Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 5, 2018)
JANUARY 5, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM No crystal balls, no wishes At the end of each year media outlets use news space to predict what will happen in the following 12 months or run a list of wished- for headlines in the coming year. In this space we don’t utilize crystal balls or predictions—they are nice parlor games—we prefer to look forward by relying on trends and the words of those who can af- fect the future. We will focus on what is hap- pening rather than write about hoped for events. While we don’t do predictions we are con- fi dent in our desire to hear words that can help all live better lives—that is the goal of most every man and woman. We want to hear the words com- promise, moderation, solve and everyone. Compromise is not a dirty or treasonous word, though that is what many in Congress have sug- gested or acted on. Politics is the art of compromise—shifting one’s position slightly to achieve part of one’s goals. In recent years politics has meant stand fi rm in your posi- tion and don’t give in...ever. Just as extremism is no virtue, moderation is no vice. Winners and winning ideas live in the middle, the space between the extremes of the ideological spectrum. Former conservative icon Ronald Rea- gan certainly understood the art of moderating some of his long-held beliefs to achieve a score in the win column. Every problem that America, Oregon and Keizer face has been solved somewhere in the world. A look to Europe and Asia will show how countries on those continents have managed their traffi c and transportation issues. Travelers re- turning from those places marvel at the infrastructure that get people from one place to another. Other nations have also addressed hous- ing and density issues that can be an example. Hippocrates said it best more than 2,000 years ago. In part, he wrote pri- mum non nocere. Its trans- lation is one of the most well known sayings on Earth: “fi rst, do no harm.” It was part of the oath that those who dispensed medical service gave to the gods. Though modern day doctors do not use the oath, its premise is an important guide. Everyone knows the Golden Rule and some may even live by it. Hippocrates rule, while originally devised for doctors, would be a good complement to the Golden Rule es- pecially by those who have sway over others: governments, employers, leg- islators and business. Doing no harm would mean pass- ing laws that are friendly to our en- vironment—the only one we have. It would mean not imposing regula- tions or doing away with regulations that relate to the well-being of peo- ple or their livelihoods. We should all endeavor to do no harm to the world on which we live or to harm those who are different than us. When we compromise, moderate our positions we can fi nd solutions that benefi t everyone. That’s a heck of a plan, one to adopt and help oth- ers, all without the services of a crys- tal ball or made-up headlines. We’ll do our part. —LAZ our opinion The mad rush to Waremart The anticipation for the open- ing of Waremart byWincoFoods at Creekside Center is palpable. Thou- sands of Keizer households are ready to shop at the city’s second grocery store. The city has had one grocery for several years. We would expect that once the doors of Waremart are open for business there will be quite the mad rush to check it out and do some shopping. We would also expect that the city of Keizer recognizes this and will help with traffi c control. Creek- side Center is notoriously hard to exit onto River Road or Lockhav- en Drive at certain times of the day. With a crush of cars entering and exiting the parking lot it would be helpful to have police offi cers help- ing direct traffi c during rush hour for the fi rst few days of operation. Eventually a rythym of traffi c will be set and people may time their trips to the new store accord- ingly, but at the beginning the city of Keizer’s police department can do a wonderful service and help residents get to a business that will be pumping lots of tax dollars into the city’s coffers. That’s worth a few days of police traffi c control. —LAZ Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com Where contempt and mockery meet By MICHAEL GERSON I, Tonya is a movie that is, in places, very diffi cult to watch. But it is also impossible to look away. This biopic about the briefl y famous, then in- famous Tonya Harding has offended some re- viewers by putting child abuse and domestic vio- lence in close proximity to comedy. But it would be diffi cult to tell Hard- ing’s story without both elements. Harding’s mother, LaVona, (the way the movie portrays it) motivated her young daughter’s dedication to skat- ing with beatings and demeaning cru- elty and eventually threw a kitchen knife into her daughter’s arm. LaVona (played with vicious charisma by Al- lison Janney) also excels at emotional violence. At one point—after the at- tack on Harding’s main skating rival, Nancy Kerrigan —LaVona fi nally tells her grateful, tearful daughter how proud she is of her achievements on the ice. But Harding discovers that her mother is actually recording the con- versation in a ploy to sell a confession to the tabloids. Harding’s husband, Jeff Gillooly, not to be outdone, smashes his wife’s head into a wall and shoots a gun at her. Nearly everyone who is supposed to love Harding hurts and betrays her. But who could possibly invent a stranger comic story than the conspir- acy against Kerrigan’s knee? Gillooly plots with self-described international counterterrorism expert Shawn Eck- hardt (actually a professional loser and Star Trek nerd who lives with his par- ents) to send death threats to Kerrigan. This somehow morphs into the hiring of two hit men (quite literally in this case) to strike Kerrigan’s leg with a retractable baton, in an attempt to disable her be- fore the 1994 Olympics. This caper has all the hallmarks of comic exaggeration; but none of this was fi ction. Eckhardt, in particular, is a reminder that cartoon characters actually walk among us. The moral core of I, Tonya is clear enough. Harding is a diffi cult, occa- sionally obnoxious person, for whom we end up rooting without reserva- tion. She emerges from a crucible of dysfunction and abuse as a remark- able fi gure—at one point, the best in her fi eld. In a world where the judges wanted a princess, she was an athlete. Their preference for “artistry” was re- vealed as snobbery. Harding’s work- ing-class background and hand-sewn costumes were noted at the time— now (amazingly to me) 25 years ago. But the real story was how a fl awed, vulnerable young woman managed to show such strength and excellence even while surrounded by abusive fools. The fools eventually brought her down. There is little evidence that Harding participated in planning the plot against Kerrigan. There is plenty of evidence that she trusted the wrong people. But I, Tonya is ambitious beyond other voices these details. The movie points to the danger of imposing a simple narrative on events. I vividly recall the Harding/ Kerrigan scandal and Olympic show- down, which occupied the country for months. Before I saw the movie, I honestly could not remember if Hard- ing was innocent or guilty. Yet in the back of my mind, I thought she ex- emplifi ed guiltiness. The country had created a drama with a villain and a victim. There was no room for hu- manizing complexity. It is possible, it turns out, for a story to have two victims. In the cause of our narratives, it is our tendency to draw massive con- clusions based on scant evidence. The movie indicts tabloid television — which was a rising force at the time— as particularly prone to this destructive form of simplifi cation. But Harding eventually turns to the camera and ac- cuses the audience sitting in the the- ater of the same thing. When she says, “You’re all my attackers, too,” it is a moment of genuine discomfort. Elsewhere in the movie, Hard- ing argues, “There is no such thing as truth. Everyone has their own truth.” It is facile and destructive to claim that truth itself is relative. But all of us see truth from our own angle, and there is wisdom in recognizing that our view can be skewed. As I, Tonya demon- strates, the world is often more com- plex—and more interesting—than our narratives. (Washington Post Writers Group) Seniors need to head off budget cuts Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 Phone: 503.390.1051 • www.keizertimes.com MANAGING EDITOR SUBSCRIPTIONS 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 & GRAPHIC DESIGNER Andrew Jackson graphics@keizertimes.com LEGAL NOTICES EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com Keizertimes Circulation 142 Chemawa Road N. Keizer, OR 97303 legals@keizertimes.com BUSINESS MANAGER Laurie Painter billing@keizertimes.com Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon RECEPTION Lori Beyeler INTERN Random Pendragon facebook.com/keizertimes twitter.com/keizertimes By GENE H. McINTYRE “Seniors” includes guys like me. We Americans, who grew up during the years I grew up, most of- ten completed high school while also holding part-time jobs that were full-time on Saturdays and dur- ing summers. Subject knowledge leads me to say that we made serious contributions to the American econo- my, raised families, and served in wars since 1945. We worked throughout our lives and earned a re- spectable retirement. That appears threatened now. At this moment, for seniors, the Republi- can tax package is not only widely unpopular but already recognized as mainly benefi cial to the “One Percent” of Americans who got wealthy through our labor and consumer buying. These wealthy Americans are nowadays sin- gularly served by what should also be our representatives in the U.S. Con- gress. Meanwhile, the D.C. Capitol crowd lies to us in propagandizing that the tax package is a win for all Ameri- cans. As 2018 dawns, these GOP rep- resentatives are concerned about a backlash by their constituents back home and plan to double-down in an aggressive public relations effort, try- ing to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. At the same time, President Don- ald Trump is busy, by talk and tweets, promising that he “will work with the Democrats to rebuild the nation’s road and bridges” after one of the greatest giveaways ever to the U.S. rich. So, let’s get real. With the tax cuts alone, not including an infrastructure package that would require more bil- lions in defi cit spending, it means the nation will go more seriously and outrageously deeper into black hole debt that will adversely effect a lot of us us and our descendants. But, hold your horses! Let’s be wise to what’s really a coup de grace that will be peddled to the contrary as making all here good and wonderful: the greatest of pipe dreams that our nation’s cor- porations and wealthy will use their recklessly generous windfall to invest in all ways possible to improve and en- hance American lives in general. Americans who’ve been around for a while should know what’s about to happen. The same rep- resentatives in Washington, who’ve given us the new tax package are eyeball- ing seniors for budget sav- ings, and those savings will be advocated by drastic cuts, even termination of, Medi- care, Medicaid, and what was the sacred “third rail in politics,” Social Security. Again, pre- dictably, those clever folks who are supposed to be looking after all of us, those who worked for a better America, will predictably soon be in- formed that things must be tidied up through “entitlement reform.” Trans- guest column lated, that means seniors must pay for those tax breaks. If seniors, and those Ameri- cans about to become seniors, want to save themselves, it appears time- ly for them to become activists. At least look into what’s about to be laid upon us and be motivated thereby to vote. Then, too, regarding the entitle- ments issue, it’s not only that Social Se- curity will take a dive by reforms, but it’s Medicare that keeps most of us af- ter age 65 from poverty and home- lessness when surgical procedures and cancer-abating drugs become our fi - nancial companions. A fi ght by millions upon millions of older Americans must be joined to let those in Congress know that their days “representing” us are over if they vote for signifi cant damage to our govern- ment lifelines. In fact, although it may be pie-in-the-sky thinking at this time, the best course of action for the Amer- ican majority is for the tax package to be reversed as soon as possible and our current “representatives” become real representatives again. (Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)