Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 24, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, March 24, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Water worries in the West For the most part, hydrologists throughout the West. But warm are painting a pretty grim picture temperatures prevented a lot of that of this season’s water situation moisture from falling as snow in the LQ&DOLIRUQLDDQGWKH3DFL¿F high country. In many cases, what Northwest. fell as snow was later washed away California faces its fourth year of by warmer rain. drought. Many farmers there face Without storage, that water is cutoffs of 80 percent or more of lost to irrigators who depend on the their water. snowpack. In the Cascades, all but the Californians last year approved highest peaks are a $7.5 billion bond devoid of snow. that could Without storage, initiative Farmers in the fund the construction Owyhee Basin can more storage in that water is lost of expect no more than coming years. We a third of their normal expect any project allocation. A drought to irrigators who to be opposed by emergency has depend on the environmentalists. already been declared In Oregon, a group in Oregon’s Malheur of stakeholders is snowpack and Lake counties, trying to work out with others expected. the rules for a plan to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has build more storage. Farm interests declared drought emergencies in the say the proposal’s environmental Olympic Peninsula; the east side concessions make it nearly of the central Cascade mountains, impossible for storage to pencil out. including Yakima and Wenatchee; A more promising plan, endorsed and the Walla Walla region. again last week by Gov. Kate Brown Whether a harbinger of summers during her visit to Pendleton, would to come, or not, the current situation allow farmers in Umatilla and underscores the need to build Morrow counties access to more more water storage and to evaluate water from the Columbia River. how existing water resources are In Washington, a deal has yet to allocated. be reached to recharge the aquifer It’s been a fairly wet winter on the state’s eastern edge. Brown lets in sunshine; Obama closes the door In a bold stroke of cruel irony, President Obama chose Sunshine Week to strike a blow for government secrecy. Obama closed a major window that Americans use for federal public records requests. By contrast, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has sent two bills to the Legislature that would greatly abet the cause of open and transparent government. Here are the major ingredients of Brown’s bills: • Require the state auditor to survey state agencies’ disposition of public records requests. 7KHSRVLWLRQRI¿UVWVSRXVHRU ¿UVWODG\ZRXOGKDYHWKHVWDWXVRI SXEOLFRI¿FLDO 1RVWDWHZLGHHOHFWHGRI¿FLDORU WKH¿UVWVSRXVHFRXOGWDNHSD\LQJ speaking engagements. • Remove the requirement that a state ethics investigation must cease while a federal investigation begins. • Reduce the amount of time the Ethics Commission has to decide whether to investigate a complaint. • Create an online reporting system to include Ethics &RPPLVVLRQFRPSODLQWV¿OHGDQG other procedural matters. All of these proposals make DEXQGDQWVHQVH7KH\UHÀHFWD governor who seems to understand her moment in history. Under John .LW]KDEHUWKHJRYHUQRU¶VRI¿FHKDG become a travesty. It is time for the Legislature to draw new rules. At the other end of the spectrum, President Obama on Freedom of Information Day is removing a federal regulation that subjects its 2I¿FHRI$GPLQLVWUDWLRQWRWKH Freedom of Information Act. This is QRVPDOOPDWWHUEHFDXVHWKLVRI¿FH has responded to FOIA requests for 30 years. Doing this is diametrically opposed to Obama’s professed desire for transparency. If we have a president whose SUR¿OHLVORVLQJFODULW\ZHKDYHD governor who wants to bring state government back in focus. 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 Two women, opposite fortunes L UANDA, Angola — This is still getting what the traditional healer the tale of two women, each would have given them if they’d an emblem, in her own way, of come by in the 17th century.” one of the world’s most corrupt and Fernandes was gracious and dysfunctional nations. hospitable — and also stoical. She One of the women is Isabel dos never complained, and only when I Santos, Africa’s richest woman. The asked about her rotting, disintegrating daughter of Angola’s president, she teeth did she acknowledge that she is worth $3 billion and is Africa’s Nicholas has lost so many teeth that she has only female billionaire as well as its Kristof trouble eating. She said she suffers youngest billionaire, according to relentless dental pain, and that the Comment Forbes. The magazine found that all only relief from the agony comes her major Angolan investments were when she is asleep. in companies seeking to do business there She gave no sign of anger at the or were achieved by a stroke of her father’s government, and when I probed to see whom pen. she blamed for her suffering, she said mildly: She has extravagant tastes. For her “It’s God who takes my children.” WKZHGGLQJDQQLYHUVDU\VKHÀHZLQ That may be a little unfair to God. An guests from all over the world for days of International Monetary Fund report last year lavish celebration. Dos Santos declined to noted that Angola has one of the richest comment, but she is pools of natural wealth widely seen as a symbol per person in Africa, of Angola’s status as yet the country has one of the most corrupt done much less than its countries in the world peers to assist ordinary — “graft on a scale people. And when the never before seen in IMF reviewed Angola’s Africa,” the Angolan books from 2007-10, journalist Rafael it initially found $32 Marques de Morais told billion missing. me. “Government The other woman, corruption at all levels PRUHW\SLFDOLV'HO¿QD was endemic,” the U.S. Fernandes, and I met State Department said her at the end of a bone- of Angola in its annual rattling journey over human rights report in impossibly rutted dirt 2013. roads in a village called Angola is ranked Kibanga in the northern part of the country. 161 out of 175 countries by Transparency Blind in one eye, she lives in a grass-roof International in its “corruption perceptions hut without electricity or running water, and index.” The World Bank’s “Doing Business” without access to health care. series ranks Angola 187 out of 189 countries Fernandes unrolled a homemade mat of in enforcing contracts. straw on the ground and sat beside me there, This is a global problem, of course, not telling me that she had lost 10 children (her just Angola’s. Two new books, “Thieves of neighbor, Ana Luciano, who had lost only State” by Sarah Chayes and “The Looting IRXUFKLOGUHQDQGKDVD¿IWKQRZVLFNZLWK Machine” by Tom Burgis, document the malaria, said that sounded right). Perhaps the way corruption is a catastrophe in many most excruciating blow a parent can suffer poor countries. Angola is simply an extreme is to lose a child, and that has happened 10 example. times to Fernandes. This corruption is also a reason 150,000 It’s impossible to be sure how her children die each year in Angola before the children died because, like half the country’s age of 5. The health budget is systematically population, the family is beyond the orbit pillaged: de Morais, the Angolan journalist, of the health care system. Therefore, her cites $58 million that was allocated to FKLOGUHQQHYHUUHFHLYHGELUWKFHUWL¿FDWHVRU renovate a particular hospital — and then GHDWKFHUWL¿FDWHV<HWDJRRGJXHVVLVWKDW pretty much vanished. they succumbed to malaria and malnutrition. The differences between dos Santos and In all, Fernandes, 50, says she had 15 Fernandes are vast, but there is a wrenching FKLOGUHQRIZKRP¿YHVXUYLYH6KHKDG shared interest in the oil industry. Dos never heard of family planning, like other Santos has monetized it, and when I asked women I spoke to along the road, and, in any Fernandes if she knew that Angola was case, none is available in rural areas here. rich with oil she was a bit confused by For people like Fernandes, life isn’t that the question but said eagerly that she, too, different from a few hundred years ago. values gasoline when she can afford to buy a There is no school in this area, so she and swallow. everyone else nearby is illiterate. Several “I put it in my mouth,” she said, “to dull villagers I talked to had never heard of the the pain from my teeth.” United States or Barack Obama, couldn’t Ŷ recognize a single letter and had no idea that Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and mosquitoes cause malaria. cherry farm in Yamhill, Oregon. He is a col- “Fifty percent of Angolans live outside umnist for The New York Times. He and his the orbit of any health care,” noted Dr. wife, Sheryl WuDunn, share a 1990 Pulitizer Stephen Foster, an American surgeon who Prize for their coverage of the 1989 Tianan- runs a rural hospital near Lubango. “They’re men Square democracy movement in China. This corruption is also a reason 150,000 children die each year in Angola before the age of 5 YOUR VIEWS Now is the time for a gas tax I have been listening to and reading about the problems associated with the lack of funding to keep the streets in Pendleton maintained to a satisfactory level. I’m also made aware of the numerous chuck holes and deteriorating asphalt as I drive around Pendleton. Fortunately, the streets in my neighborhood are in pretty good shape. However, I know that in a few months or years they will be deteriorating from lack of maintenance just like numerous other streets are now. After considering all the apparent options, I favor a gas tax as the most fair DQGHFRQRPLFDOO\HI¿FLHQWPHWKRGWRUDLVH Be heard! Comment online at eastoregonian.com, or visit our Facebook and Twitter pages. funds to do the maintenance and repairs. Nobody likes taxes but a user tax is probably DSSURSULDWHDQGEHQH¿FLDOHVSHFLDOO\ZKHQ \RXFDQVHHWKHEHQH¿WV The thing that really makes the tax practical is that we are fortunate to live on an interstate highway halfway between Boise and Portland. Pendleton is an ideal spot for travelers and other visitors to take a break, shop and buy gas. So why not take advantage of this and let them pay about 30 to 40 percent of the cost of RXUVWUHHWPDLQWHQDQFH<RXFDQ¶W¿QGDEHWWHU street fairy than that so let’s bite the bullet and get it done. I like good streets and I for one am willing to pay my share for them. LETTERS POLICY Phil Kline 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 re- serves 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.