APRIL 10, 2020, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
Opinion
Mark Gamba
for Congress
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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
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EDITOR & PUBLISHER
Lyndon Zaitz
publisher@keizertimes.com
2019-2020 President
Oregon Newspaper Publishers
Association
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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.