Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
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MIKE FORRESTER
Pendleton
Chairman of the Board
STEVE FORRESTER
Astoria
President
TOM BROWN
Bigfork, Mont.
Director
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Pendleton
Secretary/Treasurer
JEFF ROGERS
Indianapolis, Ind.
Director
OUR VIEW
OTHER VIEWS
Chemicals in your popcorn?
W
Get advice from —
don’t give advice to
— this year’s grads
It’s that time of year again.
People we know and love (and
maybe birthed) are dressing up in
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walking across a big stage.
They’ve done something great,
these young men and women,
and they deserve some praise.
Graduation is an accomplishment
and an important step on the road to
adulthood.
When people we love reach these
milestones, we often feel obligated
to give them advice. We’ve already
lived this thing they are about to
live, and we sure wish someone
pulled us aside and told us the
way the world really works before
we spent all that energy tilting at
windmills.
Of course, the people we are
trying to teach are teens. They’re not
very open to our olden day advice,
and besides, everyone has to make
their own mistakes. This year’s
graduates are no different.
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advice that isn’t going to take, let’s
trying getting some advice instead.
Here are a few things we think we
could learn from the class of 2015.
Make technology serve you.
This generation was born into
technology like none before. They
have screens around them all day,
digital mailboxes that are always
open, friends and enemies at the
touch of a button, and ways to be
educated and entertained at all times.
But technology is nothing if not
constantly changing.
And what many middle-aged
people see as “email” or “Facebook”
or “Skype,” young people see as an
imperfect product that should keep
up with them as they grow. What
many middle-aged people see as
quirks of technology, young people
see as an entrepreneurial niche.
Young people don’t long stand
for quirks, or products that don’t
give them what they want. The
world bends to their whims, of
course. Generations prior never got
Parker Brothers to change the rules
to Monopoly, no matter how many
times we stuck money under Free
Parking. But if young people want
Facebook to list dozens of gender
options, it’s on their homepage the
next morning.
Be adaptable.
Technology may have taught
them that, too.
They’re never in a rut, these kids,
no matter how much they look like
they are when their heads are craned
over their phones. Young people are
used to change, aren’t intimidated or
threatened by it.
It’s a good trait in a recent
graduate. Things are going to
come at them, things they haven’t
encountered yet and aren’t prepared
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other hand, are freaked out every
time anything new happens. A man
becomes a woman on a magazine,
for instance. Teach us how you do it,
young people.
Be real.
The world is moving online, and
the online world lacks actual real
things.
Compliments might not be
compliments in that digital realm,
sarcasm is overwhelming and so are
disguised advertisements for money
and sympathy. Also, there is no dirt
and grass and trees.
Young people can identify real
things, probably because they are
more rare now than ever before.
That includes products, but it also
includes emotion. It’s hard for a
young person to be honest, forthright
and genuine. They appreciate it
when they see it, they value it
when they come across it, they feel
relieved when they get to be it.
That desire for real things has
already helped society. We’ve begun
the slow processes of de-engineering
our processed foods, of localizing
our economies and downsizing our
lives and admitting the real effects
we have on our on our planet.
We have much to learn!
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.
hat do a pizza box, a polar
States have never been tested for
bear and you have in
effects on our health.
common?
Any testing is being done on all of
All carry a kind of industrial
us. We’re the guinea pigs.
toxicant called poly- and
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legislation regulating toxic chemicals,
that do two things: They make life
but it’s so weak a bill that the chemical
convenient, and they also appear to
industry has embraced it. The Senate
increase the risk of cancer.
Nicholas version is better than nothing, but,
The scientists I interviewed say
Kristof astonishingly, it provides for assessing
that they try to avoid these chemicals
high-priority chemicals at a rate of
Comment
in their daily lives, but they’re pretty
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much unavoidable and now are found
that the House will go that far.
in animals all over the planet (including polar
Yes, of countless toxicants suspected
bears in Greenland and probably you and me). of increasing the risk of cancer, obesity,
PFASs are used to make nonstick frying pans, epigenetic damage and reproductive problems,
the United States would commit to testing
waterproof clothing, stain-resistant fabrics,
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fast-food wrappers, microwave popcorn
progress.
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For safety reasons, Europe and Canada
other products. Many are unlabeled, so even
already restrict hundreds of chemicals
chemists sometimes feel helpless.
routinely used in the United States. Perhaps
This should be a moment when
the danger of tainted brands and lost sales
government steps up to protect citizens. But
abroad — not the risk to Americans — will
from tobacco to lead paint to chemicals,
motivate U.S. companies to adopt overseas
industry has used donations, obfuscation and
limits.
lobbying to defer regulation until the human
Scientists are already
casualties are too vast to be
taking precautions and
hidden.
weighing trade-offs in
PFASs are “a poster
their personal lives. R.
child” for what’s wrong
Thomas Zoeller, a biology
with chemical regulation
professor at the University
in the United States, says
of Massachusetts, Amherst,
John Peterson Myers, chief
says he now avoids buying
scientist of Environmental
nonstick pans. Rainer
Health Sciences, a research
Lohmann, an oceanographer
and publishing group in
at the University of Rhode
Virginia. PFASs are just
Island, told me that he is
about indestructible, so,
replacing carpets in his
for eons to come, they
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will poison our blood, our
part to reduce PFASs.
household dust, our water and the breast milk
Simona Balan, a senior scientist at the
our babies drink.
Green Science Policy Institute, avoids
Warnings of health risks from PFASs go
microwave popcorn and stain-resistant
back half a century and are growing more
furniture.
ominous. In May, more than 200 scientists
Blum says she avoids buying certain
released a Madrid Statement warning of
nonstick products and waterproof products,
PFASs’ severe health risks. It was published
but reluctantly uses a glide wax for
in Environmental Health Perspectives, a
backcountry skis that contains PFASs. “Every
peer-reviewed journal backed by the National
time I spray it on, I realize the chemicals will
Institutes of Health.
be in my body for a very long time and on the
The scientists cited research linking
planet for geologic time, perhaps longer than
PFASs to testicular and kidney cancer,
mankind,” Blum said. “But I do enjoy a good
hypothyroidism, ulcerative colitis and other
glide when I ski.”
problems.
Some brands, including Levi’s, Benetton
Arlene Blum is a chemist whose warnings
and Victoria’s Secret, are pledging to avoid
about carcinogens have proved prophetic. In
PFASs. Evaluations of the safety of products
recent years, she has waged an increasingly
are available free at the GoodGuide and Skin
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Deep websites.
retardant chemicals because of evidence that
The chemical lobby is following the
they also cause cancer, but she told me that
3)$6V³DUHHYHQDELJJHUSUREOHPWKDQÀDPH same script as the tobacco and lead lobbies a
generation ago, throwing around campaign
retardants.”
donations and lobbying muscle to delay
The chemical industry acknowledges that
regulation. The chemical industry spent $190
older, “long-chain” PFASs are a problem
million lobbying in the last three years. If only
but says that it is replacing them with
it would devote such sums to developing safer
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products, rather than to defending its right to
It’s true that there is less evidence against the
produce suspected carcinogens.
short-chains, but that’s perhaps because they
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have been studied less.
Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and
Americans expect that chemicals used
cherry farm in Yamhill. A columnist for The
in consumer products have been tested for
safety. Not so. The vast majority of the 80,000 New York Times since 2001, he won the
Pulitzer Prize two times.
chemicals available for sale in the United
Warnings of
health risks of
PFASs go back
half a century
and are growing
more ominous.
YOUR VIEWS
Taking plants from cemeteries
is heartless grave robbing
I would like to tell the people who feel
it is their right to go to a cemetery and
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arrangements that people have paid sometimes
a lot of money for them, and have put these
items out for their loved ones.
You might have to face someone one of
these days and answer to why you feel it is
necessary to steal from the departed. Are
you that cheap that you can’t buy these items
yourself, and feel the need to go to a cemetery
and steal from a grave?
I know this happens everywhere in every
cemetery (this was in Hermiston). Rest in
peace does not seem apply to a cemetery;
there are bad people no matter where you are.
I promised my mother when she was alive
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always loved her beautiful yard, and I kept
that promise for almost four years. And then
just two days before Memorial Day weekend
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were stolen off her grave. My mother would
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to rob a grave, let them have them.
So enjoy your stolen graveyard plants, I
hope you enjoy them. I will not be putting
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promised. I will not supply your yard with her
plants.
If you are unable to read, have someone
read this for you — not that it will make a
difference to someone like you. You will
probably just laugh. But one of these days you
are going to get a big surprise with a stolen
item.
Think before you steal!
LETTERS POLICY
Nancy Patrick
Hermiston
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.