AUGUST 23, 2019, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
Opinion
14,500 nukes and counting
A while back, President Donald
J. Trump confi rmed that the U.S.
will leave an arms control treaty
with Russia dating from the Cold
War that has kept nuclear missiles
out of Europe for three decades. He
also said that, “We’ll have to devel-
op those weapons after we pull out
of that treaty.” With that treaty long
gone, and others on the
chopping-block, his-
tory reports that these
treaties have been in-
strumental in saving
humankind from total
destruction.
Much in the way
of protections against
use of nuclear weap-
ons goes back to 1987
and the Intermedi-
ate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty
(INF) signed by Ronald Reagan and
Mikhail Gorbachev. Fast forward and
we fi nd Trump with John Bolton as
his national security adviser. Bolton
is a longstanding opponent of arms
control treaties who has been push-
ing hard for U.S. withdrawals since
he worked for President George W.
Bush.
U.S. war hawks like Bolton now
argue in Trump’s ear to end the 2010
New Start agreement with Russia,
terminating what will become for-
mer limits on warheads by both sides.
All these arms-control treaty ter-
minations mean that the world will
be left without any limits on nuclear
arsenals for the fi rst time in fi ve de-
cades. As usual for Trump, he places
the blame for his administration hav-
ing to end these treaties on President
Obama who, Trump says, “should
have negotiated new limits or pulled
out.” All matters of grave conse-
quence end up in Trump
world as the fault of some
other person, usually a
former Democratic pres-
ident or Hillary Clinton.
What befuddles is that
we have a president who
regularly tells us that he
is a deal-maker but has
completely failed to save
Reagan’s nuclear lega-
cy. Trump also has had an
opportunity several times through his
frequent talks with Vladimir Putin to
negotiate arms-control treaty adjust-
ments. However, those buddy-buddy
meetings have always digressed from
the opportunity for arms control di-
plomacy into working out details on
how a Trump luxury hotel will be
built in downtown Moscow and oth-
er sites in Russia for Trump invest-
ments.
We live under nightmarish con-
ditions. By way of Trump’s “Amer-
ica First” disengagement idea, we are
withdrawing from all world treaties
and agreements that have kept the
gene h.
mcintyre
Intimidating the press
Offi cials in Malheur County in
eastern Oregon had asked Sheriff
Brian Wolfe to assess whether the
Malheur Enterprise weekly newspa-
per had engaged in criminal conduct
in its reporting involving the director
of the county’s economic develop-
ment department.
County Counsel Stephanie Wil-
liams confi rmed that she contact-
ed Wolfe with allegations
about emails and phone
calls to the county’s eco-
nomic development offi -
cials.
At issue was the state
crime of telephonic harass-
ment. That law states that “a
telephone caller commits
the crime of telephonic
harassment if the caller intentionally
harasses or annoys another person” by
calling a number they have been for-
bidden to use.
This week Sheriff Brian Wolfe
announced that his offi ce would not
investigate. He said there was no evi-
dence to support the allegations.
That decision was made after the
story was reported in news outlets
across the country. It also raised the
hackles of many Malheur County res-
idents. If the local newspaper can be
under threat of criminal prosecution
for doing its Constitutionally-pro-
tected duty, is anyone safe from the
wrath of public offi cals who don’t like
to be questioned about their actions?
Public offi cials are just that: public.
They work for the citizens. The op-
erations of every public offi ce needs
to be transparent, it should not be a
burden for offi cials to
answer questions from
the press or the people.
The allegation of ha-
rassment from reporters
from the Malheur En-
terprise was a weapon
offcials hoped would
put a stop to journalistic
investigations into the
dealings of county offi cials. We can
hope this puts an end to the intimida-
tion of that newspaper and any media
outlet doing their job.
In a climate where leaders decry
the media as an enemy of the people
we all must be vigilante for attempts
to bind the hands of organizations
that are the watchdog on govern-
ment.
—LAZ
editorial
Keizertimes
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EDITOR & PUBLISHER
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2019-2020 President
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Around Keizer
By HUNTER C. BOMAR
I am grateful to have worked at the
Keizertimes.
In December of 2018, I gradu-
ated from George Fox University;
I was leaving with my
communications degree
in hand hoping to make
my mark. After leaving
the safety of the school
and putting my gradu-
ation cap in the closet,
post-graduate life grimly
welcomed me to the real
world. Months went by
after I received my di-
ploma and I still hadn’t found a job.
The pressure of not failing to launch
weighed on my shoulders. Job deni-
al after job denial landed in my lap
and discouragement became my daily
cross to bear.
What’s worse, after one job inter-
view, I got my car towed in Portland
because it was parked two inches into
a no parking zone. Not only did I
have to shell out $552 to get the car
back, I didn’t even get the job. This,
too, pulled me down deeper into a
lack of hope and even a lack of belief
in myself.
Needless to say, my excitement
about not having homework and be-
ing out of school began to wear off
day by day. Amid my self-pitying
funk, a family friend sent me a text
about a part-time job position. It was
a community journalist position at
the Keizertimes. The job was in my
hometown and would be a position
where I could utilize my
degree; I applied imme-
diately. The job applica-
tion involved providing
writing samples as well
as doing a brief report on
an upcoming commu-
nity event. The event I
was tasked to write about
was the Chemawa Indian
School Spring Pow Wow.
I began writing and doing what I
needed to provide the best application
I could. After
submitting the
fi nal piece of
my application
and doing an
interview with
Keizertimes
publisher, I was
offered the po-
sition. Things
began
to
look up. The
months fol-
lowing
in-
volved craft-
ing my news
writing abili-
guest
column
ties, and honing in my capabilities to
collect all the details needed to tell a
good news story, as well as comical
learning that it is spelled Keizertimes
and not Keizer Times.
The value of a small community
newspaper was also impressed upon
me. I learned the importance of not
just paying attention to the news oc-
curring around the world but giving
attention to the local news that affects
my neighbor living down the street.
The Keizertimes had been a blessing
to me, and I have been provided with
skills I will use for the rest of my life.
(Hunter Bomar was employed as
a community reporter for the Keizer-
times in 2019.)
Conversation
about future
of KeizerFEST
others.
Ideas about festival location, the
annual parade and festival events
were addressed during the 90-min-
ute roundtable, which will be dis-
cussed by the KeizerFEST commit-
tee as they begin planning the 2020
festival.
MAK helps
to remodel
Keizer
Homegrown
Sen. Thatcher gives
report to Rotary Club
to keep Oregon on Standard Time
rather than switching with Daylight
Saving Time. Congress could take
up the issue once Washington state
and California pass similar legisla-
tion.
Lamenting bills that passed, the
senator cited a rent-control bill she
opposed, as well as a bill that makes
it diffi cult for the state to carry out
the death penalty.
(Gene H. McIntyre shares his
opinion regularly in the Keizertimes.)
What I learned as a journalist
Community and business lead-
ers met on Wednesday, Aug. 14, to
discuss KeizerFEST, Keizer’s annual
community event, at Community
Conversations, staged by the Keizer
Chamber of Commerce.
The discussion was led by festival
co-chair Scott White and execu-
tive director Danielle Bethell of the
Chamber.
Among the attendees were May-
or Cathy Clark, City Councilor
Marlene Parsons, Chamber Presi-
dent Jonathan Thompson, Mitche
Graf and Mickey Walker of the
Salem-Keizer Volcanoes and seven
State Sen. Kim Thatcher (R-Dist.
13) was the guest speaker at the Ro-
tary Club of Keizer’s weekly lun-
cheon on Thursday, Aug. 15.
Thatcher, serving her second
term representing Keizer, Newberg
and Wilsonville, told of the recently
completed 2019 legislative session
in which Democrats hold a super-
majority (holding three-fi fths of the
seats in each chamber).
Thatcher was a sponsor of a bill
world from a nuclear holocaust and
a planet covered with radioactive
isotopes.Without agreements that
maintain checks for control, anything
can happen, happen quickly and hap-
pen all the way to Armageddon. The
U.S. has been the keeper of the lid
of nuclear weapons, preventing world
war. That lid has been removed by
the Trump administration.
There are nine nations in the
world’s nuke club, including China,
France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pa-
kistan, Russia, the United Kingdom
and the United States. There are
others surmised to be on the verge
of membership. In the most recent,
verifi able count, there are 14,500
weapons on Planet Earth.
With tensions easily provoked,
what’s expected next? Easily imag-
ined is something like the start of
World War I in which a prominent
leader is murdered. Or, a compara-
ble World War II, where one nucle-
ar power attacks another nuclear or
non-nuclear nation with multiple
retaliations into a WW III. Ultimate-
ly, should all-out nuclear war be our
fate, converting Earth into huge fi re-
ball, it would reduce our planet to a
carbon-black cinder ball with a few
surviving insects left to rule.
Bob Shackelford (left) and Darrell Fuller of Men
of Action for Keizer (MAK) volunteered their time
and labor to turn the former kitchen at the Keizer
Cultural Center into a dressing room, prop and scen-
ery storage space for Keizer Homegrown Theatre. The
theatre took over the second fl oor space at the Center
for its home for seven productions each year.
The remodel of the kitchen space will give cast
members ample room for costume changes during
shows as well as apply stage make-up.
MAK is a volunteer group of men associated with
the Keizer Chamber of Commerce which is actively
involved in service projects in Keizer to better the
community and to assist fellow citizens.