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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (April 10, 2020)
APRIL 10, 2020, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5 Opinion Mark Gamba for Congress Please support local journalism durng this important time Information you can trust about COVID-19 is vital, and we need the community’s help to keep providing it. The owners and staff of the Keizertimes are de- termined to provide the community with up-to- date information about the coronavirus pandemic that is important to you and your family. Eric A. Howald, Matt Rawlings and Lauren Murphy are staying in constant touch with all the right people to keep alert to chang- es. As information changes, seemingly hour by hour, we will keep you in- formed via our Facebook page and at keizertimes.com (where access to coronavirus stories is free). Stephanie Wittman, our advertis- ing sales representative, is fi guring out how to help businesses let customers know they are still up and running. We have launched a Support Local Businesses promotion to help busi- nesses tell Keizer if they are open and what they are offering during the cur- rent climate. The staff is doing all of this while many businesses are shuttered and we are giving away much of our work online. We decided to give free access to stories on the novel coronavirus be- cause people need the information only we can provide. No other news organization in the area has the skill, the speed and the credibility to do this work. We were made for this moment. Yet, we have to keep fuel in our tank and that’s why we are plunging ahead with a new donation campaign. This one is different from anything we’ve done before. How? Simply, because now contributions to our operation are tax deductible (and they can be anonymous). We have teamed up with the nation- al Local Media Foundation to afford from the publisher donors a chance to get a tax benefi t while they help sustain the Keizertimes. Every dollar goes to keeping us go- ing and, more importantly, keep the fl ow of vital information going to the community. We love our subscribers, but $10 a month just isn’t enough to sustain op- erations. We make no apology for ask- ing for support. Marion County likely hasn’t seen the worst of the pandemic, and you need to know what’s coming —and what’s here. You need to know what’s happening to businesses and jobs – and what’s on the other side of the economic canyon that has been cut through Keizer and the region. Get behind us and get behind our campaign and we promise that we will drive hard to care for the community with credible information, the truth— and inspiration for Keizer to recover and regain its vital strength. I will remind all Orego- nians that a signifi cant num- ber of us depart for at least two seasons every year, that is, fall and winter and some of spring, too, by spending huge chunks of time in parts of Arizona, California and elsewhere in warmer climes. These folks, incidentally, may have been un- der orders in their other homes else- where but we don’t know the specif- ics of whether it has worked because we’re not there. There should be, in my concerned opinion, some means by which those thousands who will return later this month and into May, be checked for having the coronavirus outright, or be asymptomatic and thereby carriers of this dreaded, lethal respiratory illness, that not only kills humans but has also been proven already to attack and harm our pets and possibly, at least, all other mammals. We should be able and must be able to demand a test of those returning to Oregon and, any- one else who’s not from here, who has no legitimate reason to be here. With the arrival of those numbers soon, we could, on a smaller scale, be victimized into the kind of outbreaks currently known underway in Cal- ifornia, Michigan, New Jersey, New Orleans and the state of Washington, among others, which itself, our im- mediate state neighbor to the north, could also be negatively impact- ed by a resurgence of persons with COVID-19. It’s all very serious, mind you, and threatening to health and life itself. I have personally brought this mat- ter to the attention of Governor Kate Brown, our U.S. senators, and our lo- cal offi ce-holders. Not one of them views this matter serious enough to even reply to me. Hence, it would seem duly appropriate for persons who care enough to be as concerned as I am to write, call, email or phone any offi ce-holder and express your desire they take notice. Gene H. McIntyre Keizer letters To the Editor: Like thousands of you, I’m worried about my family’s fi nancial state due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The busy signal at the unemploy- ment offi ce is my mortal enemy. A few days ago, I posted to social media that our family lost all of our income af- ter a recent layoff. Milwaukie’s mayor, Mark Gamba, commented on my post and directed me as to what I should do next. While managing a city during a pandemic and simultaneously running for Congress, Mark helped me during one of my most vulnerable times. Since the beginning of this health crisis, Mark has proven to be a com- passionate and bold leader. Mark is one of the mayors that pushed Gov- ernor Kate Brown to implement the stay-at-home order to help us fl atten the curve. He has also been extremely vocal about calling for a Green New Deal that provides a jobs guarantee and universal healthcare. Mark hosts virtual town halls to update the public and has viewer Q&As every Saturday. This is exact- ly the kind of leadership Oregonians need and deserve; and it is why I ful- ly endorse Mark Gamba for Oregon’s Congressional 5th District. Niki Falardeau Salem Returning snowbirds and COVID-19 To the Editor: The thousands of Oregonians who’ve responded to Governor Kate Brown’s order to stay-at-home can be duly proud of themselves as it ap- pears this effort by a majority of us to control the COVID-19 outbreak has come to a victory of sorts of hu- mankind over a death-dealing virus. However, it may be a bit premature by us to count our blessings too soon. — Lyndon Zaitz, Publisher Will we be the same America? By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fort- night, it concentrates his mind won- derfully,” said Samuel Johnson. And as it is with men, so it is with nations. Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavi- rus response coordinator, projected some 100,000 to 200,000 U.S. deaths from the pandemic, “if we do things almost perfect- ly.” She agreed with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s estimate that, if we do “nothing,” the American dead could reach 2.2 million. That 2 million fi gure would be twice as many dead as have perished in all our wars from the American Rev- olution to the Civil War, World War I and II, and Korea and Vietnam. This does indeed concentrate the mind wonderfully. Now add to this slaughter of our countrymen a market plunge steeper than the 1929 Crash and a 1930s-style Depression. Wall Street analysts are talking of a wipeout of 30 percent of our GDP and unemployment reaching 35 percent. What a difference a month can make. On March 3, Super Tuesday, we were caught up in the 14 primary contests after Joe Biden’s stunning vic- tory in South Carolina, which broke the momentum of Sen. Bernie Sand- ers’ wins in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. What March 2020 produced and what it appears to portend is a sea change in U.S. history, an infl ection point, an event after which things nev- er return to what they were. The coronavirus crisis seems to be one of those epochal events that alter the character of the country and the course of the republic. Consider what has happened in three weeks. The Republican Party, the party of small govern- ment and balanced budgets, approved with but a single dissent a $2 trillion emer- gency bill. There is talk now of a second $2 trillion bill, this one for infrastructure. In a single month then, a Repub- lican Senate and president grew the federal budget by 50 percent and are looking to double that. For years, Democrats raised alarms about Trump’s poaching of the pow- ers of the other branches. Now Dem- ocrats are demanding to know why Trump has not shut down the econo- my by presidential decree and not used his latent dictatorial powers to order U.S. companies to produce what the nation’s hospitals demand. Democrats who long accused Trump of xenophobia and racism for seeking to close the borders to mi- grants entering the country illegally are now silent as Trump closes Ameri- ca to the world. First Amendment free press cham- pions are calling for Trump’s White House briefi ngs not to be carried on TV because the president is spouting propaganda and lies. The problem: The people are watching and approving of what the media think the people ought not see. If people in a crisis will jettison other voices Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com 2019-2020 President Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association POSTMASTER Send address changes to: Keizertimes Circulation 142 Chemawa Road N. Keizer, OR 97303 Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon SUBSCRIPTIONS One year: $35 in Marion County, $43 outside Marion County, $55 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY Publication No: USPS 679-430 lifelong beliefs like this readily, how enduring will their professed belief in democracy itself prove? The president thinks this will be a V-shaped recession, that once the economy hits bottom and turns up, it will soar, as in 1946 when pent-up demand from World War II was un- leashed and America began to churn out cars and consumer good as rapidly as it had weapons of war. Perhaps. But put me down as a skeptic. You can’t go home again. The shattering events of March, followed by what is coming in April and May, will have lasting impacts on the hearts and minds of this generation. That once-insatiable appetite for Chinese-made goods at the mall— will it really return? Will Americans, after having “socially distanced” for months from family and friends, be reassured of their safety and pack into restaurants in July? Observing the carrier Theodore Roosevelt in Guam offl oading scores of sailors infected with coronavirus, will Americans be up for a clash with a China that is even today asserting its claims to the South China Sea? Will Americans who survive this crisis care whether Iranian-backed Shiites dominate Iraq or Saudi-backed Sunni prevail in Yemen? If March shocked this nation as se- verely as 9/11, what is coming may be even more sobering. Are millions of unemployed work- ers without the cash to pay for or to fi nd medicine and groceries likely to stay indoors for weeks or months? All those criminals being given ear- ly release from virus-infested jails and prisons without the means to provide for themselves and their families, how will they react to weeks of mandatory sheltering in place? Americans have done well in stay- ing home in March. Will they do so through April, May and perhaps June? Or will the system gradually break down just as the second wave of the virus in the fall appears? In times of crisis in America, there is a tradition of self-sacrifi ce. But there have also almost always been not a few whose mindset is that of the Fort Lauderdale spring-break- ers. (Creators Syndicate) maze Maze by Jonathan Graf of Keizer sudoku Enter digits from 1-9 into the blank spaces. Every row must contain one of each digit. So must every column, as must every 3x3 square.
