John Teague’s presentation at
the special city council meeting, I am
inclined to encourage the council to
go ahead now with the fee for fi ve
police offi cers at $4 per month per
city utility billing.
I am also in favor of indexing
the fee if approved by future budget
committees. As for the fee for parks,
I would not have any problem with
a fee of $2 per month and allowing
that to be indexed by future budget
committees. I would strongly oppose
at fee of $4 per month for parks at
this time.
Bill Quinn
Keizer
letters
Why some people
are unwelcome
To the Editor:
In the letter sent by “Concerned
friends” to the Keizer mayor, most
readers will notice a gaping hole in
the “friends” argument for making
Keizer a “welcoming and inclusive
city.”
“Inclusive” is a current buzzword
used to obscure the fact that some
people are defying the basic right of
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serve. They run for Congress trash-
ing Congress, just as Trump ran for
president promising to “drain the
swamp” that is D.C.
They visit their districts most
weekends. They fl y into the capital
on Monday or Tuesday morning and
fl y home Thursday night.
The House working calendar has
adjusted accordingly. Last year after
reviewing the congressional work
schedule, Reuters found that mem-
bers “have been spending fewer
days working in Washington since
the late 2000s.” In 2016, the House
scheduled 111 workdays. The Bipar-
tisan Policy Center’s Commission
on Political Reform recommended
180-200 working days.
It’s no wonder then that Washing-
ton seems so dysfunctional. House
members can’t get out of the belt-
way fast enough.
PBS NewsHour anchor Judy
Woodruff was so taken with the
team of Barton and Doyle that she
wondered why news coverage didn’t
refl ect their mutual admiration.
“It doesn’t surprise me that Doyle
and Barton are trying to do this kind
of thing,” said Harkins; both men
have been in the House for decades.
Voters sent Barton to Congress in
1984 and Doyle was fi rst elected to
the House in 1994.
“Find me two guys who have
been here for less than six years”
who exhibit such friendship, said
Harkins —then “you’ve got me in-
terested.”
For his part, Doyle fi ngered the
media. He told Woodruff, “We tend
to be not the ones the media’s inter-
ested in interviewing ... maybe the
news media too could refl ect a little
bit more on that.”
(Creators Syndicate)
New tactics needed in Afghan war
By GENE H. McINTYRE
After 15 years of trying the same
strategies and tactics to defeat the
Taliban, would it not seem high time
that something new is tried? Refer-
ence is made to our ongoing, ap-
parently interminable military-on-
the-ground presence in Afghanistan
where draining the U.S. treasury
and losing many young American
lives goes on year-in and
year-out to what’s now
recognized as a protracted
stalemate with neither side
in the win column. This
condition of futility goes
for Iraq, Somalia, Syria,
and Yemen, too.
We went into Afghani-
stan for what was argued
a good reason after 9/11, when the
origin of that dastardly attack was
determined to be al-Queda training
camps located there. The U.S. in-
tent also was to exterminate the
Taliban. What began as an effort to
exact revenge for killing thousands
of Americans in New York City and
Washington, D.C., and prevent a re-
peat, has turned into a war without
victory for us and no end to resur-
gent activity by a deeply dedicated,
and extremist-entrenched terrorist
movement .
Now, American media report
that there’s serious thought being
given to increasing the number
of U.S. military trying to end the
Taliban, U.S. military numbers hav-
ing waxed and waned to a present
several thousand (8,400) with sev-
eral thousand more under consid-
eration. Yet, the average taxpayer
and the peace-loving American,
with a heavy heart and moral con-
science, wonders what, for heaven’s
sake, is to be gained with the same
performance repeated
again and again.
Should U.S. num-
bers and accompa-
nying NATO forces
(13,500) leave Afghani-
stan, would those resur-
gent elements not turn
from the fi ghting there
to plot and scheme
again, acts of violence in America
and throughout Europe? The an-
swer is most likely, yes. Neverthe-
less, a withdrawal by the U.S. and
NATO would most surely be less
expensive in most every way than
the slippery slope of more-involve-
ment-is-better U.S. actions now
practiced in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, technology in abun-
dance has been developed by so-
phisticated spy satellites, drone-car-
rying cameras and CIA informants
to maintain surveillance on what
those people are up to. So, what’s
keeping us from approaching the
Afghan problem this way? Once
guest
column
we’re gone, and NATO, too, keep a
sky-eye on them and destroy activi-
ties that are judged by photo-analy-
sis to be preparing to attack the U.S.
and our allies.
As usual, this plan of surveillance-
and-destroy accordingly presents a
‘fl y in the soup’ of war. There’s a
huge military-industrial complex in
our nation that makes monumen-
tally large profi ts by building arma-
ments and all the doodads that go to
putting an army into the fi eld and
keeping it supplied with every pos-
sible support. Then there are those
politicians and military personnel
who keep themselves safe and en-
trenched in Washington, D.C. by
supporting and beating the war
drums so we can remain “safe.”
We could do much, much better
at the ways and means we manage
our human and material resources
for national defense. However, as
long as a majority of the American
people are willing to let those who
keep us warring-by-feet-on-the-
ground in Afghanistan and the like,
even those who campaign against it
when running for public offi ce (re-
member what current Oval Offi ce
occupant repeatedly promised and
his comments about Iraq before we
invaded) while soon thereafter re-
veal their real intentions and thereby
provide no light at the end of this
tunnel.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)
When it’s time for me to leave this mortal coil
Retirement has freed up a lot of
time. I’ve decided to use some of it for
growing up and doing mature things.
It’s come to my attention that most
responsible adults fi ll out wills in or-
der to simplify life for their survivors.
Our chosen attorney says
we should create the will,
assign durable power of at-
torney to a trusted family
member/friend, and leave
an advance directive. It’s
the advance directive that
excites the imagination.
The fi rst thing we
learned is that the attor-
ney wants $250 an hour. American
pay scales aren’t associated in any
way with stress levels. Our daugh-
ter makes a fraction of that teaching
math and science to middle-school-
ers. Never mind.
We are a family of modest
means—an uncomplicated estate.
The will was simple. We assigned du-
rable power of attorney to each other,
then to the eldest child. The advance
directive provoked the interesting
discussions.
Our advance directives came in a
helpful booklet. The opening pages
suggest different scenarios to jump-
start conversation about miserable
ways to die. Can you talk about it?
Does money matter? Religion? Do
you worry about being a burden to
your family? Persistent vegetative
state? Incurable illness? Then you
are to discuss what measures should
be taken to keep you alive even fac-
ing no hope of recovery. As of this
writing I don’t think I want any fam-
ily member patiently
keeping a bedside vigil,
wishing they were
somewhere else. At
my fi nest I am not a
particularly responsive
individual. If I am to-
tally unresponsive, pull
the plug.
Then there is a
worksheet to record your decisions.
They saved the best for last. About
my death: Would I rather die at home
or in a medical facility of some sort?
Ideally I would vanish unnoticed into
the forest. Then you fi gure out who
you would like present at your death.
The people I care most about should
not feel obligated to attend. Instead
I would like mandatory attendance
by people who repeatedly take a full
cart of groceries through the express
lane, people who don’t say please and
thank you, and people who post stuff
that is vile and/or untrue.
At last you are asked to discuss
what should be done with your re-
mains. There are only two listed
choices: burial or cremation. Nei-
ther of those is very celebratory. One
a box
of
soap
thing that came to mind was a funeral
pyre. I know that outdoor burning is
prohibited in Keizer, but maybe we
can make an exception. I am hop-
ing we can build a nice tall wooden
structure with plenty of fuel in the
center of our new roundabout. Wrap
me in plain linen and light me up.
Allow people to slowly circle and add
combustibles that commemorate my
existence.
If that seems too much to ask then
we can go with my real fi rst choice.
Wrap me in linen and set me on an
Oregon beach atop a substantial pile
of explosives. There is precedent for
this rite of passage. We may be able to
raise funds for charity by auctioning
off the right to press the detonator.
My only other wish is to have
Sean Spicer as funeral spokesperson.
That will allow reports boasting the
largest crowd ever to witness a fu-
neral pyre in Keizer, or certainty that
my remains will be blown to altitudes
never reached by any stupid whale
carcass.
(Don Vowell gets on his soapbox
regularly in the Keizertimes.)
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