MAY 15, 2020, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
Opinion
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Nurses: the superheroes of our time how a
bout
There are many people across
the nation in many fi elds fi ghting
against COVID-19. Grocery store
employees continue to
stock products and check
out customers. Teachers
hold virtual classes. Scien-
tists are working around
the clock in laboratories
around the world searching
for a vaccine for the disease
that has now taken the lives
of more than 80,000 Americans.
Heroes can be found all around
us but special commendation needs
to be given to the frontline med-
ical personnel, especially America’s
nurses.
Whether thery serve in special
wards or emergency departments of
hospitals, nurses take their lives into
their own hands as they treat pa-
tients with the coronavirus or suf-
fering from COVID-19
itself. Some nurses have
worked arduous hours,
at times without all the
tools necessary such as
ventilators, N95 masks
and personal protec-
tive equipment. That is
the very defi nition of a
hero: one who enters the battlefi eld
without regards for their personal
safety.
Nurses are the heartbeat of
healthcare. In normal circumstanc-
es, a nurse performs just about every
task for patients. They help usher
babies into the world. They lovingly
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writes
escort people out of the world.
Nurses are humane, they are kind
and caring, many are comedians,
injecting lightness in what is often
a person’s worst day. They shoulder
burdens that test mere mortals.
During this pandemic nurses
are going above and beyond their
normal duties. When the history of
COVID-19 is written, the world’s
nurses will share equal importance
with the doctors and researchers. As
frontline personnel, it is nurses that
people come in contact with fi rst
and it sets the tone for their medical
journey.
Nurses are heroes in normal
times, they are superheroes during
this health crisis.
— LAZ
the fun
niest?
Showing the nation how to vote
Oregon has conducted its elec-
tions by mail since voters approved
Measure 60 in 1998. Since then
voter turnout in Oregon has been
among the highest in
the nation and there has
been little—if any—se-
rious incidents of fraud.
More states are con-
sidering
conducting
their elections with
mailed ballots in the
wake of COVID-19,
amid the need for social distancing.
Images of people standing in line to
vote at a polling site is unsettling.
Wisconsin held a primary election
earlier this year with polling sites
that forced voters to line-up and
wait their turn.
COVID-19 will change Amer-
ican life in many ways and if one
of the changes is that every election
will be conducted via mail,
all the better. Some don’t
want to see elections-by-
mail expanded because it
increases turnout by voters
favorable to the opposition.
Supressing turnout in
states that hold elections
in the traditional way, with
voting booths and neighborhood
precincts is too easy. The people
should demand that their political
and government leaders publicly
avow their support for vote-by-mail
and oppose in the strongest terms
opinion
possible any move to make it hard
for any citizen to vote.
Oregon has held dozens of elec-
tions by mail on the federal, state
and local levels. Vote-by-mail is
now baked into our system. A ballot
comes into the home several weeks
before they are due, giving a vot-
er time to carefully go over their
choices. One may feel rushed at a
precinct. Democracy calls for con-
sideration.
Washington State also has vote-
by-mail. The two states in the
northwest corner of the country
can lead the other states into a fu-
ture of increased turnout in all their
elections. That can only be a good
thing.
— LAZ
Everyone should get moving during COVID
What’s been noticed already with
the coronavirus pandemic is a big
change with positive ramifi cations.
That change has to do with the great-
ly increased number of people who’ve
decided to turn off the TV
to take walk, jog, shooting
of baskets, the hitting of golf
balls, the taking of a hike, or
whatever inspires the em-
brace of physical exercise by
personal choice. Thereby,
increasing blood circulation,
building muscle, fi lling lungs
with fresh air, and a hun-
dred-fold other benefi ts that can, with
enough repetition and improved fi -
nesse, reduce excess fat and benefi t the
whole body to a more healthy BMI
(Body Mass Index) or healthy amount
of body fat.
History shows that many schools
started the day with virtually everyone,
including teachers, with a calisthenics
routine. These exercises were seen as
valuable to awaken students in prepara-
tion for the academics of each day. Why
this form of stimulation ceased cannot
be ascertained by this writer but strikes
him as an effective means of preparing
anyone, young and old, for meeting the
moment of a new day and providing
a level of readiness for whatever fol-
lows. Calisthenics can
include stretching move-
ments, running in place,
yoga maneuvers, and any-
thing else that limbers,
loosens and livens the
human body for all the
physical and mental chal-
lenges of each day.
One condition of
modern America for most of us, and
these days even for all ages of youth,
but mainly for those who’ve reached
middle school age and thereafter, is that
physical exercise for the most part is
concentrated in those young men and
women who, in school or by private
means, join a team sport. These young
people usually get a lot of exercise in
preparation for team play. Those youth
who are not out for a school sport or
in a private club sports program do
not get the physical activity they need.
gene h.
mcintyre
Even those opportunities have largely
ceased during the COVID-19 pan-
demic.
Hence, with the pandemic a limit-
ing factor in all of our lives and much
of formal learning taking place by
electronic connections, it would seem
timely and appropriate that the human
resources of our schools K-12, espe-
cially, now invested in distance edu-
cation endeavors, could be organized
into open area activities in the many
empty sports fi elds around Salem and
Keizer that would allow for calisthenics
of large numbers while honoring the
six-feet distance rule. Then we could
assemble a lot of kids for physical ac-
tivities and serve the social interaction
needs of so many of these youth.
The Chromebook is a huge help
but does not nearly serve the com-
prehensive, wide-ranging needs of our
youth, regardless of age. It would seem
high time to get more involved in their
lives, now exclusively left to computer
screens.
( Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.
He shares his opinion frequently in the
Keizertimes.)
COVID recession shows need for changes
By PAUL EVANS
My father, and his father before
him, were small business owners. And
though my time in the
private sector was brief,
I remember well the
emotional impact of
pouring one’s heart into
a business only to see it
vanish because of a seis-
mic shift in economic
realities.
All small businesses
matter. Our national security depends
upon a robust small business ecosys-
tem—it is the backbone of our econ-
omy. Tens of thousands of Oregonians
depend upon a locally owned enter-
prise for a job.
The COVID recession demon-
strates that our legacy thinking for
wealth generation is no longer aligned
with 21st century realities. Glob-
al supply chains leave us ill-prepared
for emergencies. Many tourism relat-
ed service industry jobs vanish when
people must shelter at home. And du-
rable goods manufacturing demands
signifi cantly decline in times of global
uncertainty.
The critical factor for survival in
times like this is capital. Access to
affordable capital is the difference be-
tween businesses that endure—and
those that cannot. This crisis has il-
lustrated how big business continues
to maintain ready access
to capital—as small busi-
nesses struggle just to keep
the lights on, and the lease
paid. Absent an immediate
rescue, Oregon will per-
manently lose thousands of
home-grown small enter-
prises.
It is time for a new
playbook. Accordingly, I urge three
new policies: 1. Establishment of sec-
tor-specifi c assistance to businesses
with an Oregon workforce; 2. Ze-
ro-interest grants for all businesses
willing to maintain current employ-
ees; and, 3. Establishment of an Or-
egon State Bank (through amending
the Oregon Constitution).
Oregon must act now. Congress
passed an enormous assistance pack-
age that was misaligned with the real-
ities of “small business” and “working
families.” There is a promise of more
assistance to come, but we have lost
too much time already.
We must reward companies that
put employees fi rst. We must reward
partnerships through providing ad-
ditional assistance to the businesses
guest
column
that support their employees. Loans
are insuffi cient. Many small businesses
will not take out a loan because of the
uncertainty of this crisis; they are jus-
tifi ably wary of adding debt without a
guarantee of future sales.
It is time that we accept “For-
Profi t” banks are an inappropriate
instrument for disbursing large-scale
public fi nancial assistance. This was
demonstrated during the last “Great
Recession” and again this year. Banks
are built to minimize risk: it is count-
er-intuitive for banks to push dollars
“out the door” as envisioned. The
failure today, again, of timely disburse-
ment of public assistance to small
businesses is not the fault of the banks
but of Congress.
Ultimately, the challenge we face
today is less about the COVID-19
contagion than a decades-in-the-
making breakdown of our strategic
investments and underfunded societal
safety nets. COVID-19 did not create
our problems, it illuminated legacy
thinking and systemic vulnerabilities.
Luckily, we have a chance to save our
small businesses if we demand struc-
tural changes.
(Paul Evans represents District 20
in the Oregon House of Representa-
tives.)
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