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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 14, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, April 14, 2015 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Put Roundup risk in context A World Health Organization FODVVL¿FDWLRQVKRXOGEHZLWKGUDZQ ¿QGLQJWKDWJO\SKRVDWH³SUREDEO\´ ,QUHDFKLQJLWV¿QGLQJV,$5& causes cancer shouldn’t be dismissed does not conduct original research. It out of hand, but requires some evaluates available literature. context. The German Federal Institute The World Health Organization’s of Risk Assessment, which in International Agency for Research 2014 declared glyphosate non- on Cancer last month issued a paper carcinogenic, called the IARC classifying glyphosate herbicide, FODVVL¿FDWLRQD³VXUSULVH´DQG sold under the trade contrary to studies name Roundup by the U.S. The finding is done by Monsanto Environmental Co., as “probably Protection Agency the opposite carcinogenic to and even a prior of what the humans.” study by WHO. 7KH¿QGLQJPDGH ,$5&¶V¿QGLQJLV EPA and other headlines because not conclusive. regulatory JHQHWLFDOO\PRGL¿HG ,$5&FODVVL¿HV “Roundup Ready” substances on a and research corn, soybeans scale of 1 to 4. agencies have Substances in Group and other crops are staples of U.S. DUHFODVVL¿HG concluded. agriculture. Critics “carcinogenic to have used the report humans” because to call into question there’s enough the safety of GMOs generally evidence to conclude that they and of glyphosate-resistant crops cause cancer. Group 1 includes birth VSHFL¿FDOO\ control pills, alcoholic beverages, It’s disturbing any time mineral oils and the sun. commonly used products are *O\SKRVDWHLVFODVVL¿HGLQ*URXS found to have a link to cancer. 2(a), which means “there is limited :KLOH,$5&¶V¿QGLQJVKRXOGQ¶WEH evidence of carcinogenicity in dismissed out of hand, it must be KXPDQVDQGVXI¿FLHQWHYLGHQFHRI taken in context. carcinogenicity in experimental 7KH¿QGLQJLVWKHRSSRVLWHRI animals.” what the Environmental Protection The report said “limited Agency and other regulatory and evidence” means a positive research agencies have concluded. association has been observed, but The European Union’s other explanations have not been Glyphosate Task Force said ruled out.” evaluations done over the past While glyphosate and other \HDUVFRQVLVWHQWO\FRQ¿UPHG chemicals warrant continuing glyphosate “poses no unacceptable study, nothing in the IARC’s report risk to humans, animals or the suggests it shouldn’t continue to be environment.” One of the largest used responsibly. epidemiology studies involved And what of the implications for approximately 57,000 U.S. farmers biotechnology? It’s a conventional who apply herbicides, the task force herbicide, not genetic engineering, said in a prepared statement. that’s at issue. The technology The task force said there are still presents the best opportunity ³VHULRXVGH¿FLHQFLHVLQWHUPV to provide farmers with increased of methodological approach” yields to feed an increasing LQ,$5&¶V¿QGLQJVDQGWKDWWKH population. 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. YOUR VIEWS BMCC has worked to get max value out of bond For more than half a century Blue Mountain Community College has educated thousands of students, many of whom live and work in Umatilla and Morrow counties. Family businesses have been established, job training has expanded opportunities and lives have EHHQHQULFKHGZLWKVSHFL¿FFRXUVHZRUN Theater, music, the Arts and Culture Festival and numerous other activities have brought depth to rural life. Beginning in 2014 President Cam Preus, board members and staff held 12 “active listening” sessions throughout both counties. They heard the constructive criticism and the priorities of our citizens. The bond proposal UHÀHFWVWKLVZHDOWKRIFRPPXQLW\LQSXW The highest priorities were workforce development, safety, protection and updating of existing infrastructure and equipment. Partnerships have been established in Hermiston utilizing existing OSU facilities for precision agriculture and critical workforce training at the Port of Morrow in Boardman. BMCC is collaborating with the Energy Trust of Oregon and could see an annual savings of around $100,000 in utility costs with upgrades to heating, cooling and electrical systems. State and lottery funds will provide $4 million as a match to further leverage the bond. The college shaved $5 million from the original bond and reduced the cost to 25 cents per thousand assessed property value. The median home value in Umatilla County is $145,000 for an estimated bond cost of $36.25 per year. Over 50 years ago the citizens of Umatilla and Morrow counties made a wise decision to establish Blue Mountain Community College. Please join us in the continuing support of this worthwhile investment in the education, training and well-being of both counties. Paul and Mary Davis Pendleton BMCC bond passage crucial to the region Backers of ballot measures always talk about the urgency of their cause, but Blue Mountain Community College’s bond measure is truly crucial to the economy of northeast Oregon. On the May 19 ballot is a bond measure to fund $25 million in new job training and education facilities, new instructional equipment and infrastructural equipment to include electrical, energy management, utility lines and data center technology This measure is reduced from one that went down to defeat some months back. That rejection has resulted in an improved package that has been distilled to items that are just must-haves for the community college which operates from Pendleton, Hermiston, Boardman, Milton-Freewater and Baker City. People took a key step 51 years ago in forming the district. But the degree of responsibility is much higher this election. The reason: Blue Mountain needs to keep its facilities current with technology and job and business needs. We need to turn to our community college for training and education as tuition soars at universities, as technology changes the job market, and workers need to retool. Fortunately, Blue Mountain and other two year colleges have lower costs and lower fees than the universities. These community colleges need funding, but they are a bargain. LETTERS POLICY Mike and Pam Forrester 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. A moral bucket list A bout once a month I run across That kind of love decenters the self. a person who radiates an inner It reminds you that your true riches light. These people can be in are in another. Most of all, this love any walk of life. They seem deeply HOHFWUL¿HV,WSXWV\RXLQDVWDWHRIQHHG good. They listen well. They make you and makes it delightful to serve what feel funny and valued. You often catch you love. Day’s love for her daughter them looking after other people and as spilled outward and upward. As she they do so their laugh is musical and wrote, “No human creature could David their manner is infused with gratitude. UHFHLYHRUFRQWDLQVRYDVWDÀRRGRI Brooks love and joy as I often felt after the They are not thinking about what Comment wonderful work they are doing. They birth of my child. With this came the are not thinking about themselves. need to worship, to adore.” When I meet such a person it She made unshakable commitments brightens my whole day. But I confess I often in all directions. She became a Catholic, have a sadder thought: It occurs to me that started a radical newspaper, opened settlement I’ve achieved a decent level of career success, houses for the poor and lived among the poor, but I have not achieved that. I have not embracing shared poverty as a way to build achieved that generosity of spirit, or that depth community, to not only do good, but be good. of character. This gift of love overcame, sometimes, the A few years ago I realized that I wanted to natural self-centeredness all of us feel. be a bit more like those people. I realized that The Call Within the Call if I wanted to do that I was going to have to We all go into professions for many work harder to save my own soul. I was going reasons: money, status, security. But some to have to have the sort of moral adventures people have experiences that turn a career into that produce that kind of goodness. I was a calling. These experiences quiet the self. going to have to be better at balancing my life. All that matters is living up to the standard of It occurred to me that there were two sets excellence inherent in their craft. of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy Frances Perkins was a young woman virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you who was an activist for progressive causes at bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues the start of the 20th century. She was polite are the ones that are talked about at your and a bit genteel. But one day she stumbled funeral — whether you were kind, brave, DFURVVWKH7ULDQJOH6KLUWZDLVWIDFWRU\¿UH honest or faithful. Were you capable of love? and watched dozens of garment workers We all know that the eulogy virtues are hurl themselves to their deaths rather than more important than the résumé ones. But our be burned alive. That experience shamed her culture and our educational systems spend PRUDOVHQVHDQGSXUL¿HGKHUDPELWLRQ,WZDV more time teaching the skills and strategies her call within a call. you need for career success than the qualities After that, she turned herself into an you need to radiate that sort of inner light. instrument for the cause of workers’ rights. Many of us are clearer on how to build an She was willing to work with anybody, career than on how to build character. compromise with anybody, push through But if you live for external achievement, hesitation. She even changed her appearance years pass and the deepest parts of you go so she could become a more effective unexplored and unstructured. You lack a instrument for the movement. She became the moral vocabulary. It is easy to slip into a self- ¿UVWZRPDQLQD86&DELQHWXQGHU)UDQNOLQ VDWLV¿HGPRUDOPHGLRFULW\<RXJUDGH\RXUVHOI D. Roosevelt, and emerged as one of the great RQDIRUJLYLQJFXUYH<RX¿JXUHDVORQJDV\RX FLYLF¿JXUHVRIWKHWKFHQWXU\ are not obviously hurting anybody and people The Conscience Leap seem to like you, you must be OK. But you In most lives there’s a moment when live with an unconscious boredom, separated people strip away all the branding and status from the deepest meaning of life and the symbols, all the prestige that goes with having highest moral joys. Gradually, a humiliating gone to a certain school or been born into gap opens between your actual self and a certain family. They leap out beyond the your desired self, between you and those utilitarian logic and crash through the barriers incandescent souls you sometimes meet. of their fears. So a few years ago I set out to discover The novelist George Eliot (her real name how those deeply good people got that way. was Mary Ann Evans) was a mess as a I didn’t know if I could follow their road to young woman, emotionally needy, falling character (I’m a pundit, more or less paid to for every man she met and being rejected. appear smarter and better than I really am). Finally, in her mid-30s she met a guy named But I at least wanted to know what the road George Lewes. Lewes was estranged from looked like. his wife, but legally he was married. If Eliot I came to the conclusion that wonderful went with Lewes she would be labeled an people are made, not born — that the people adulterer by society. She’d lose her friends, I admired had achieved an unfakeable inner be cut off by her family. It took her a week to YLUWXHEXLOWVORZO\IURPVSHFL¿FPRUDODQG decide, but she went with Lewes. “Light and spiritual accomplishments. easily broken ties are what I neither desire If we wanted to be gimmicky, we could say theoretically nor could live for practically. these accomplishments amounted to a moral :RPHQZKRDUHVDWLV¿HGZLWKVXFKWLHVGRQRW bucket list, the experiences one should have act as I have done,” she wrote. on the way toward the richest possible inner She chose well. Her character stabilized. life. Here, quickly, are some of them: Her capacity for empathetic understanding The Humility Shift expanded. She lived in a state of steady, We live in the culture of the Big Me. The devoted love with Lewes, the kind of second meritocracy wants you to promote yourself. love that comes after a person is older, scarred Social media wants you to broadcast a a bit and enmeshed in responsibilities. He highlight reel of your life. Your parents served her and helped her become one of the and teachers were always telling you how greatest novelists of any age. Together they wonderful you were. turned neediness into constancy. But all the people I’ve ever deeply admired Commencement speakers are always are profoundly honest about their own telling young people to follow their passions. ZHDNQHVVHV7KH\KDYHLGHQWL¿HGWKHLUFRUH Be true to yourself. This is a vision of life VLQZKHWKHULWLVVHO¿VKQHVVWKHGHVSHUDWH that begins with self and ends with self. But need for approval, cowardice, hardheartedness SHRSOHRQWKHURDGWRLQQHUOLJKWGRQRW¿QG or whatever. They have traced how that core their vocations by asking, what do I want from sin leads to the behavior that makes them feel life? They ask, what is life asking of me? How ashamed. They achieved a profound humility. can I match my intrinsic talent with one of the Self-Defeat world’s deep needs? External success is achieved through Their lives often follow a pattern of defeat, competition with others. But character is recognition, redemption. They have moments built during the confrontation with your own of pain and suffering. But they turn those weakness. Dwight Eisenhower, for example, moments into occasions of self-understanding realized early on that his core sin was his — by keeping a journal or making art. As temper. He developed a moderate, cheerful Paul Tillich put it, suffering introduces you to exterior because he knew he needed to project yourself and reminds you that you are not the RSWLPLVPDQGFRQ¿GHQFHWROHDG+HGLGVLOO\ person you thought you were. things to tame his anger. He took the names of The people on this road see the moments the people he hated, wrote them down on slips of suffering as pieces of a larger narrative. of paper and tore them up and threw them in They are not really living for happiness, as it the garbage. Over a lifetime, he made himself LVFRQYHQWLRQDOO\GH¿QHG7KH\VHHOLIHDVD strong in his weakest places. PRUDOGUDPDDQGIHHOIXO¿OOHGRQO\ZKHQWKH\ The Dependency Leap struggle on behalf of some ideal. Many people give the book “Oh, the Places This is a philosophy for stumblers. The You’ll Go!” as a graduation gift. This book stumbler scuffs through life, a little off suggests that life is an autonomous journey. balance. But the stumbler faces her imperfect We master certain skills and experience nature with unvarnished honesty, with the adventures and certain challenges on our opposite of squeamishness. Recognizing her way to individual success. This individualist limitations, the stumbler at least has a serious worldview suggests that character is this little foe to overcome and transcend. The stumbler LURQ¿JXUHRIZLOOSRZHULQVLGH%XWSHRSOH has an outstretched arm, ready to receive and on the road to character understand that no offer assistance. Her friends are there for deep person can achieve self-mastery on his or her conversation, comfort and advice. own. Individual will, reason and compassion ([WHUQDODPELWLRQVDUHQHYHUVDWLV¿HG are not strong enough to consistently defeat because there’s always something more VHO¿VKQHVVSULGHDQGVHOIGHFHSWLRQ:HDOO to achieve. But the stumblers occasionally need redemptive assistance from outside. experience moments of joy. There’s joy in People on this road see life as a process freely chosen obedience to organizations, RIFRPPLWPHQWPDNLQJ&KDUDFWHULVGH¿QHG ideas and people. There’s joy in mutual by how deeply rooted you are. Have you stumbling. There’s an aesthetic joy we feel developed deep connections that hold you up when we see morally good action, when we in times of challenge and push you toward run across someone who is quiet and humble the good? In the realm of the intellect, a and good, when we see that however old we person of character has achieved a settled are, there’s lots to do ahead. philosophy about fundamental things. In the The stumbler doesn’t build her life by realm of emotion, she is embedded in a web of being better than others, but by being better unconditional loves. than she used to be. Unexpectedly, there are Energizing Love transcendent moments of deep tranquility. Dorothy Day led a disorganized life when For most of their lives their inner and outer she was young: drinking, carousing, a suicide ambitions are strong and in balance. But attempt or two, following her desires, unable eventually, at moments of rare joy, career WR¿QGGLUHFWLRQ%XWWKHELUWKRIKHUGDXJKWHU ambitions pause, the ego rests, the stumbler changed her. She wrote of that birth, “If I looks out at a picnic or dinner or a valley had written the greatest book, composed the and is overwhelmed by a feeling of limitless greatest symphony, painted the most beautiful gratitude, and an acceptance of the fact that SDLQWLQJRUFDUYHGWKHPRVWH[TXLVLWH¿JXUH, life has treated her much better than she could not have felt the more exalted creator deserves. Those are the people we want to be. than I did when they placed my child in my Ŷ arms.” David Brooks, New York Times columnist.
