Page 6A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, July 11, 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
Salem’s winners
and losers
Legislature wraps up busy session on
education, pot and special interests
standards. The teachers’ union is
A list of accomplishments of the
concerned how test results impact
Oregon Legislature must start with
school accountability and teacher
this: It adjourned on schedule. Our
evaluations. 3assage, however,
neighbors to the north have gone
jeopardi]es 10 million in annual
into triple overtime, breaNing the
record for longest legislative session federal funding for Oregon schools.
The OEA also won big with money
in Washington state history.
Count too as a major success that to implement full-day Nindergarten,
which will add more teaching jobs.
Oregon legislators brushed off liNe
• Victories for special-interest
crumbs on a picnic table the early-
activists included an expansion of
session drama of *ov. Kit]haber’s
bacNground checNs on gun sales and
resignation. Kate Brown deserves
creation of an LGBT coordinator
credit for leaving the drama behind
position within
and putting her
'epartment of
head down to worN.
Eastern Oregon the
Veterans’ Affairs
Legislators of both
to help veterans
parties followed
got some
discharged because
suit and got down
feathers for our of their sexual
to the people’s
orientation.
business — or at
cap: Millions
The session was
least the business
to fund the
notable for several
of the people who
Oregon
donate.
Umatilla Basin ¿rsts.
became the ¿rst state
Eastern Oregon
got some feathers
water project, to automatically
register people to
for our cap: millions
faster speed
vote when they
of dollars to help
receive a driver’s
fund the Umatilla
limits
and
more
license. We also
Basin water project,
lax rules for gas became the ¿rst
faster speed limits
to require health
for our open
pumping.
insurance plans
highways, more lax
to offer a year’s
rules for pumping
worth of birth control supplies in
gas in rural counties.
a single purchase. A companion
Higher education was a big
measure allows women to get oral
winner. LawmaNers approved a
contraceptives directly from a
stunning 22 percent increase in
funding for community colleges and pharmacy without a doctor’s visit.
There were also ample examples
universities. Most of the funding
of trivial politics. Legislators tried,
will go for student ¿nancial aid and
but failed, to remove the Mississippi
rebuilding administrative positions
cut during the recession. Community state Àag from Capitol grounds
because it contains the Confederate
colleges will test a tuition-free
symbol. There were proposals to ban
program for recent high school
the declawing of cats and allow dogs
graduates.
to ride in the beds of farm vehicles.
)unding for K-12 education
Marijuana dominated the session
increased, but at a much lower
as lawmaNers grappled with rules to
rate. 3ublic school buildings will
govern its legali]ation. They reached
get expensive, but needed seismic
dif¿cult and clunNy compromises on
improvements.
With solid majorities in the House taxes and local sales of pot — and
did so on bipartisan terms.
and Senate, 'emocrats were in ¿rm
Oregon businesses dodged a
control. As expected, 3ortland-area
politicians controlled the agenda.
staggering increase in the minimum
Their liberal wing constituencies — wage. But proponents are already
environmentalists, public employee
collecting signatures for an initiative
unions and social activists —
measure, which is liNely to get
secured important gains:
on the ballot. Employers were
• Gov. Brown extended an
saddled with new paid sicN leave
order requiring a 10 percent
requirements and restrictions on
reduction in carbon emissions
when to asN job applicants about
from cars and trucNs over the next
prior criminal convictions.
decade. This was a huge win for
LawmaNers showed remarNable
environmentalists after 'emocrats
restraint not spending all the
failed to renew the standard two
projected tax revenue. They set aside
years ago. But the victory cost the
300 million in reserves to help
governor an important transportation cushion the impact of much higher
funding agreement.
pension costs following the Supreme
• The Oregon Education
Court’s rejection of cutting payments
Association pushed through
to public retirees. It’s a small down
HB 2655, which allows parents
payment. More will be required —
to easily get their children out
from taxpayers, government and
of new standardi]ed education
public employee unions — in the
tests based on Common Core
years ahead.
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.
LETTERS POLICY
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.
Have your say!
Comment online at eastoregonian.com
OTHER VIEWS
Building attention span
I
elsewhere suggests that people read
f you’re liNe most of us, you’re
a printed page differently than they
wondering what the Internet is
read off a screen. They are more
doing to your attention span. You
linear, more intentional, less liNely to
toggle over to checN your phone during
multitasN or browse for Neywords.
even the smallest pause in real life. You
The slowness of solitary reading
feel those phantom vibrations even
or thinNing means you are not as
when no one is texting you. You have
concerned with each individual piece
trouble concentrating for long periods.
of data. You’re more concerned
Over the past few years researchers
David
have done a lot of worN on attention
Brooks with how different pieces of data ¿t
together. How does this relate to that?
span, and how the brain is being
Comment
You’re concerned with the narrative
re-sculpted by all those hours a day
shape, the synthesi]ing theory or the
spent online. One of the conclusions
overall context. You have time to see how one
that some of them are coming to is that the
thing layers onto another, producing mixed
online life nurtures Àuid intelligence and
emotions, ironies and paradoxes. You have
ofÀine life is better at nurturing crystalli]ing
time to lose yourself in another’s complex
intelligence.
environment.
Being online is liNe being a part of the
As Green¿eld puts it, ³by observing
greatest cocNtail party ever and it is going
what happens, by following the linear path
on all the time. If you email, text, tweet,
of a story, we can convert information into
)acebooN, Instagram or just follow Internet
Nnowledge in a way that
linNs you have access to an
emphasi]ing fast response
ever-changing universe of
and constant stimulation
social touch-points. It’s liNe
cannot. As I see it, the Ney
you’re circulating within an
issue is narrative.”
in¿nite throng, with instant
When people in this
access to people you’d
slower world gather to try
almost never meet in real
to understand connections
life.
and context, they gravitate
Online life is so delicious
toward a different set of
because it is sociali]ing
questions. These questions
with almost no friction.
are less about sensation than
You can share bon mots,
about meaning. They argue
photographs, videos or
about how events unfold
random moments of insight,
and how context inÀuences
encouragement, solidarity or
behavior. They are more
good will. You live in a state
liNely to maNe moral
of perpetual anticipation
evaluations. They want to
because the next social
Nnow where it is all headed and what are the
encounter is just a second away. You can
control your badinage and clicN yourself away ultimate ends.
Crystalli]ed intelligence is the ability to
when boredom lurNs.
use experience, Nnowledge and the products
This form of social circulation taNes the
of lifelong education that have been stored in
pressure off. I Nnow some people who are
long-term memory. It is the ability to maNe
relaxed and their best selves only when
analogies and comparisons about things you
online. Since they feel more in control
have studied before. Crystalli]ed intelligence
of the communication, they are more
accumulates over the years and leads
communicative, vulnerable and carefree.
ultimately to understanding and wisdom.
This mode of interaction nurtures mental
The online world is brand new, but it
agility. The ease of movement on the Web
encourages you to sNim ahead and get the gist. feels more fun, effortless and natural than
the ofÀine world of reading and discussion.
You do well in social media and interactive
It nurtures agility, but there is clear evidence
gaming when you can engage and then
by now that it encourages a fast mental
disengage with grace. This fast, frictionless
world rewards the quicN perception, the instant rhythm that undermines the ability to explore
narrative, and place people, ideas and events
evaluation and the clever performance. As
in wider contexts.
neuroscientist Susan Green¿eld writes in her
The playwright Richard )oreman
booN ³Mind Change,” expert online gamers
once described people with cathedral-liNe
have a great capacity for short-term memory,
personalities — with complex, inner density,
to process multiple objects simultaneously, to
people with distinctive personalities, and
switch Àexibly between tasNs and to quicNly
capable of strong permanent attachments.
process rapidly presented information.
)luid intelligence is a set of sNills that exist These days that requires an act of rebellion,
among friends who assign one another reading
in the moment. It’s the ability to perceive
and set up times to explore narrative and
situations and navigate to solutions in novel
cultivate crystalli]ed intelligence.
situations, independent of long experience.
Ŷ
OfÀine learning, at its best, is more liNe
David Brooks became a New York Times
being a member of a booN club than a cocNtail
Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He
party. When you’re ofÀine you’re not in
has been a senior editor at The Weekly
constant contact with the universe. There are
Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek
periods of solitary reading and thinNing and
then more intentional gatherings to talN and
and the Atlantic Monthly, and is currently a
compare.
commentator on “The Newshour with Jim
Research at the University of Oslo and
Lehrer.”
When you’re
offline you’re
not in constant
contact with the
universe. There
are periods of
solitary reading
and thinking.
YOUR VIEWS
Donald Trump is right about
illegal immigration
$s Pany oI you, , ¿rst tooN 'onald
Trump’s bid for president as just another
chance to show his overgrown ego. I don’t
see it entirely that way any more, and his poll
ratings have climbed despite his rhetoric.
His comments on Mexico brought a
strong bacNlash from corporate sponsors
and the /atino population. His honest talN,
however, also woNe up the segment of the
U.S. population that has been quiet, but now
is fed up.
The concept of continued thousands of
impoverished people, from mostly poor Latin
countries, coming here so they can have a
better life has to end somehow.
Yes, we are all immigrants to some degree,
but the poor old USA simply can not absorb
this huge inÀux forever. 3art of the reason
our country is great is that there are still some
places to breathe, get away and enjoy the
serenity and beauty of our open spaces. I don’t
want apartments covering every square acre to
house this continually increasing population.
Besides, the USA already has critical issues
with enough water, power, and food.
The trouble is that Trump is about right.
Way too many immigrants are illegal and do
bring in drugs and crime.
TaNe illegal )ranciso Sanche], for example.
He has at least a do]en aliases, seven prior
felony convictions in the U.S., and has been
deported ¿ve times. He was recently released
again, on probation. Kathryn Steinie, 32, was
just walNing on 3ier 1 in San )rancisco with
her dad and a friend. She had no connection
to Sanche] at all. He walNed up behind her
and shot her in the bacN. The bullet pierced
her aorta and she died. It was a totally
random shooting — just for fun, I guess.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case.
5emember too, San )rancisco is a ³sanctuary
city” that affords protection to illegal
immigrants.
Every president since in recent times has
promised to ¿x the immigration problem. 1ot
one of them has done anything that worNs. So,
good for you 'onald Trump. )inally someone
who doesn’t have to be ³politically correct” all
the time and has so much money he can afford
to be outspoNen and independent. He is saying
what a lot of Americans thinN.
David Burns
Pendleton