A4
THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, MAy 19, 2020
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
DERRICK DePLEDGE
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
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Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Researchers make our world better
W
e hesitate to invoke a
dusty metaphor that
politicians love —
that the coronavirus pandemic is a
“war.”
If it’s a war, the main enemy
has been the selective information
promoted by some and the lack of
accurate and thorough reporting by
a few news outlets.
But it’s not really a war. It’s
more a case study of the value of
research and why there can never
be too much effort invested in
understanding the world around us.
In the case of the coronavirus,
researchers are attempting to gain a
better understanding of the illness
it causes and how best to arrest its
spread. The holy grail they seek is
a vaccine that will immunize the
population against the virus.
In the meantime, new treatments
are being tested to help doctors
and others on the front lines keep
the death toll as low as possible by
helping senior citizens and those
with preexisting conditions survive
the virus and others more readily
recuperate from it.
Just as the need for research in
medicine is urgent and ongoing, so
too is the need for research in agri-
culture and fisheries.
While some folks seem to
believe they know enough about
catching fish, growing crops or
raising livestock, new issues and
challenges constantly arise. On top
of that is a world population that
U.S. Department of Agriculture
A USDA Agricultural Research Service microbiologist investigates one of the many
mysteries surrounding agriculture. Food producers and all who rely on them must
support peer-reviewed science.
has grown past 7 billion. That’s bil-
lions of meals a day that farmers
and fishermen need to provide.
One example of the thousands
of challenges facing agriculture
is the need for research on weeds.
These seemingly mundane plants
rob farmers and ranchers by reduc-
ing their crop yields and even kill-
ing their livestock.
Through research, farmers now
have many tools they can use
against weeds. Not only can they
use chemicals, but crop rotations,
cover crops, natural enemies and
other techniques to provide a high-
tech yet softer solution to con-
trolling weeds in both conventional
and organic agriculture.
It’s through research that those
innovative techniques were discov-
ered — and more will be added to
the toolbox in the years to come.
A better scientific grasp of
what’s happening out in the ocean
is essential to ensuring a future for
21st century fisheries.
Occasionally, we encoun-
ter conversations that can best be
described as anti-technology. Some
folks say they don’t trust scien-
tists and want to avoid the many
advances that researchers have
provided.
But when the chips are down,
as is the case with the coronavirus,
people do not turn to politicians,
talk-show hosts or others. They
turn to the men and women in labo-
ratories at universities, government
agencies and private companies for
the answers.
One victim of the coronavirus
pandemic has been the economy.
More than 36 million Americans
have been thrown out of work and
millions of businesses have been
shuttered. The federal government
has already borrowed or printed
trillions of dollars to keep the ship
afloat.
By comparison, it seems to
us that research is a bargain.
Researchers can help us under-
stand small problems before they
get large. That is true whether we
are talking about a virus, a weed or
feeding the world.
At Oregon State University,
Washington State University, the
University of Washington and other
academic institutions around the
nation, researchers rely on the sup-
port of the public, commodity com-
missions and others to do their
important work.
Whether it’s in medicine, fisher-
ies, agriculture or some other field,
researchers are on the front lines of
the war against ignorance about the
world around us. It is in all our best
interests to support that work any
way we can.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Disrespect
W
ouldn’t it be nice if all the proud
Americans who feel the need to
storm the state capitals, or the Seaside
beach, to protest the lockdown, some with
AR-15s strapped to their chests, would be
protesting something that actually had to
do with combating the coronavirus.
Protest for the doctors and nurses who
are every day facing the biggest challenges
of their careers while being so ill-equipped.
Protest for all the small businesses who
are having trouble getting enough financial
aid to stay afloat. Protest for all the unem-
ployed people who are having so much dif-
ficulty navigating unemployment. Protest
for all the renters who are in such a bind.
This isn’t about you. This is about all of
us. Please grow up. We are all struggling,
but a large majority care enough, despite
the hardships, to support continuing the
lockdowns.
How proud does that make you feel? We
are all in this together. So please keep your
guns, your Confederate flags, your Nazi
symbols and all the wonderful Trump mer-
chandise in your garage, where it belongs.
Protests disrespect the very people who
are heroically facing this crisis head-on.
Do they really need to be facing childlike
adults throwing a temper tantrum?
JIM SPURR
Cannon Beach
Sanitized
C
latsop County Public Health Direc-
tor Michael McNickle says, citing no
evidence or a single fact to support it, that
the outbreak of the coronavirus at Born-
stein Seafoods is “probably not Bornstein’s
issue, but some of these folks are actually
coming in and getting it from the commu-
nity activities that they probably shouldn’t
have been doing when they’re supposed to
be sheltering in place.” (“County pressed
on disclosure after coronavirus outbreak at
Bornstein Seafoods,” The Astorian, May
7).
That sounds like classic, ugly prejudice,
especially in the light of outbreaks at meat-
packing plants all across the Midwest. So
he referred them to the state Occupational
Safety and Health Administration. Every-
body knows that agency hasn’t had a tooth
in its mouth since the Reagan and Bush
presidencies. Now we’ll get to watch them
gum their way through this one.
In the food industry, people work shoul-
der to shoulder in terrible conditions, in
normal times. But there’s no excuse for
Bornstein not altering their process and
conditions to take care of their people
during this pandemic. McNickle should
have demanded that of them. Instead, he
made an after-the-fact walk-through, and
told The Astorian the county defers to
businesses.
Why? The citizens pay his salary, not
businesses. His fiduciary and moral respon-
sibility is to us, not them. And the primarily
immigrant people who do this work are an
integral and highly valued part of our cit-
izenry, whether they have pieces of paper
that say so in their pockets, or not.
Way more than your hands need to be
sanitized, sir.
JOSEPH WEBB
Astoria
Disaster capitalists
I
n our new world of multiplying disas-
ters, both man-made and natural — hur-
ricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, flooding,
rising oceans and infectious epidemics —
the oligarchs of the world have become
expert in disaster capitalism, exploiting
the chaos that results when a catastrophe
strikes.
They buy up suddenly-cheap assets
from desperate people or local govern-
ments in crisis, and they siphon off money
appropriated for relief in a hundred dif-
ferent ways, including no-bid contracts
to supply what turn out to be shoddy or
defective emergency supplies. Promises
are made and broken, and in the chaos they
line their pockets and do it without any
effective oversight or accountability.
In disaster relief bills there needs to be
not only quantitative and qualitative stan-
dards established by law, but real penalties.
Currently, white collar corruption (theft)
is seldom punished by more than a miser-
ably inadequate fine. A bank can steal $10
billion and happily pay a $2 billion fine
without admitting any wrongdoing. This
happens all the time. Nobody goes to jail.
As adept players of Monopoly, these eco-
nomic criminals all have a “Get Out of Jail
Free” card.
The pandemic presents our disaster cap-
italists with one more opportunity to fleece
the public and line their pockets. Congress
must pass emergency measures to deal
with the pandemic, but make clear in the
legislation that corruption will be punished,
not with slap-on-the-wrist fines or scolding
in front of a committee hearing, but solid
jail time in federal prison.
JOSEPH STEVENSON
Astoria
Worldly powerful
just never realized that Democrats were
so worldly powerful. President Donald
Trump, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and
I
so many others, including many preach-
ers, tell us this pandemic is really a hoax
brought about by Democrats.
Wow, it is almost beyond comprehen-
sion at that perceived political power. I see
and read about nations around the world
that have shut down their own economic
engines, working to stem this expanding
virus. All those choices by so many gov-
ernments and citizens willing to follow
best scientific protocols — or just the hoax
of Democrats?
SARA MEYER
Astoria
Get off our backs
I
have been asking this question: How
many people who have been using
hydroxychloroquine have gotten the
COVID-19 virus?
I know that it is being used for lupus,
malaria and arthritis-suffering patients.
Not long ago, the countries of Turkey and
France had success with it when given at
first signs of illness.
Why can’t the doctors here use it better?
Don’t let the heart doctors trick us. Tell the
Food and Drug Administration to get off
our backs, and let the doctors use it.
DALE ANDERSON
Nehalem