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Hood River News, Wednesday, January 14, 2015
A5
LETTER FROM CONGRESS
Walden: Making progress together for our region and state
By Rep. GREG WALDEN
T
he biggest disagree-
ments and loudest
voices got most of the
attention during this
last session of Con-
gress, from filibusters to
failed websites, immigration
to ISIL. However, while the
pundits blared, many of us
worked hard to achieve im-
portant legislative wins for
Oregon and America in
2014—like boosting Ameri-
can energy and jobs and
rooting out waste to save tax-
payer dollars.
Make no mistake, we still
have work to do, but we have
a strong foundation to build
on next year with the new
Republican majority in the
Senate on efforts to grow and
strengthen Oregon’s rural
communities.
All in all, I’m proud that
three bills I wrote this ses-
sion—protecting rural satel-
lite television service, pro-
viding more water and
power for Central Oregon,
and boosting agriculture re-
search in Hermiston—are
now the law of the land. And
several other of my initia-
tives passed the House with
bipartisan support, includ-
ing the plan to reform feder-
al forest policy to grow jobs
in the woods, improve forest
health, and provide needed
revenue for schools, roads,
and law enforcement. Al-
though I am disappointed the
Senate did not hold a vote on
this plan or any forestry bill
to assist our region, this
gives us a strong base to
build on next year with the
new majority in the Senate.
I’ve already begun conversa-
tions with members of the
House and Senate from both
parties on efforts to reform
federal forest policy and bet-
ter manage our lands. All of
these initiatives were devel-
oped transparently with
community support, so they
will have good momentum
going into 2015.
One of my top priorities is
making federal agencies like
the IRS, the VA, and the EPA
more transparent and ac-
countable to taxpayers. I
sought and secured a federal
investigation into the enor-
mous, costly, failure of Cover
Oregon to stop the waste, de-
mand the truth, and get ac-
countability. That investiga-
tion is ongoing, and we hope
to get the results in the near
future.
And when the FDA pro-
posed rules that would have
made it harder to grow
onions and brew local beer, I
pushed back hard on behalf
of producers and brewers,
inviting the FDA to visit
with Oregon growers to wit-
ness the rules’ impact first-
hand. Our voices were heard
as the agency reworked these
to make them better for Ore-
gon producers. I doubt most
people realize how much
time a member of Congress
and his/her staff spend help-
ing cut through red tape at
agencies like the Social Secu-
rity Administration or the
VA. For me and my team, we
helped more 2,811 Oregoni-
ans over the past two years,
including nearly one thou-
sand veterans cases.
The Energy and Com-
merce Committee I serve on
had 51 bills signed into law
this session, including legis-
lation to increase hydropow-
er and boost research for pe-
diatric diseases. We
launched a major initiative
called 21st Century Cures to
aggressively help find cures
for the nearly 6,500 known
diseases that lack them. This
is an exciting initiative that
will dramatically improve
the lives of people all over
the world.
The Committee also con-
ducted thorough oversight of
federal agencies under our
jurisdiction. When the Fed-
eral Communications Com-
mission proposed a “study”
that sought to poke their
noses into America’s news-
rooms, the Communications
and Technology panel that I
chair objected strongly, lead-
ing to the agency dropping
this threat to the First
Amendment.
And Congress successfully
passed legislation to help
clean up the mess at the VA
and allow more veterans to
go outside the VA to access
care in the communities
where they live. This will re-
ally help veterans, especially
in our rural communities.
We also passed plans to
streamline and improve job-
training programs and pro-
vide needed resources to
farmers to tackle drought,
fire, and new diseases and
pests in their crops.
Getting deficit spending
under control also remains a
huge priority of mine. The
House passed a budget that
balances over the next 10
years and eventually pays off
America’s debt. I supported
efforts to reform programs,
eliminate waste and duplica-
tion and as a result we cut
discretionary spending to a
level below when President
Obama took office.
This work doesn’t always
grab the headlines or domi-
nate the chatter on Twitter,
but these quiet gains im-
prove the lives of people and
help get our region and coun-
try on a better track. I could
not have been as successful
working on these issues
without hearing from and
listening to you—the people
of Oregon’s Second District.
Just this year, I traveled
more than 9,000 miles
through our enormous dis-
trict to hold town halls (49 in
the past two years) and other
community meetings. That’s
in addition to the thousands
of telephone town hall ques-
tions, emails, letters, phone
calls, Facebook messages,
and tweets I’ve received from
you and answered (more
than 41,000 just this year).
As the New Year dawns, I
pledge to continue to work as
hard as I can to solve our
problems, here at home and
across the nation. I want to
continue to hear from you
about your ideas and priori-
ties. This is how I develop
my “to do” list to take back
to Washington, D.C. each
week. Please visit
www.walden.house.gov to
send me an email to let me
know what you think should
be on my plate for 2015.
■
Greg Walden of Hood River
represents Oregon’s Second
Congressional District, which
covers 20 counties in southern,
central, and eastern Oregon.
ROUND TABLE
24: Remembering Charlie, and the connection to those yellow stars
By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
T
News editor
he cowardly mas-
sacre at the Charlie
Hebdo offices in
Paris put me in an
uncomfortably reflec-
tive mood last week.
There is little that one such
as I can say about the terrible
grief and pain felt by people
close to those who died. Their
tragedy is a personal one but
also a global one, because of
the threat the killings pose to
freedom of expression every-
where. I would amend the ral-
lying cry “Je Suis Charlie” to
“Nous Sommes Charlie”: we
are all Charlie.
The Charlie Hebdo attack
made me realize that my past
visits to Israel and to Europe
have put me on the outskirts
of terrorism. A brief person-
al history is in order: In 1978-
79, I spent my junior year of
college at Tel Aviv University,
in an English-language pro-
gram. While not Jewish, my
time there gave me a strong
connection to Jewish people
of Israel and other countries.
In 1980, I was blessed with an-
other travel opportunity, to
work for three months at a
Michelin one-star restaurant
in Normandy, about an hour
by train from Paris.
My wife, Lorre, and I visit-
ed England in March 1991,
just at the start of the ground
war in the first Gulf War; I
vividly remember the “report
unattended objects” warn-
ings, and seeing Victoria Sta-
tion shopkeepers react with
alarm when a shopping bag
was left not far from their
doors. It turned out to be an
innocent act of forgetfulness
by someone, but it was a brac-
ing beginning to our vaca-
tion. We would later en-
counter border barbed wire
and armed British patrols
and security gates in Belfast
(this was before the 1998 Good
Friday agreement).
■
When I flew to Israel in
1978, my first time out of the
country, in Zurich we Tel
Aviv-bound passengers were
shuttled to a remote metal
building away from the ter-
minal, for a separate security
clearance and boarding
process. That was my first ex-
posure to the realities of
years of war and terror in-
volving Israel and the region,
and people who travel there.
In my student year in Is-
rael I saw soldiers with their
weapons everywhere I went
— standard procedure then,
as now, for security’s sake as
well as the
simple reali-
ty of life in a
country with
a citizen re-
serve army. I
saw Arabs
told to get off
buses, a
painful expe-
rience I saw
Israelis
protest, and
we were
schooled in
the unattend-
ed packages
ethos. That
year I heard
both Abba
Eban, Israel’s
then-UN dele-
gate, speak of
diplomacy,
and the late
Rabbi Meir
Kahane,
speak of
Jews arming themselves
against what he said was the
inevitable war on Jews; that
meeting was held in a base-
ment, in virtual secret, as Ka-
hane was at the time persona
non grata with the Israeli
government.
However, nothing overt
happened in my year there,
other than one non-fatal
bomb in Jerusalem. It was
the year of peace accords
starting with Egypt — a mag-
ical time that seems unreal
now. I went to Bethlehem and
had the ironic experience of
being frisked by solders be-
fore I could enter Manger
Square on Christmas Eve.
In 1979, on a student trip to
the Golan Heights (held by Is-
rael, but all-but-empty due to
its proximity to enemy
Syria), we took a hike on a re-
mote plateau and were
warned not to touch any ob-
ject we saw, for fear it could
be booby trapped. (On that
same trip, we rode the single
ski lift in Israel up to the top
of Mt. Hermon, a ride that
looks down upon the rusted
remains of Syrian tanks from
the 1967 War.)
On that hike, walking
through the scrub, my boot
touched something and
amazingly I reached down to
pick it up — an unidentifi-
able plastic part of some
kind. Friends saw me and
laughed and shook their
heads. Whatever it was, I
dropped it — and thought of
nothing else for the rest of
the hike.
■
In 1980 in Paris, a grim co-
incidence occurred that gave
me a sense of awareness of, if
not direct experience with,
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terrorism. (Pardon my stilted
syntax, but I am trying to
phrase this just right.)
I had stayed twice in Hotel
de Nice, a cheap walk-up
hotel in the heart of the city.
It was a good base for taking
in the museums and parks. I
ate cheap food and walked —
a lot. Both times I had room
26 at Hotel de Nice, the key
hanging from a hard brass
keychain, in those days be-
fore swipe cards.
My third Paris visit, in Oc-
tober 1980, was days after a
bombing at the Paris syna-
gogue on Rue de Copernic, a
tragedy that killed four peo-
ple. The International Herald
Tribune called it “the worst
anti-Semitic act in France
since the end of World War
II.” I confess that I don’t
think I was all that mindful
of the synagogue attack; I
just planned two days to soak
in as much of Paris as my
meager budget could afford. I
arrived at Hotel de Nice and
was given a different room
number — 24 — and thought
nothing of it at the time.
The day I left, I checked
out and took off walking
around Paris, planning to
catch an early train back to
Normandy. Shortly before I
was to do so, I put my hand
in my coat pocket and real-
ized I still had the hotel key
— room 24 — but not enough
time to take it back. That
would have to wait until the
next visit.
Meanwhile, in my wander-
ing, I realized I was lost.
Well, not so much lost as
needing to look; maps of
Paris are exact (and this was
before GPS)
and after a
few minutes I
was able to
suss out my
location. I
charted a
course for
catching the
train from
Gare St.
Lazare, and
started walk-
ing in that
general direc-
tion. After a
few blocks I
looked up
and realized I
was at the
corner of
Rue de
Copernic —
just a block
from the
blown-up
synagogue.
Curiosity got
the better of me and I
walked down Copernic to
have a look. The police tape
was up and guards were
there, but things looked near-
ly normal. I bought a roll at a
bakery across the street.
And here is the coinci-
dence: As I was standing on
Copernic I pulled the Hotel
de Nice key from my pocket
and looked at the address of
the synagogue: 24 Rue Coper-
nic, the same as my room
number.
And the key chain? I kept
it; it’s in the photo above:
made of brass and shaped
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■
Last week in Paris, the
murderers attacked a news-
paper office and then a
kosher grocery store miles
from their first crime. They
sought out Jewish people to
kill.
There is no practical con-
nection between the syna-
gogue bombing of 1980 —
carried out by French right-
ists — and the Parisian
tragedies of 2015 — done by
Islamic jihadists — other
than a set of victims in both
cases who happened to be
Jewish. And Paris is hardly
unique in being wracked by
terror. I think people every-
where share a mutual sense
of foreboding as the smoke
clears on Charlie Hebdo.
So I stumbled on a piece
of plastic in a Golan field,
and saw soldiers walking
around with guns, or hap-
pened into a bombed-out
synagogue in Paris; in none
of these experiences was I
ever in danger, and I cannot
claim to understand what
true fear feels like. But it
keeps me mindful of the in-
grained history of hate that
seems at times to define the
human experience.
Current events, and my
own snippets of history,
have my attention. State-
ments of unity are a good
thing. Even on the outskirts
of something you can still
feel close to it. But how
close, and for how long?
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Astoria
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like the Star of David, the
Jewish symbol. The lower
point of the star points to
where the synagogue is.
On Oct. 6, 1980, LeMonde
newspaper evoked the Nazi’s
branding of Jews in its re-
sponse to the synagogue at-
tack: “Every Frenchman
should feel like he is wear-
ing the yellow star.”
In January 2015, this
newspaper and thousands of
others said, “Je Suis Char-
lie.”
Statements of unity, even
fraternite et liberte.
Patchy fog. Patchy freezing fog before 1 p.m. Otherwise, mostly
cloudy, with a high near 38. East wind 8 to 10 mph.
Actual High / Low
AGRIMET HOOD RIVER OR
Lat: 45.6842 Long: -121.5181 Elev: 510
http://uspest.org
Jan
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56/44
49/36
46/31
40/38
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40/36
Updated Monday, Jan 12
at 9:00 a.m. PST
Data from www.weather.com
HOOD RIVER
3140 W. CASCADE •541-386-1123