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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, January 14, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Be careful what you wish for, college football fans players. How could they not, when they are making $7 billion to put on three playoff games a year? unmitigated success. The demise of the NCAA would Television ratings were through the roof for ESPN, which spent $7.3 turn college football squads into semi-pro, minor league teams that billion to buy the 12-year rights put very little (if to broadcast the importance College football any) on academics, and 30 seconds of ad players may not space during the is no longer even be required to championship an amateur be enrolled at the telecast sold for school. more than $1 endeavor. Whether the fans million, and the two Players should will stick around for kind of show is receive a piece that anyone’s guess. But Sugar Bowl) were of the billion as long as it says the highest-rated or Oregon shows in cable dollar pie they Oregon State on the laundry, TV history. You can bet that once have created. we think there will be plenty of supporters. is recorded for After all, college football is no longer an amateur endeavor. take over the top spot. were winners, coming out of the playoff system infused with cash. They received more than $50 million each — money cobbled from the this year, just 2 less than most professional football teams. They played before crowds that wouldn’t advertisers and other revenue. The championship game coaches, who each make more than $2 million per year, also did name from coast to coast. Players took severely reduced class schedules during the season. And how could they not, with all the practice and the weightlifting and the travel? The bowl system, with its obvious are among the most highest-paid public employees in their respective states. The National Football League gets a complex, competitive minor league system where superstars are created — and they don’t have to pay a dime for it. It seems like everyone is making a buck off the playoff system except the football players themselves. rather random way to decide a national champion. Yet in some ways it was that unprofessionalism that allowed the NCAA to remain in charge and rendered the college football system sustainable. and revenue is coming in hand over anything Americans hold more sacred than their college football, the villainy of this exploited labor will soon reach a breaking point. And the playoff system will only increase the speed at which college football as we know it will crumble. We don’t think the NCAA, the hypocritical and outmoded bastion of college athletics, will still be around in a decade. We don’t think college football teams will be either — at least not how they we know them today. We think the NCAA will be gargantuan river of money away from the players, who are rightfully ghost of amateurism and allow for amateur college football. University of Oregon this year? You betcha — no one would argue that. The real number is probably closer to $10 million or more. And why shouldn’t people get paid what they are worth? This is America after all, where cashing in on the skills that set you apart is a big piece of our national dream. of the college football playoffs. But Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. OTHER VIEWS Be slow and sure on The Bend Bulletin promised that in 2015 he would propose a bill regulating genetically engineered crops in the state. Now, he’s getting exactly what he’ll propose remains unclear. Among the issues: whether or not the state should be able to establish “control” areas over genetically engineered crops even if they’ve been of Agriculture is given that power, it will be able to create what are known as “isolation distances” between engineered and other crops. Isolation distances aim to prevent cross pollination. Cross contamination is a big deal to wheat farmers and others, as the discovery of genetically engineered Eastern Oregon demonstrated a couple of years ago. Oregon’s wheat crop is worth about $500 million annually, and most of it is sold in Asia. Asians do not want genetically engineered foods, and when the wayward plant was discovered both Japan and South Korea delayed purchases until purity could be proved. It makes sense to do what’s reasonable to separate the crops, though deciding just what is reasonable may be great, that can create real problems; if they’re too short, that doesn’t solve the contamination problem. There’s also concern about who, if anyone, should compensate a farmer if a crop is contaminated by genetically engineered plants. That shouldn’t be the state’s business, it seems to us. The state does not compensate a farmer if the neighbor’s cows damage a crop; it shouldn’t do so in this case, either. Coming up with a bill that’s acceptable to all the segments of the state’s agriculture industry won’t be easy, and lawmakers are sure to want to put their own spin on whatever the governor proposes. But both the governor and lawmakers should be more concerned about getting the new rules right than getting them quickly. OTHER VIEWS The child in the basement aybe you’re familiar with Ursula Le Guin’s short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” It’s about a sweet and peaceful city with lovely parks and delightful music. The people in the city are genuine- ly happy. They enjoy their handsome market. Le Guin describes a festival day with delicious beer and horse races: “An old woman, small, fat, and laughing, on some faraway child in the basement. When we buy a cellphone or a piece of cheap clothing, there is some exploited worker — a child in the basement. We tolerate exploitation, telling each other that their misery is necessary for over- David Brooks Comment hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the It is an idyllic, magical place. But then Le Guin de- scribes one more feature of Omelas. In the basement of one of the buildings, there is In another reading, the story is a challenge to the utilitarian mindset so prevalent today. In theory, most of us subscribe to a set of values based on the idea that a human being is an end not a means. object. It is wrong to enslave a person, even if that slavery might produce a large good. It is wrong to kill a person for his organs, even if many lives might be saved. And yet we don’t actually live according to that moral Ursula Le Guin writes of a perfect city that enslaves a feeble child. Is that a social contract we can live with? room with a locked door and no windows. A small child is locked inside the room. It looks about 6, but, actually, the child is nearly 10. “It is feebleminded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition and ne- glect.” Occasionally, the door opens and people look in. The child used to cry out, “Please let me out. I will be good!” But the people never answered and now the child just whimpers. It is terribly thin, lives on a half- bowl of cornmeal a day and must sit in its own excrement. “They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas,” Le Guin writes. “Some of them have come to see it; others are content merely to know it is there. They all know it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happi- ness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children ... depend wholly on this child’s abominable mis- ery.” That is the social contract in Omelas. One child suffers horribly so that the rest can be happy. If the child were let free or comforted, horrible for the child, and some parents hold their kids tighter, and then they return to their happiness. But some go to see the child in the room and then keep walking. They don’t want to be part of that social contract. “They leave Omelas; they walk ahead into the darkness and they do not come back.” In one reading this is a parable about ex- ploitation. According to this reading, many of us live in societies whose prosperity depends tragic trade-offs. In many different venues, the suffer- those trying to deliver the greatest good for the greatest number. Companies succeed be- if a whole family depends on them. Schools become pres- tigious because they reject people — even if they put a lifetime of work into their - ing a war on terror accidentally kill innocents. These are children in the basement of our sur- vival and happiness. The story compels readers to ask if they are willing to live according to those contracts. Some are not. They walk away from prosperity, and they make some radical commitment. They would rather work toward some inner purity. The rest of us live with the trade-offs. The story reminds us of the inner numbing this cre- ates. The people who stay in Omelas aren’t bad; misery they depend upon. I’ve found that this story rivets people because it confronts them with all the tragic compromises built into mod- ern life — all the children in the basements — and, at the same time, it elicits some desire to struggle against bland acceptance of it all. In another reading, the whole city of Omelas is just different pieces of one person’s psychol- ogy, a person living in the busy modern world, and that person’s idealism and moral sensitivity is the shriveling child locked in the basement. David Brooks became a New York Times Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. Urusula Le Guin is a recent partcipant of the Eastern Oregon Word Round-Up in Mission and the Pendleton Center for the Arts First Draft Writers’ Series. She lives in Portland. YOUR VIEWS Pendleton city leaders inept, transparency will show it Last week’s newspaper published this incredulous statement, “Communication between the city and public wasn’t always strong in 2014.” Our mayor now wants Pendleton to be known as a “transparent city.” Keep in mind that “transparent” means to see through. There was a plea for community involvement in the decision-making process for the necessity of constructing a new the EO, the city has “a $75,902 contract with company will go through the motions of will then be given a contract to design it. wants to invest in infrastructure for its 40-acre Industrial Park that cost $12,500 an acre ($500,000) well above the market price for undeveloped land. There is already an unused The ineptitude of our leaders is mind- boggling. The city missed the deadline to put the $10 million bond on the November ballot and the mistake was blamed on inexperienced staff. That same excuse was used when they made proposals for capital projects such as the Convention Center expansion and miscalculated the cost by almost $300,000. To prove that they are going to be “transparent” in 2015, they should publish their debt total including loans from Banner Bank, interagency loans and the $2 million airport debt. Here is an example of Houk’s transparency: He recently mentioned that the Convention Center Advisory Board will be disbanded for lack of participation by its members. He failed to mention the reason for this. According to the EO, Commission commission used to have good attendance and make frequent recommendations, but meetings in recent years now boil down to reports from staff and votes on issues already decided by the council”. A city council member recently stated that “2015 will be a great year of progress.” That is setting the bar low. One of the city council’s major accomplishments in 2014 was to change Quit complaining. Time for a recall election. LETTERS POLICY Jerry Cronin Pendleton The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
