JUNE 15, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
A serene morning shattered
By TIM KELSH
On Saturday, June 2, the serenity of
a beautiful morning overlooking the
Willamette River in Keizer was ru-
ined by semi-automatic gunfi re from
across the river in Polk
County. Approximately
500 rounds were fi red that
morning, mostly by semi-
automatic weapons; my
neighbor’s home was hit
by a stray bullet. The bullet
traveled through the ex-
terior and interior wall of
their home narrowly miss-
ing my neighbor’s wife as
she stood in her kitchen.
This reckless incident occurred less
than a year after a similar incident at
Sunset Park in Keizer, again the result
of semi-automatic gunfi re from across
the river in Polk County from the
same property. I am sick of the near
constant shooting from this prop-
erty, as are every single neighbor that
I have talked to. I hate living in fear
when the shooting starts. Now we
know without a shadow of a doubt
that we are not even safe in our own
homes. This is no way to go through
life, fearful, wondering if this is the
day something terrible will happen.
My wife and I just celebrated our
30th year of living in our home in
Keizer on the Willamette River. We
have seen more than our share of trag-
edy while living here. There was the
incident in the early 1990s while wa-
terskiing on the river we were buzzed
by a fl oat plane. The pilot fl ew very
low over us, with the sun in his eyes,
we feared he did not see us and would
collide with our boat as he landed.
We fi led a complaint with the FAA
in Seattle but sadly they blew-off our
complaint. That pilot continued his
reckless behavior and it was soon after
he struck and killed two people in a
canoe near Wheatland Ferry, leaving
two young children without parents.
Then there was the horrible collision
between two Jet Ski’s playing “chick-
en” that left a young mother dead in
my boat, in front of my young chil-
dren. That tragic accident also left two
young children without a mother.
Reckless behavior will probably al-
ways be with us, but reck-
less behavior with guns ca-
pable of fi ring bullets 1-2
miles is completely unac-
ceptable near residential
homes and parks in Keizer.
How pathetic is it that
the reckless discharge of
semi-automatic weapons
is occurring on property
owned by a Salem fi re-
fi ghter whose professional mission is
public safety? It is almost unbelievable,
except that it has been happening for
years in spite of many, many com-
plaints. Hundreds of rounds—per-
haps thousands of rounds—fi red sev-
eral days per week, almost year round,
suggest that this property owner is not
very interested in the safety and well-
being of the citizens of Keizer. This
has to stop now.
Since the development of Keizer
Rapids Park the Willamette River has
become a busy place. Summer days
can see hundreds of rafters, kayakers
and power boaters. These people de-
serve an environment free of reckless
gunfi re in which to recreate.
I am a gun owner and lifelong
hunter, and I fi rmly believe in the
responsible and legal use of fi rearms.
but I don’t believe in fools using guns
recklessly in an urban area.
I am calling for a ban on the dis-
charge of handguns and rifl es on this
property. It’s only a matter of time
until a tragedy occurs. As I described
earlier I have seen enough tragedy
from actions that could have been
prevented. Please contact Keizer city
councilors, and especially commis-
sioners from both Marion and Polk
Counties.
We have to do something now.
City offi cials
need to protect
sue—three incidents in
four years!
Do not shrug your
shoulders and claim it is
out of your jurisdiction.
We deserve better.
Carol Doerfl er
Keizer
(The writer is president of the West
Keizer Neighborhood Association.)
guest
opinion
(Tim Kelsh lives in Keizer.)
letters
To the Editor:
Bullets continue to fl y
across the Willamette Riv-
er, this time on June 2 into
a home on the river and
barely missing the resident.
This, after an incident last Sept. 10
when a hail of bullets sent park-goers
running for their lives from Sunset
Park and just recently I learned of
another occurrence about two years
ago in the same neighborhood.
After the Sunset Park incident the
West Keizer Neighborhood Associa-
tion (WKNA) took our concerns to
the city. The WKNA Board and nu-
merous neighbors appeared before
the mayor, city council and city staff
several times, asking that something
be done.
Letters were written to the mayor,
councilors and staff including the
Keizer Police Department and the
Marion and Polk County Commis-
sioners alerting them to this public
safety issue.
We learned that the bullets were
coming from a shooting range in a
rock quarry across the river. A sign
was posted at the quarry alerting
shooters that there were residential
homes across the river.
Obviously this is not enough!
I am asking our city offi cials in-
cluding the police department to do
something....Isn’t that your job? To
protect your citizens?
This is a serious public safety is-
Keep cats indoors
To the Editor:
I read the June 8 letter to the edi-
tor (#Justice for Shadow) written by
Lori Beyeler. She let her cat outside
and a neighbor trapped it and re-
leased it miles away.
It is wonderful that she did fi nd
her cat. I feel the person who
trapped the cat should be charged
with malicious mischief and theft. I
adore cats and feel they deserve care,
affection, and safety.
A large part of providing safety for
one’s cat is to keep it indoors. Cats
do not need to be outside. People let
their pet cats outside because they
don’t want to be bothered with a
litter box and because they have the
misinformation that cats can’t be
happy unless they are outside.
A cat cannot be safe outside. There
are numerous dangers to them. Also,
outdoor cats killed approximately 2.5
billion birds each year in the conti-
nental United States. We can’t afford
to keep losing birds.
Please keep pet cats indoors.
Aileen Kaye
Salem
Trump is operating on a different map
By MICHAEL GERSON
BERLIN—It is strange being in a
foreign country and watching Amer-
ican post-World War II leadership—
as practiced by presidents such as
Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower
and Ronald Reagan—collapse into
a heap of chaos, ignorance and self-
indulgence.
Donald Trump’s per-
formance at the G-7 in
Quebec—his personal
attacks on other leaders,
his tariff threats against
close allies, his rejection
of the joint communique
via Twitter—will strike
most Americans as just
another day at the offi ce
for the great disrupter.
For Europeans, it was a demonstra-
tion that the seedy, derelict carnival of
Trumpism is not just a show put on
for Trump’s political base. Or more
accurately: Everything Trump does is
a seedy, derelict carnival put on for his
political base.
What did the alternative commu-
nique consisting of Trump’s words
and actions convey? That the Ameri-
can president has a level of open ani-
mosity toward Canada, France and
Germany that is unlike anything
we’ve seen in the modern era. That
the American foreign-policy process
doesn’t work and should be treated
as a joke. That the traditional leader
of the West no longer understands or
accepts the concept of “the West.”
To be an American in Germany
these days is to be besieged by ear-
nest, anxious questions about the
intentions of America’s president.
Germany is a country—because of
a unique and horrible history—that
provides leadership by standing for a
rules-based global order. Since power
proved so dangerous, it must be re-
placed by process. This worldview
is especially threatened by Trump’s
comfort with chaos and rule by im-
pulse.
During the fi rst year of the Trump
administration, it was possible to as-
sure concerned foreigners that the
president was being constrained by
responsible advisers. He
did not dissolve NATO,
or abandon NAFTA, or
bug out of Afghanistan.
But now we are see-
ing Trump unbound: a
president
increasingly
confi dent in his own
damaged instincts, unte-
thered from reality and
surrounded by advisers
chosen to amplify his insanity.
So, if encouragement is no longer
possible, what about a little schaden-
freude? I lived through a period in
the 2000s in which Europeans (and
Canadians) often complained about
American exceptionalism. It was
dismissed as arrogant, messianic and
annoying. And, no doubt, Americans
can be a bit much to take.
But is post-exceptionalism Amer-
ica really more desirable? The Trump
administration has moved toward a
more Putin-like foreign policy: ori-
ented toward narrow economic and
security interests, dismissive of human
rights and humanitarian concerns
and tilted toward the cultivation of
favorable despots. And this shift has
been matched by a changing national
self-conception. With a president sys-
tematically attempting to undermine
sources of authority that check his
power, our nation is becoming nor-
mal in other disturbing ways. We had
thought that democratic digression
only happens in other places.
the
opinion
of
others
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Later start times will help HS students
Sleep is important. We respect it
and recognize its value in maintain-
ing our health and well being. Seri-
ous sleep deprivations can result in
illness, psychoses and death; however,
such conditions can be minimal-
ized in dynamic, pro-active,
youth-connected
high
schools.
The Oregonian recently
carried an article report-
ing that high school start
times can cause youth of
that age to contract depres-
sion, even die by suicide.
Kyle Johnson, a psychia-
trist at Oregon Health and Sciences
University spoke at a forum on this
public health issue, he and others be-
lieving that early starting times can
wreak havoc with both academic
and athletic performance and result
in dire consequences.
Johnson also reported from an
Oregon Healthy Teen Survey that,
in the last year, found 18 percent
of Oregon high school juniors had
considered suicide. He added that
the second leading cause of death
for Oregonians 10-24 is suicide and
that in 2014 566 persons in that age
range were in the hospital for self-
infl icted injury or attempted suicide.
It may offer a hint at wisdom on this
subject to notice “considered” and
“attempted.”
Starting times at all Portland high
schools is 8:45 a.m.; in Beaverton, it’s
7:45 a.m. The public high schools in
the Salem-Keizer district start class-
es at 7:30 a.m. with a late start on
Thursdays at 8:05 a.m. The starting
time subject was also addressed at the
same forum where Johnson spoke by
way of the Multnomah Youth Com-
mission. The MYC views early starts
as contributing to chronic absentee-
ism where lack of sleep leads to Or-
egon’s low school suc-
cess and thereby poor
graduation rates.
Starting time plays a
much smaller role than
what some “experts”
argue. In the fi rst place,
those students who are
motivated by drama,
music, athletic and any
other extracurricular interests will
arrive in school, or most anywhere
deemed safe at whatever hour, as nec-
essary to pursue their interest. My
wife and I raised two daughters who
were engrossed in music and sports
throughout their high school years.
Their interests required an early rise
every school day yet they handled
the early risings without complaint
because they chose to participate.
Depression and suicide may have a
lot to do with the youth in our high
schools being directly impacted by
the way American high schools are
generally organized and managed.
Sure, there are electives and extracur-
ricular choices. However, these are
often unavailable or quite limited in
staff and materials due to the amount
of money or lack of same the state
dedicates to public education. On
the negative side of the high school
ledger, and often playing a signifi cant
role in contributing to depression
and suicide, is that too many students
gene
h.
mcintyre
Keizertimes
One effect of this shift away from
idealism and universalism is the loss
of certain universal ideals that helped
bind the Atlantic alliance. The Atlan-
tic Charter, authored by FDR and
Winston Churchill, was not just a
statement of national war aims but of
international commitments—to eco-
nomic collaboration, self-government
and a “wider and permanent system
of general security.” These vows are
what turned resistance to Soviet ag-
gression from a necessity into a cause.
With these commitments, western
countries were a squabbling family.
Without them, they are just squab-
bling neighbors, throwing garbage
across the fence.
This is perhaps the largest foreign
policy crisis of our time: an Ameri-
can president who has lost the ability
to distinguish friends from enemies.
Our traditional friends are attacked
as freeloaders and cheats. Our real
enemies are praised and cultivated
-- in the case of Russia, allowed to
undermine American elections with
minimal consequence and sponsored
by Trump for readmission to the G-7.
Trump’s moral blindness has led to
strategic turmoil.
America has had weak leaders be-
fore. But since World War II, every
president has mentally located his
country in the free world, bound by
democratic values, trade and com-
mon purpose. Trump is operating on
a different map. He is actively hostile
to the internationalism that defi ned
the western alliance. And he is joined
by rising ethno-nationalist forces
within Europe itself.
We don’t know how this chaos
will eventually coalesce. But one
thing is certain: The alternative to the
free world will be less free.
are controlled and circumscribed by
inordinately heavy-handed teacher-
authoritarians.
Otherwise, for many youth what’s
called a higher school is spending
their waking hours in a collection of
confi ned spaces that thwart the inter-
action, integration and exchange of
ideas and because they’re required by
law to attend. They receive an edu-
cation typically delivered in lecture
format with very little give-and-take
by persons who are more like civilian
drill sergeants than leaders of learn-
ing who inspire thought and refl ec-
tion. Students soon take no interest
because no real interest is taken in
their racial, cultural, sexual and reli-
gious identity. One common con-
dition often prevails with saddening
frequency and that is that highly in-
telligent youth must hide their men-
tal abilities.
One can argue starting times until
one is blue in the face, but until pub-
lic schools are drastically reformed to
be youth-serving and centered rather
than authority-fi gure cen. Naow, un-
der Secretary of Education Betsy De-
Vos, going more and more to private
ownership and profi t-making rather
than devoted to providing the build-
ing blocks for successful lives, we’re
stuck with more student depression
and suicide. As the clock turns day
after day, American culture and all
human activity here continues to in-
exorably change but high schools re-
main infl exibly fi xed in another time
and place.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)