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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 5, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, September 5, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com MIKE FORRESTER Pendleton Chairman of the Board STEVE FORRESTER Astoria President CORY BOLLINGER Aberdeen, S.D. Director KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer JEFF ROGERS Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW Younger tourists would pump life into Pendleton If you inform them, they will come. That’s the approach the city of Pendleton is taking in an attempt to draw a younger, more urban group of tourists to the city. Event recruiter Pat Beard has referred to the demographic as ‘hipsters,’ and no matter how much the audience may cringe at the term, it gets the point across. These are fashion-forward people who like to live outside the mainstream. Pendleton can provide that. There’s no city in the Paci¿c Northwest with a more distinct and pure Western downtown, and the Pendleton Woolen Mills create clothing and blankets that are the epitome of Western fashion — sturdy, authentic and stylish. A walk down Main Street will take you past bars, restaurants, saddle shops and clothing boutiTues rich with Àair that you won’t ¿nd anywhere else in such a concentrated area. The trick is getting these urban youngsters to leave their comfort zones and head east into the West. Thus the marketing campaign in downtown Seattle and later Portland. The ads will speci¿cally target those who may not even know Pendleton exists, creating an urge to visit a new frontier. One thing Pendleton can boast, aside from its true West vibe, is familiar territory for Seattlites and Portlanders. The Great Paci¿c and Prodigal Son are perfect starters, with live music and award-winning beer on tap. The coffee shops and arts center also offer that ground zero for the under-35 crowd, and we hope to see the Rivoli Theater ¿ll that role in the not-too-distant future as well. By showcasing Pendleton’s cast of regulars, these places show Pendleton isn’t a gimmick. Real people live and mingle here. The western shtick may grow tired in a ghost town, but in an actual city with actual people there’s the kind of authentic life this crowd is looking for. This is where you come in. These tourists that Travel Pendleton is aiming for don’t want to get on a bus, arrive downtown, take a tour, visit a museum, snap 400 photos, then load back up and hit the road. They want to experience the town and the people. Strike up a conversation the next time you see a new face and ¿nd out where they’re from. Because besides the expendable income in the young tourist’s pocket is the promise of future visits if they enjoy the experience. The retiree passing through town in an RV or tour bus may come back sporadically through the next couple of decades, but the 20-something who is hooked by the town’s charms will be a lifetime visitor and ideally an ambassador. That’s how name recognition is built, and with the help of the Woolen Mills, Round-Up and Whisky that all bear the town’s name it will become a place that’s hard to avoid. We won’t dismiss the baby boomers, those stalwarts of travel who help pump life into wherever they frequent. But it’s smart for Travel Pendleton to set the hook for a new crowd in hopes of hauling in a bigger piece of Oregon’s $10.3 billion tourism industry. 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 Cutting expenses should be easier than asking for money Councilman Chuck Wood may have a little memory loss. In his letter dated August 27 he stated that I did not make any recommendations for cuts when there was still time for the council to consider them. This is not true. At the January 6 council meeting I made the following recommendations: Stop installing more statues; the city of Pendleton has too many parks for a city our size, sell some parks or return them to the donors so taxes can be collected from the land; the ¿re station should not be moved. The money saved to be used for street repair. At the budget hearing April 30 I gave testimony as follows: Parks, recreation, the Vert and gym should collect 50 percent of the operating cost from people who use these facilities. Now only 26 percent of the cost is collected from users. Taxpayers make up the other 74 percent. Willsonville and Sherwood, both larger than Pendleton, have fewer parks. This would have given us $525,000 more for street repair. Councilman Wood thinks that the city should keep giving $247,725 of tax money to the chamber of commerce. A perfect example why the chamber should not be dependent on government for money happened at the September 1 council meeting. There were two longtime businessmen complaining about how the city operates. In most cities they could have gone to the chamber of commerce for help. With the city ¿nancing the chamber, how could it oppose anything the city does? If the chamber was independent, it could oppose some of the dumb decisions made by the city, like gas tax, tax increases, new utility fees, high license fees and long waits for permits. This will never happen in Pendleton. Councilman Wood implied that I took the easy way out by suggesting cuts instead of tax increases for street repair. Only a dyed-in-the-wool liberal would think that cutting expenses was easier than asking taxpayers for more money. Finally I have not heard many people wanting a festival director. If Councilman Wood thinks that this is necessary he could get Mayor Phillip Houk to solicit donations for it. The mayor is good at getting donations for statues. OTHER VIEWS The new romantics in the computer age J ust once I’d like to have a college literature and a capacity for intimacy. student come up to me and say, But the new romanticism won’t only “I really wanted to major in be built on workplace incentives. It will accounting, but my parents forced me to be driven, too, by the inherent human major in medieval art.” That probably craving for the transcendent. Through won’t happen. It always seems to history there have always been moments be the parents who are pushing their when eras of pragmatism give way to children in the “practical” or mercenary eras of high idealism. direction. Mark Edmundson’s new book, “Self David These parents are part of the Brooks and Soul,” is a blow in that direction. He vast apparatus — college résumés, observes that “culture in the West has Comment standardized tests, the decline of become progressively more practical, humanities majors — that has arisen materially oriented, and skeptical.” to make our culture more professional and less But he argues that history has left us different poetic. idealistic models worth pondering and reviving. But you see a counterreaction setting in. You There is the hero of courage, who possesses see, here and there, signs of a new romanticism. prowess and risks life and limb for a cause, Ironically, technological forces may be thus arousing admiration and awe. There driving some of the romantic rebirth. As Geoff is the hero of compassion, like Buddha or Colvin points out in his book “Humans Are Jesus, who puts others before him or herself. Underrated,” computers will soon be able to do Edmundson writes: “The saint seeks a life full many of the cognitive tasks taught in places like of meaningful compassion. The acquisition of law schools and ¿nance departments. goods, the piling up of wealth, only serves to Computers can already go through millions draw force from his proper pursuit. The saint of legal documents and sort them for relevance lives — or tries to live — beyond desire. The to an individual case, someday allowing one saint lives for hope.” lawyer to do the work of 500. Computers may There is the hero of serious thought. “Even soon be able to cruise through troves of data early on,” Edmundson says, “as they enter and offer superior ¿nancial advice. Computers the ¿rst phase of their lives as thinkers, they’ll are not only getting smarter at systems analysis, have one of the greatest satisfactions a human they are improving at rates no human can being can have: They won’t lie. They’ll follow match. Socrates, and they’ll look out at the world, Colvin argues that improving your cognitive and with whatever mix of irony and sweetness skills is no longer good enough. Simply and exasperation, they will describe it as it is developing more generic human capital will not to them. When others trim and sidestep, they help people prosper in the coming economy. will have the satisfaction of voicing honest You shouldn’t even ask, What jobs can I do that perceptions.” computers can’t do? That’s because they are I could imagine a time when young getting good at so many disparate things. You thinkers discard the strictures of the academic should instead ask, What are the activities that professionalism and try to revive the model we humans, driven by our deepest nature or by of the intellectual as secular sage. I could see the realities of daily life, will simply insist be other young people tiring of résumé-building performed by other humans? do-goodism and trying to live more radically for Those tasks are mostly relational. Being in the poor. The romantic tries as much as possible a position of authority or accountability. Being to ground his or her life in purer love that a caregiver. Being part of a team. Transactional transforms — making him or her more inspired, jobs are declining but relational jobs are creative and dedicated, and therefore better able expanding. to live as a modern instantiation of some ideal. Empathy becomes a more important I’m not sure we’re about to be overrun with workplace skill, the ability to sense what waves of Byronic romantics, but we have been another human being is feeling or thinking. living through an unromantic period and there’s Diabetes patients of doctors who scored high bound to be a correction. People eventually on empathy tests do better than patients with want their souls stirred, especially if the stuff low-empathy doctors. regarded as soft and squishy turns out in a The ability to function in a group also relational economy to be hard and practical. becomes more important — to know how to tell Ŷ stories that convey the important points, how to David Brooks became a New York Times mix people together. Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He Secure workers will combine technical has been a senior editor at The Weekly knowledge with social awareness — the sort of Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek thing you get from your genes, from growing and the Atlantic Monthly, and is currently a up in a certain sort of family and by widening commentator on “The Newshour with Jim your repertoire of emotions through reÀection, Lehrer.” Rex J. Morehouse Pendleton This liberal Democrat supports Walden I wish to take a break from Sheldon Cooper’s “Fun With Flags” for an unpaid political advertisement. I am a proud liberal Democrat who lives in a very red part of a very blue state. Anybody out there should be able to recognize my car — it’s the one with the “I’m From the Elizabeth Warren Wing of the Democratic Party” on it. I would like to take this time, however, to say a word on behalf of Rep. Greg Walden. I pay more attention to politics than the average bear and he impresses me the more I learn about him and his service to this country. While he is a conservative Republican and we freTuently disagree about speci¿c issues, as one of his constituents, I always support him. I have even told him jokingly that he may force me to ¿nd out what it’s like to vote for a Republican before I die. Patrick J. Delaney Hermiston 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.
