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MARCH 30, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Women’s teams make bball thrilling Pucker up for Lemonade Day An early 20th century American president was misquoted as saying, “The business of America is busi- ness.” His actual quote was, “The chief business of the American peo- ple is business.” The meaning can be said to be the same. Small business will get a decidedly lemon fl avor as the 2018 Lemonade Day event is held on Sat- urday, May 19. Organized by Salem-Keizer Educa- tion Foundation (SKEF), this year’s event will be held on the foundation of the success of the 2017 Day, in which more than 500 lemonade stands dotted Salem and Keizer. Lemonade Day, which was de- veloped in Texas 10 years ago, has grown nationwide. The Day is de- signed to teach grade school kids what it takes to start a business. With assistance from the national orga- nization, parents, men- tors and advisors kids go through all the steps of starting a business. Though it is a fun activity for kids it is a learning experience as well. After deciding to be part of Lem- onade Day, a kid—either individu- ally or with a team—must devise the best lemonade recipe. Then they must identify the best place to have their stand. Location, location, loca- tion. This year a number of businesses along River Road will let kids put a stand in front of their businesses on Lemonade Day, which happens to fall on the same day as the Keizer Iris Festival parade. The eight or 10 stands that get to those businesses fi rst will have a built-in, captive au- dience. The spots along River Road are not the only sites available. A le- onade stand can be sited anywhere (as long as they have the property owner’s permission). After a site is chosen, the fun of designing a stand including signage begins. Over recent years, there have been stands ranging from simple and humble to outrageous; you never know what can happen when you unleash the imagination of a child. Lemonade Day is not just about having a stand and making some money. Learning how to start a small business means learnng about expenses and profi t. The Day is de- signed for the little businesspeople to use their profi ts for good. One third is to be desig- nated for a favorite char- ity (animals, hunger and kids in need are popular choices). One third should be put into savings for col- lege. The last third is mad money, the lemonader can use anyway they want. Though adults play an important part in getting lemonade stands go- ing, it is the kids themselves who make the lemonade, man their stand and serve their customers with a smile. On May 19 grown- ups throughout Keizer and Salem should get ready to pucker up, buy as many cups of lemonade as possible and show today’s kids we support he little entrepeneur inside them. — LAZ Go kids, go Support candidates who support your ideas and goals and who have a vi- sion for our country that you share. As soon as you are old enough, run for offi ce and get elected! Hand out fl iers, stand on cor- ners, and knock on doors. Don’t sell out and don’t get bought out. Stay true to yourself and to those who support you. Run for lo- cal and state offi ce and eventually for Congress. Bring fresh ideas and needed change to our government and our institutions. Today’s kids will one day be our leaders and their youth and idealism will serve our country well. Among them are our future presidents. Let’s not dampen their enthusiasm. Jim Parr Keizer our opinion Tothe Editor: We have to support the kids. They are eloquent in their speeches, their signs and slogans, and their te- nacity. The Second Amend- ment is not at fault, but things change after 231 years or so. Our Founding Fathers could not have envisioned or imag- ined the weapons of today. The fram- ers of the Constitution would not have approved of modern military assault weapons being so pervasive in our society and would be appalled at what is happening in our society today. They would want kids to live and thrive. Our current leaders will not fi x this. So kids, it is up to you. Stay in school and study hard. Keep your message simple and clear. Re- sist compromise and don’t agree to meaningless offers. Don’t let up and don’t give up. Don’t let outside inter- ests take over your cause. Be patient and expect ups and downs. As soon as you are old enough, get registered and vote. Don’t worry about politics, parties and party lines. letters Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 Phone: 503.390.1051 • www.keizertimes.com SUBSCRIPTIONS One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY Publication No: USPS 679-430 POSTMASTER Send address changes to: Keizertimes Circulation 142 Chemawa Road N. Keizer, OR 97303 EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com facebook.com/keizertimes Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon twitter.com/keizertimes Negative comments can follow statements where a writer who initi- ates them has been judged to over- glorify his subject. Nevertheless, this writer risks the negative reactions to write about a sports phenomenon that did not come to his attention through the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The matter shines a spotlight on wom- en in college basketball, competing throughout their various college re- gional conferences as well as seeking national title fame. The writer could have—but did not—get more interested in col- lege women’s play un- til the 2017-2018 season mainly because the two Oregon basketball men’s teams previously followed most closely, Oregon State and University of Oregon, have not done as well as in some years past. So, while competition-level successes wax and wane from one year to the next and, as the basketball bounced in courts at OSU and UO this year, it’s the women who’ve far and away done better than the guys. Several generally apparent con- ditions of play with the women in their games make them quite appeal- ing. Play is almost exclusively con- ducted without dunks and, from this observer’s vantage, also without trash talk, the fi rst, a show-off practice that breeds arrogance and disgust, while the second simply fosters anger, re- sentment and a focus on retaliatory language rather than playing a skill- based game. Mostly, college women play basketball with a grace and style reminiscent of how it was played back when there were regular dis- plays of sportsmanship (now “sports- womanship”) and Good Samaritan- like caring for each other. Meanwhile, one of America’s items of unfi nished business is race relations. Young Americans are our future and—as certain as certain can be—it is the young people of our nation who will fi nally take us to that place of inter-racial relation- ships where we can declare indis- putable greatness. What’s seen with these college women playing to- gether as teammates and in competi- tion with other college team players is a mix of all our races, creeds and sub-cultures. Across the U.S. there are players from many an overseas origin, affording inter- national fl avors for ev- eryone involved. These young women—and the young men—who play in competition break all the old barriers and will ul- timately form a more perfect union. There’s another angle to college basketball and all sports: the corrup- tion due to excessive profi t-hungry business entities that have crept into college men’s sports at present, most poignantly displayed in the ranks of college basketball teams. Big money thrown around by the nation’s ma- jor sport shoe and clothing makers is being used to recruit individuals down into high school levels with huge payoffs to agents, coaches, and the youth and their family mem- bers. Articles in the press throughout the country reveal and decry these highly illegal, corrupt practices. Such activities must cease. Although Adi- das, Nike and Under Armor do not appear interested in cleaning up and too often deny their unlawful busi- ness dealings, the NCAA is purport- edly on the job while it’s hoped that the NCAA will continue to work gene h. mcintyre aggressively to return basketball and all college sports to true amateur sta- tus. We need to recapture our integ- rity, our honesty and our very souls in the world of amateur sports for their worth in building character and constitution. As things therein stand now amateur sports are under attack not only by sports leaders and the sports industry but also by the bad examples of far too many American leaders at the federal level. It is sin- cerely hoped that what’s underway by nefarious conduct in men’s bas- ketball will not infect women’s bas- ketball, although will if walls are not built to prevent it. Such downgrades in conduct place the U.S. in ever lower esteem at home and abroad and introduce foul play and making money as the only important value and consideration. A fi nal thought has to do with guiding our children and youth to fi nd things to do with their spare hours that lead to healthy develop- mental outcomes. The example best known to this writer was a couple of sisters, who, from their earliest ages, were involved in competitive swim- ming and singing/piano music pro- grams. It was by and through these activities that their focus was on do- ing well in extracurricular activities while that attention in turn posi- tively infl uenced efforts for higher grades efforts in their school stud- ies. They’re grown now: One is an industrial/manufacturing engineer with a Fortune 500 company while the other is a high school teacher who instructs in business courses and career-building school-learning functions. Sustained parental guid- ance and support for them paid off in life successes that can serve as a template for other families. (Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.) The hope-mongers’ march By E.J. DIONNE JR. For several hours on Saturday, cynicism was banned from the streets of what on many days seems to be the most cynical city in the world. Throngs estimated to number up to 800,000, and perhaps more, gath- ered because a group of determined, organized, eloquent and extremely shrewd high school students asked them to come, and be- cause too many Americans have been killed by guns. Suddenly, hope-mon- gers were stalking the nation’s capital. They be- lieved, against so much past evidence, that the National Rifl e Association could be routed. The crowd seemed to expect it would require an election to usher in the reforms they seek. “Vote them out!” was one of the day’s domi- nant chants. All along the march route, clipboard-wielding volun- teers sought to entice the faithful to register so they could cast ballots to achieve that end. Cameron Kasky, one of the heroes of the Marjory Stoneman Doug- las High School mobilization, drew raucous cheers when he began his speech with the words, “Welcome to the revolution.” He was not imagin- ing the storming of the Bastille or the revolt in Petrograd. His promise was peaceable and refreshingly practical. “The voters are coming,” he de- clared. Cynicism, of course, was quickly restored to its normal place in the nation’s discourse. Tired complaints were hauled out to discount the “March for Our Lives” visionar ies who hit the pavements in locales across red and blue America on Saturday. Big demonstra- tions were nice but meant little. The NRA had crushed opponents before and would do so again. Teens and twenty- somethings lacked the discipline to stay with what would inevitably be a long fi ght. Republican politicians wo u l d n ’t break an alliance with the gun lobby that has served them so well. But there are tough-minded rea- sons to believe that the cynics are wrong, even if the fi ght ahead will be as hard as they say. To begin with, Saturday’s marches achieved some- thing that has never been accom- plished before. Guns have long been a voting issue for those who insist that any and every restriction on fi rearms is a danger to freedom. These marches fi nally established guns as a voting issue for those who (as the signs carried by demonstrators declared in various ways) place the desire to save innocent lives ahead of preserving unlimited access to weap- ons. The Stoneman Douglas activists, including their able debaters and theater students, understood that their task was to alter the terms of the nation’s quarrel over guns and to take on the NRA’s shibboleths, right down to the basics. “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” So goes the old NRA slogan. “Actually, guns do kill people,” read a placard at the D.C. march. And the new revolutionaries have been making the essential argument: that our current approach to fi rearms undercuts the rights of the unarmed far more than any restriction would ever impinge on the rights of gun owners. The NRA imagines a na- tion of universal gun-toting, an idea brilliantly mocked by Alex Wind, a student speaker who asked: “Are they going to arm the person wearing the Mickey Mouse costume at Disney?” the opinion of others The unmistakably political char- acter of this movement is another change. No phony bipartisanship. No pretending that everyone approaches this issue with good will. Thus the importance of “Vote them out.” Thus the imperative of casting the NRA as the adversary and all who welcome its money and support as complicit. And the short-term agenda is very clear, as is the price of resist- ing it. Here is Kasky: “The people demand a law banning the sale of assault weapons, the people demand we prohibit the sale of high-capacity magazines, the people demand uni- versal background checks. Stand for us or beware.” Finally, this march established the gun safety alliance as multi-racial and intersectional, reaching far beyond its traditional base among suburban white liberals. Few voices echoing from the platform were more power- ful than 11-year-old Naomi Wadler’s. She declared that young African- American women who were victims of gun violence would no longer be seen as “simply statistics instead of vi- brant, beautiful girls full of potential.” In 1960, the nation’s attention was captured by young civil rights ac- tivists who sat in to integrate lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is not romanticizing the young to say that at times in our his- tory, only those not beaten down by the defeats of the past could fi nd the courage and the strategic initiative to win old fi ghts in new ways. On a crisp and beautiful spring day we witnessed a new dawn in the struggle to end gun violence. (Washington Post Writers Group)