APRIL 12, 2019, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
Opinion
Help and hope for
Oregon’s suicide crisis
That 825 Oregonians died in a
single year by suicide is a sobering
assessment of our collective ability
to help those who feel trapped in
their own despair.
That it’s such a
hidden statistic, how-
ever, is an embarrass-
ing refl ection of our
collective ignorance.
Hundreds more peo-
ple died by suicide in
Oregon in 2017 than
by traffi c crashes, fi re-
arms or drug overdose.
The suicide rate in Oregon is well
above the national average, as it has
been for the past three decades. Yet
this undeniable public health issue
has lacked the public attention
and sustained outcry that it des-
perately needs.
Some of that stems from the
stigma that persists around men-
tal illness and suicide, shutting off
conversation or even acknowledg-
ment that a suicide has occurred.
Some may stem from the fear of
encouraging “copycat” behav-
ior. Regardless of the motivation,
however, our families, schools,
communities and media organi-
zations have too often chosen the
easy way out by simply keeping
silent. Meanwhile, the suicide rate
in Oregon and the United States
has continued to climb.
Clearly, silence hasn’t worked.
This month, news organizations
around the state are collaborating
to bring attention to the problem
of suicide, report on populations
at highest risk and share resources
on how to prevent it. While the
“Breaking the Silence” project
won’t necessarily provide answers,
it aims to start a statewide effort
to confront it. Using responsible
reporting practices that examine,
not sensationalize, suicide, these
stories can provide the common
understanding, motivation, tools
and questions that can help the
community mobilize against this
public health threat.
The data shows just how wide-
spread a problem this is. Oregon’s
suicide rate is 14th highest in the
country and suicide is the second
leading cause of death for those
ages 10 to 34, according to the
Oregon Health Authority. One
fi fth of those who kill themselves
are veterans. More than half the
deaths are caused by fi rearms.
While those statistics may seem
daunting, they can also provide
possible avenues where leaders
can make a difference. Such data,
in the aggregate, can
help build support for
increased funding for
veterans’ health ser-
vices or provide tan-
gible prevention op-
tions, such as the 2017
law that allows family
members and police
offi cers to petition a
court to take away fi rearms from
someone at risk for suicide or
causing harm to others.
We also need to recognize that
Oregon’s youth are struggling.
Nearly 9 percent of eighth-grad-
ers self-reported having tried to
kill themselves one or more times
in the previous year and nearly
double that percentage considered
it, according to Oregon Health
Authority data. That children just
entering their teen years would
even think of suicide as an option
should be its own open-and-shut
case for more counseling, sup-
port and training in schools. And
health offi cials can lead by provid-
ing guidance for families, schools,
health departments, physicians and
nonprofi ts on how to talk about
suicide both as a general public
health issue and on an individual
basis.
This is not an insurmountable
problem. Resources already exist
and show that crisis counseling
lines and other outreach efforts
make a difference. Even friends
and family members can take steps
to help a loved one who is strug-
gling by asking a series of ques-
tions about whether they have
wished they were dead, thought
about killing themselves or made
any plans toward killing them-
selves. But it requires the willing-
ness to have those uncomfortable
conversations in the fi rst place.
The effects of suicide reach far
beyond the individual. The injury
is borne by families, friends, com-
munities and the public at large.
It’s long past time to start treating
it that way.
(By tho Editorial Board of
Tho Orogonian.)
Tell legislators
to kill HB 3063
break of a contagious
disease such as the
measles. Why would
anyone want to make
the quarantine per-
manent? What is the
point of denying per-
fectly healthy kids an
education or after school activi-
ties? This is segregation. I thought
we were done with segregation in
schools. Please ask your representa-
tive to vote no on House Bill 3063.
Holly Garland
Keizer
guost
oditorial
lottors
To the Editor:
Ask your lawmakers to
vote no on House Bill 3063
The current measles out-
break was not spread in a school set-
ting. So why are Oregon lawmakers
currently pushing a law that would
permanently ban unvaccinated or
partially vaccinated children from
daycare and schools? Healthy un-
vaccinated children do not harbor
illness or viruses, they cannot spread
what they do not have. I thought
that education was important to
Oregon’s elected offi cials. In Ore-
gon there is already law that unvac-
cinated children must be excluded
from school during an actual out-
Share your opinion
Submit a letter to the editor,
or a guest column by noon Tuesday.
Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com
Home visiting proposal will
boost parental responsibility
By JOHN TEAGUE
You may have heard someone say,
“It’s the parenting.”
There are at least two reasons that
may be right. As a child’s fi rst teach-
ers, parents set the example. And re-
search shows children
are more apt to stay out
of trouble and do better
in school when their
mothers and fathers are
skilled parents.
Home visiting ser-
vices are proven to de-
velop basic parenting
skills among parents
who have otherwise not learned
them. They work by enabling young,
inexperienced parents to receive
coaching from nurses and mentors in
their own homes, voluntarily. Among
other things, the home visitors help
moms and dads understand how to
make their homes safe for children,
how to engage their children (in-
cluding through eye contact, reading
and play), how to respond positively
to stressful situations, and how to pre-
pare their kids for a life of learning.
The visits are known to yield signifi -
cant dividends for the families and for
society.
Home visitors lay the groundwork
for long-term, positive outcomes,
such as higher school-readiness and
less involvement in the criminal jus-
tice system and, in many cases, parents
who equip themselves for better jobs.
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids will
soon publish a report, Parenting Works
in Oregon, that details many of the
benefi ts and outcomes of home vis-
its. Notably, after they participated
in one program—Healthy
Families
Oregon—pro-
gram, there was a substan-
tial increase in the number
of parents who reported
reading to their children
every day. That may seem
like basic parenting, but
many parents never had a
parent read to them and
didn’t experience or pass on that
positive infl uence. Additionally, par-
enting-related stress, a risk factor for
child maltreatment, decreased in 65
percent of participating parents. In
2017, 26 percent of children who
were abused or neglected were under
three years of age, and almost half of
those were younger than one. A lon-
gitudinal study of the Nurse Family
Partnership home visiting program
found participation in that program
cut child abuse and neglect in half.
As you might expect, the availabil-
ity of home visiting services doesn’t
come close to meeting the need. Be-
tween 2014 and 2016 only 18 percent
of the pregnant women receiving
Medicaid and who were potentially
eligible for home visits received them.
And between 2016 and 2017, 580
guost
column
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Enforcement trumps a border wall
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
During the two years when Dem-
ocrats controlled the Oval Offi ce,
Senate and House, President Barack
Obama squandered a major opportu-
nity.
He failed to push for a vote on a
DREAM Act, which would create a
path to citizenship for qual-
ifi ed undocumented im-
migrants who came to the
United States as minors.
That matter was left for a
vote in the lame-duck Con-
gress; and that vote proved to
be a gesture, as the Demo-
cratic Senate failed to garner
the needed 60 votes. Ameri-
ca will never know how it might have
ended if Obama had put his back into
it.
Ever since, Obama’s failure to push
for this key promise of his 2008 cam-
paign remains an object of contempt
among conservatives—who presume
Democrats preferred to dangle the is-
sue through the 2012 election and gin
up resentment among Latino voters.
With President Donald Trump’s
failure to push Republicans to change
immigration laws when they con-
trolled the White House and both
houses of Congress in 2017 and 2018,
Trump may fi nd himself in that same
corner of shame.
With 1 million or so undocument-
ed migrants expected to cross the
southwest border this year, Trump’s
commitment to building his signature
border wall doesn’t seem to be doing
the trick, and he hasn’t focused on
measures that actually could improve
the nation’s immigration machinery.
When Trump fi rst got into offi ce,
a big drop in southwest border appre-
hensions suggested his anti-immigrant
campaign rhetoric had such a chilling
effect that his promised wall might be
superfl uous. But then the numbers be-
gan to climb.
Former Homeland Security Secre-
tary Kirstjen Nielsen argued that a law
which prevents immigration offi cials
from promptly returning minors from
the so-called Northern Triangle coun-
tries and a court decision
that limits how long the
government can hold
minors serve as loopholes
that “create a functionally
open border.”
That’s why Mark
Krikorian of the pro-en-
forcement Center for
Immigration Studies al-
ways has argued that changing immi-
gration law and enforcement would
be far more effective than building a
wall—not that he’s opposed to spend-
ing on a wall.
Trump’s push for the wall shows
that he is working to keep to his 2016
campaign promise: But it really can’t
do much to discourage economic
migrants who ultimately would not
qualify for asylum but nonetheless be-
lieve they will be able to get into the
United States through a port of entry.
That’s the problem with Trump’s
beloved wall. It may resonate with
his base, but it won’t bring about the
changes the base wants.
And it’s hard to get Republicans—
many of whom do not share Trump’s
view on illegal immigrants—to die on
a hill for a big-ticket item which the
public opposes and politicians doubt
will work.
Krikorian doesn’t think it’s too
late for Trump to switch his focus to
changing the Traffi cking Victims Pro-
tection Reauthorization Act so that
federal offi cials can send undocu-
mented minors who don’t qualify for
othor
voicos
asylum back to non-contiguous coun-
tries the same way that they can return
minors from Mexico and Canada.
Could such a measure make it
through the Democratic House? Not
now, but that could change if the fl ow
of migrants through Mexico contin-
ues at such dangerous levels.
“Politically it is essential for the Re-
publicans to make it clear that (House
Speaker) Nancy Pelosi and (Senate
Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer are
the reason we have this border disas-
ter,” said Krikorian. “They are playing
the part of (German Chancellor) An-
gela Merkel in inviting an unlimited
number of people to come to the
United States.”
Krikorian believes that the GOP
Senate should put its efforts on re-
working immigration law so that it
doesn’t encourage border chaos.
It doesn’t help when Trump says, as
he did last week, that he wants to “get
rid of the whole asylum system.” It
was another act of verbal self-sabotage
that showed an executive ready to bar
not only economic migrants, but also
refugees fearing for their lives.
The antics with the president’s
since-retracted threats of closing the
border with Mexico only reinforce a
portrait of an executive who hasn’t fo-
cused on a goal—reducing illegal im-
migration—so much as on winning.
So, Trump claimed victory Friday
morning because Mexico has done
a better job of enforcing its southern
border under his threat. Does anyone
think that will last when the mercurial
president takes his eye off the ball?
I get how the Trump base cheers
on the president’s ability to drive the
left crazy with his rhetoric: But it’s not
going to fi x a humanitarian crisis.
(Croators Syndicato)
Electric cars for everyone
Surprise might be the reaction of
those Americans who have believed
the Tesla to be fi rst among fully-elec-
tric automobiles. However, when his-
tory is checked, we learn
that the electric auto has
had a long and storied
past, going back to the
1800s. Then, too, E-cars
enjoyed high success well
into the early years of the
20th century.
Nevertheless, the elec-
tric car began to lose its
edge in the U.S. auto market during
the 1920s. Its decline was due in part
at least to improved roads and a broad-
ened highway system. Also, the discov-
ery of oil reserves inside the U.S. and
throughout the world made gasoline
available and affordable. Also, of no
small signifi cance, the electric starter
was invented in 1912, disposing of the
crank-starter risks for broken bones
and dislocated shoulders.
Meanwhile, until costs come down
and range lengthens, auto consumers
will mainly rely on the more practi-
cal gasoline options. Yet, the option to
choose a gas-guzzler will increasingly
make way for disincentives through
climate change weather hazards, state
emission caps and the number of at-
tractive electrics (EVs) on the market.
Ultimately, choosing a polluter over a
true zero-emissions vehicle will be-
come a no-brainer.
There are other arguments that can
also keep bending a “divining rod”
toward an EV. One rea-
son would be that many
Americans, a number
growing
exponential-
ly over the years, are in-
creasingly fed-up with
our democratic-republic
having to negotiate with
corrupt foreign despots
in order to ensure the
safe passage of affordable oil to our
shores. With the rise in domestic
production and electric grid capable
of “juicing-up” 150 million EVs (or
three-quarters of all cars on U.S. roads),
the path to energy independence is
evermore promising. Meanwhile, an-
other oil embargo like the 1970s and
gas price hikes at stratospheric levels
remain relevant persuaders.
When the Tesla Model S began to
outsell the Mercedes S-class, not only
did the alarms go off in Stuttgart but
savvy, future-minded Americans also
took notice. It is the massive machines
with costly technical features and high
costs to operate and repair that have
turned a lot of heads. After all, unless
the combustible engine’s after-mar-
ket muffl er system with decibel levels
in ear-deafening range is all a driv-
gono h.
mcintyro
Keizertimes
families who were found eligible for
services from Healthy Families Or-
egon didn’t receive services because
capacity had been reached. Year after
year, 40 percent of Oregon’s children
under fi ve years old face socioeco-
nomic issues that put their healthy
development at risk.
There is, though, good news. In
2017 and 2018, Oregon received
federal funding from the Maternal,
Infant, and Early Childhood Home
Visiting Program (MIECHV). That
funding enabled programs such as
Early Head Start, the Nurse Fami-
ly Partnership, and Healthy Families
Oregon to serve about 4,000 fami-
lies. That’s about 20 percent of the
Oregon families that are eligible for
home visits.
Oregon lawmakers will soon con-
sider a proposal to vastly expand the
availability of home visits, enabling
eligible young families to receive two
to three home visits, enhancing ex-
isting services, and enabling trained
professionals to continue to assist
when requested.
Arguably, home visits that intro-
duce and develop basic parenting
skills and responsibility are a wise in-
vestment in these children and fami-
lies and in our community.
er wants out of life, more and more
Americans will be moved instead to
the instant torque, smooth acceleration
and purring-quiet of the EV.
There is an on-going debate over
the cause(s) behind the melting of the
earth’s glaciers. However, more and
more Americans of all ages are expe-
riencing serious breathing problems
and other catastrophic health prob-
lems from noxious petrol fumes. In
fact, it looks from every indicator on
the heating-up of our planet that the
biggest challenge ever for the human
race will be achieving survival con-
trols and non-polluting vehicles stand
tall among the contributing prob-
lem-solvers.
One very attractive feature of EVs
is that they’re inexpensive to oper-
ate, providing the owner a car free
of mechanical problems that lead
to expensive-to-repair-breakdowns.
Breakdowns nowadays that thwart
the amateur mechanic! Also, ‘no small
potatoes,’ e-cars have proven to be
cheaper to insure. Meanwhile, the sun
continues to shine, providing clean,
near-to-forever renewable energy to
power humankind’s transportation
needs.
(Gono H. McIntyro sharos his
opinion rogularly in tho Koizortimos.)