JUNE 29, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
The kids are watching
I don’t understand discrimina-
tion, racism or prejudice. I know
what the words mean, it’s just that
I can’t wrap my head around the
people who harbor such views.
As human beings we all have our
biases, we generally are uncomfort-
able with things that are
different or unknown to
us. It is tragic that peo-
ple are subjected to verbal
threats, taunts and physi-
cal harm. Where does
hate for another person
come from? We certainly
are not born with hate
in our hearts and minds, so it must
come from the environment. Chil-
dren copy what they see either at
home or in public. If a child sees
that a negative behavior has no con-
sequences the only conclusion for
that child is that it is alright to call
someone by a slur or threaten harm.
These days some misguided peo-
ple are letting law enforcement do
their discriminating. It is beyond the
pale to think that a white person
would call 9-1-1 to report a black
person doing what people do all the
time: barbecuing in a park, waiting
for a friend at a restaurant, taking a
nap in a public library or even sell-
ing water in front of their home.
It is troubling when people who
call the police in such situations
don’t express remorse or say they
were wrong for calling law enforce-
ment.Some jurisdictions have laws
against frivously calling a 9-1-1 ser-
vice. What could be more frivolous
that calling the police on a little girl
selling water in from of her own
home to fund a trip to Disneyland?
Pundits write that people are
worried that their ‘way of life’ is
ebbing away as minority popula-
tions grow in this country. Remem-
ber that “I want my country back”
was a rallying cry during the 2016
presidential campaign. That senti-
ment hurts my sensibilities.
America used to proudly boast
that the United States was a great
melting pot of people from all cor-
ners of the globe. This country has
always had a tough stance against
all immigrants. The Irish were not
welcomed with open arms, nor the
Italians. Asians, especially Chinese,
were dealt a particularly harsh hand
in the 19th century, even excluded
by Congress and the courts.
It is not much different today for
people arriving from our neighbors
to the south or from the Middle
East or Africa. Do bad people get
into the United States? Sure, as it
has always been. That doesn’t justify
hating a whole people due to the
actions of a small percent-
age.
Diversity and inclusion
is good for anything—
countries,
companies,
communities. I spent this
past weekend in Seattle.
It was Pride Weekend
and tens of thousands of
people of different colors, genders,
sexual orientations and ages mixed
effortlessly on the streets of the city,
including the four-hour pride pa-
rade downtown.
No city, regardless of how big or
small, is immune from acts of racism
and discrimination.So it was won-
derful to spend a weekend in the
big city where a rainbow of people
mix together, all sharing a message
of inclusion, acceptance and toler-
ance. It is harder to be frightened
or wary of someone who is differ-
ent if you know them. There was a
shared energy on the tightly packed
sidewalks during the parade because
they all shared a message—everyone
is important.
People who are different from us
are not dangerous, they are not out
to harm us; we all want the same
thing: to live in peace for ourselves
and our families. Anyone will recip-
rocate in kind when treated with
respect and fairness.
My way of life is not threatened
because a Sikh wears a turban or a
Saudi-born woman wears a burqa.
I have learned from living in other
areas that diversity is important, my
life is richer because I have known
and befriended those different than
myself. How? I have gained respect
for traditions and customs other
than my own. I have learned that
things I take for granted are not al-
ways good for others.
Social change begins with each
of us. We can lessen discrimination,
racism and sexism in our society by
remembering that our kids mirror
what we do. Accept others with re-
spect and tolerance and our future
generations will too.
on
my
mind
Vaccine rates
not bad at all
(Lyndon Zaitz is publisher of the
Keizertimes.)
Oregon’s unvaccinated
rate is 7.5 percent. This is
simply untrue. In a 2018
memo to the Governor,
OHA stated, “The vast
majority of Oregon par-
ents choose to fully im-
munize their children.”
According to the memo,
the uptake for every school vac-
cine is well over 90 percent. Why
did OHA then issue a press release
with the foreboding title of sharply
increasing exemption rates, picked
up by newspapers statewide? Is it
to pave the way for an attempt in
2019 to remove Oregonians’ medi-
cal freedom, under the guise of an
emergency?
Darcy Rapoza
Salem
letters
To the Editor:
Recently, there have
been multiple newspa-
per articles sounding the
alarm that Oregon’s vac-
cine exemption rate for
kindergarten students has sharply
risen. Is this true, or is there more
to the data than people understand?
The truth is that 22 vaccines
are required for school. Someone
receiving 21 of 22 shots, is still
captured by the Oregon Health
Authority (OHA) as exempt. “Ex-
empt” quickly morphs to “unvac-
cinated” in the press, and the pub-
lic’s mind. According to the OHA
Immunization Program, for 2018,
the numbrer of K-12 students with
a non-medical exemption to all 22
required vaccines is only 2.6 per-
cent. But that is not the number that
is reported anywhere.
Many legislators misstate that
Share your opinion
Email a letter to the editor.
Deadline is noon Tuesday.
Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com
Separation anxiety
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
It’s June and the crush of undocu-
mented immigrants at the U.S. bor-
der with Mexico has hit a crisis point.
Government offi cials are housing
migrants in tents and separating some
children from their parents. Tens of
thousands of unaccom-
panied minors attempt to
cross the southern border;
some 90,000 are expected
to be apprehended by year’s
end. A former top admin-
istration offi cial defends
the government’s policy:
“We have to send a clear
message. Just because your child gets
across the border, that doesn’t mean
your child gets to stay.”
The year was 2014. Barack Obama
was president and the quote was ut-
tered by Hillary Clinton, Obama’s
secretary of state from 2009 to 2013
who also plainly stated that thousands
of children “should be sent back” to
their families.
So why are news outlets treating
the 2018 border crisis as if it is the
worst?
First, President Donald Trump is
the fi rst president in recent memory
to push strong enforcement of feder-
al immigration law. His “zero-toler-
ance” policy announced in April di-
rected immigration offi cials to charge
and detain all undocumented immi-
grants apprehended at the border,
which led to mass family separations.
The Obama administration split
families and housed migrants in tents,
but it also released many apprehend-
ed at the border while giving them
orders to appear before an immigra-
tion judge.
This is the system Trump derides
as “catch and release” -- a system
discredited by the high number of
benefi ciaries who don’t show up at
court. According to federal statis-
tics, 25 percent of the
186,434
immigration
cases completed for 2016
were decided in absentia
-- meaning the undocu-
mented immigrant didn’t
show up.
Second, Trump’s rhet-
oric is infl ammatory and
words have consequences.
When he announced his candi-
dacy in 2015, Trump described im-
migrants from Mexico as criminals,
drug dealers and rapists. Just last week
he said immigrants “infest our coun-
try.”
Trump didn’t enhance his cred-
ibility when he blamed Democrats
for forcing family separations, trying
to paper over the fact that “zero tol-
erance” was his administration’s deci-
sion.
Also, the point of the family sepa-
ration is to deter more families from
making the dangerous trek to the
border -- but that’s the point Trump
low balls.
Third, politics and media bias lean
against enforcement. Broadcast news
outlets have aired heart-breaking
scenes of children crying for their
parents -- with no context. News
organizations ran photos of a crying
two-year-old Honduran girl who
represented victims of family separa-
debra
j.
saunders
Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303
phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com
Lyndon A. Zaitz, Editor & Publisher
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
Periodical postage paid at
Salem, Oregon
(Creators Syndicate)
We need to assure we have clean, potable water
Generalizations about us don’t al-
ways apply to all humans. However,
it’s generally recognized and agreed
upon that a human body can go two
to three days without water and 30
to 40 days without food of any kind.
Water is clearly the most important
requirement with an average of eight
to ten cups of water needed to re-
plenish what the human body loses
each day.
Unfortunately, water supplies all
over the world are more
and more often polluted
and thereby a danger to
health and a threat to life
itself. Western Oregon
has been often recognized,
due to the state’s forested
regions, mountain ranges
and dependable and suf-
fi cient annual rainfall, as
one of those places on the planet
whose water supply would remain
healthy and drinkable even if the re-
mainder of humankind had to heav-
ily fi lter the water or desalinate it.
That may remain true for places out-
side of Portland and Salem but not
now in Oregon’s “Rose” and “Capi-
tal” cities.
Locally, it could cost millions
to make Salem’s water potable
again. However, some argue that
long-term, less costly and much more
practical solutions to consider must
include phasing out industrial tree
plantations that work by clearcutting,
chemicals and fertilizers. Industrial
logging practices are one of several
underlying causes of the toxic blue-
green algae (cyanobacteria) outbreak
contaminating Detroit Reservoir and
North Santiam River. Coupled with
climate change, latter day practices
destroy otherwise perfect drinking
water conditions.
Common knowledge on the sub-
ject comes to us from science. Toxic
algal blooms thrive in warm, slow
moving water contaminated by nu-
trients and chemicals that assist in
their growth. Then, too, clearcut wa-
tersheds lose their soil moisture and
provide less water during periods of
low rainfall while any streams run
slower and warmer—often by 2.6
degrees—than in those under nor-
mal full-forested conditions. These
conditions have been studied and it
has been proven that heavily logged
watersheds have at least 50 percent
or less water in them during dry
and drought durations. Thus, algae
thrive in nearby lakes and
streams.
Another cause for algae
come from chemicals and
fertilizers liberally used on
tree-growing plantations.
Applications of herbicides
and atrazine always fi nd
their way in rivers and
lakes. The use of them in
Lake Erie brought Toledo, Ohio, to
near closure four years ago. Nitrogen
fertilizers like urea are most common
used in Oregon and are recognized
as a chief culprit in turning wonder-
ful watershed water into something
that looks awful, tastes awful and can
send a person to the hospital and an
early grave.
By this point here, the reader must
gene h.
mcintyre
Keizertimes
tion. Problem: She and her mother
were not separated. Do the parents
have a legal claim to asylum? Not an
issue.
Also not an issue, the fact that crit-
ics are complaining that Trump is en-
forcing federal laws they have failed
to change.
Consider the push for a path to
citizenship for undocumented im-
migrants brought into the country
when they were minors, also known
as Dreamers. Obama provided them
with temporary legal status with his
Deferred Action for Childhood Ar-
rivals in 2012.
But Obama failed to keep his 2008
campaign promise to pass a big im-
migration bill in his fi rst year, when
Democrats controlled the White
House and Congress.
When there was a vote on the
Dream Act in 2010, it failed to get
the 60 votes needed to pass in the
Senate.
Democrats now say they won’t
vote for GOP legislation to protect
DACA recipients because they object
to Republicans using DACA recipi-
ents as hostages. It’s as if they’d rather
have the issue than the win.
When it comes to the Dream Act
and family separation, argued Mark
Krikorian of the pro-enforcement
Center for Immigration Studies, the
left’s goal “is to make sure the parents
also are released. They want children
to be human shields so that if you
bring a kid with you, you get a get-
out-of-jail-free card.”
recognize the obvious: The solution
is to stop the application of chemi-
cals and fertilizers and industrial scale
clearcutting to any area where Ore-
gonians now or later get their drink-
ing water. Timber plantations must
be controlled and monitored for
compliance with Oregon laws made
to address this very serious challenge
to our health and safety. The matter
is even more urgent at present than
at any earlier time in Oregon as cli-
mate change is a fact, bringing ever
drier conditions in a new, no longer
deniable, world we humans have in-
herited.
Arguably speaking, there probably
are some things, perhaps a modern
gadget or two, we Oregonians can
live without. However, I would ar-
gue that clean-tasting, uncontami-
nated, drinkable, disease-free water
is not among those items we can do
without. Therefore, it would seem
high time that those Oregonians
who want to protect drinkable wa-
ter would let Governor Kate Brown
and our legislators (state and federal)
know how important it is to them.
After all, for the sake of human sur-
vivability on planet Earth, this matter
falls into the life or death category.