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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, January 16, 2016 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 STEVE FORRESTER KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Chairman of the Board Astoria President Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer CORY BOLLINGER JEFF ROGERS Aberdeen, S.D. Director Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW Forest plan revision must be a public process It’s hard to know when to care explanation of their problems with about the Blue Mountains Forest each of the alternatives, and their Plan. recommendations for how they The gargantuan document, which could be improved. But Davidson covers more than 5 million acres said there had been no response. He spread across three national forests said it is frustrating to put so much and two states, has moved forward time and energy and money into an at a glacial pace. Little progress has informed, considered rebuttal and be been made in a decade and currently met with silence. all alternatives have been pulled off The Forest Service asks for more the table. No one knows what’s even patience. They say they are scouring under consideration over those thousands right now. of comments, and But perhaps, that takes time. The Blue just for that reason, “It’s just a big Mountains this is an important effort. It’s a lot to moment. sure we’re Forest Plan will make Public comment treating everyone never make periods have ended equitably, and (we think) and is getting everyone happy, nobody the U.S. Forest shortchanged,” even if we work Sabrina Stadler, Service and Blue Mountains Forest leader for the on it for another team Plan Revision team forest plan revision, has tucked itself told the East decade. away to create a list Oregonian earlier of new alternatives this week. for forest management, which it will We have a ton of respect for present at a later date. Once that is the Forest Service, understand done, the process will rev up again the immense complexity of their in a higher gear. jobs, the pressure that is pushing But before they punch that on them from every direction, gas pedal, we’d like to advise the and the overwhelming scale of USFS to keep the process clear and the plan. And we understand they transparent, to take the thousands face an impossible task, balancing of submitted public comments into the desires of the local users and consideration, and to allow enough HFRQRPLHVWKHGLUHFWLYHVÀRZLQJ ÀH[LELOLW\LQWKHSODQWRLQFRUSRUDWH from Washington, D.C., and the future economic and environmental needs of the birds and the bees that changes. call the forest home. We editorialized a year ago that But perhaps the public would going back to square one was a welcome their comments on the bad decision, even though public matter, spoken plainly in plenty comments were overwhelmingly of public meetings. Because these against each of the alternatives the comment periods have been a Forest Service had put forward. RQHZD\FRQYHUVDWLRQXVWDONLQJ :H¶UHQRWVXUHZKDWEHQH¿WKDV DQGJRYHUQPHQWRI¿FLDOVPXPDQG come from another year of listening VWUDLJKWIDFHGWDNLQJQRWHV7KDW¶V sessions — some of which were not quite a conversation. ¿OOHGZLWKWKUHDWVDQGYLWULROWKDW The Blue Mountains Forest Plan just ratcheted up the anger and will never make everyone happy, frustration — but perhaps some even if we work on it for another good will be found. decade. Union County Commissioner But openness, transparency, Mark Davidson told the East respect and honest disagreement Oregonian editorial board earlier will at least keep this debate a civil this week that a lawyer hired by one. As we see right now, that’s not counties affected by the plan had always the case in Eastern Oregon the opportunity to release a detailed land management disputes. 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 When beauty strikes A cross the street from my important thing,” Georgia O’Keeffe apartment building in wrote. Mathematicians talk about Washington there’s a gigantic their solutions in aesthetic terms, as supermarket and a CVS. Above the beautiful or elegant. supermarket there had been a large Others describe eros as a more HPSW\VSDFHZLWKÀRRUWRFHLOLQJ spiritual or religious longing. They windows. The space was recently note that beauty is numinous and taken by a ballet school, so now when ÀHHWLQJDSDVVLQJH[SHULHQFHWKDW I step outside in the evenings I see enlarges the soul and gives us a David dozens of dancers framed against the Brooks glimpse of the sacred. As the painter windows, doing their exercises — Paul Klee put it, “Color links us with Comment gracefully and often in unison. cosmic regions.” It can be arrestingly beautiful. The These days we all like beautiful unexpected beauty exposes the limitations things. Everybody approves of art. But the of the normal, banal streetscape I take for culture does not attach as much emotional, granted every day. But it also reminds me of a intellectual or spiritual weight to beauty. We worldview, which was more common in eras live, as Leon Wieseltier wrote in an essay for more romantic than our own. 7KH7LPHV%RRN5HYLHZLQDSRVWKXPDQLVW This is the view that beauty is a big, moment. That which can be measured with transformational thing, the data is valorized. Economists proper goal of art and maybe are experts on happiness. The civilization itself. This world is understood primarily humanistic worldview holds as the product of impersonal that beauty conquers the forces; the nonmaterial deadening aspects of routine; dimensions of life explained it educates the emotions and by the material ones. connects us to the eternal. Over the past century, By arousing the senses, artists have had suspicious beauty arouses thought and varied attitudes toward and spirit. A person who beauty. Some regard all has appreciated physical WKDWDHVWKHWLFVFDQVDYH JUDFHPD\KDYHD¿QHU \RXUVRXOPXPERMXPERDV sense of how to move with sentimental claptrap. They graciousness through the want something grittier and tribulations of life. A person more confrontational. In the who has appreciated the academy, theory washed Pietà has a greater capacity like an avalanche over the IRUHPSDWK\DPRUHUH¿QHG celebration of sheer beauty sense of the different forms of sadness and a — at least for a time. wider awareness of the repertoire of emotions. For some reason many artists prefer to John O’Donohue, a modern proponent of descend to the level of us pundits. Abandoning this humanistic viewpoint, writes in his book their natural turf, the depths of emotion, “Beauty: The Invisible Embrace”: “Some of symbol, myth and the inner life, they decided our most wonderful memories are beautiful WKDWUHOHYDQFHPHDQWQDNHGSDUWLVDQVWDQFH places where we felt immediately at home. taking in the outer world (often in ignorance of the complexity of the evidence). Meanwhile, We feel most alive in the presence of the how many times have you heard advocates beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul. lobby for arts funding on the grounds that it’s ... Without beauty the search for truth, the good for economic development? desire for goodness and the love of order and In fact, artists have their biggest social unity would be sterile exploits. Beauty brings impact when they achieve it obliquely. If warmth, elegance and grandeur.” true racial reconciliation is achieved in this The art critic Frederick Turner wrote that country, it will be through the kind of deep beauty “is the highest integrative level of spiritual and emotional understanding that art understanding and the most comprehensive can foster. You change the world by changing capacity for effective action. It enables us peoples’ hearts and imaginations. to go with, rather than against, the deepest 7KHVKLIWWRSRVWKXPDQLVPKDVOHIWWKH tendency or theme of the universe.” ZRUOGEHDXW\SRRUDQGPHDQLQJGHSULYHG By this philosophy, beauty incites spiritual It’s not so much that we need more artists longing. and bigger audiences, although that would Today the word eros refers to sex, but to the Greeks it meant the fervent desire to reach be nice. It’s that we accidentally abandoned excellence and deepen the voyage of life. This a worldview that showed how art can be used to cultivate the fullest inner life. We left eros is a powerful longing. Whenever you see people doing art, whether they are amateurs at behind an ethos that reminded people of the links between the beautiful, the true and the a swing dance class or a professional painter, you invariably see them trying to get better. “I good — the way pleasure and love can lead to nobility. am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all Ŷ my heart,” Vincent van Gogh wrote. David Brooks became a New York Times 6RPHSHRSOHFDOOHURVWKH¿HUFHORQJLQJIRU Op-Ed columnist in 2003. truth. “Making your unknown known is the Everybody approves of art. But the culture does not attach as much emotional, intellectual or spiritual weight to beauty. YOUR VIEWS Powerball prize barely a dent in U.S. national debt Is it just me, or has anyone contemplated the odds of winning WKH3RZHUEDOOORWWHU\"7KH¿JXUHLV 292,000,000 to 1. Almost astronomical, until you compare the numbers to our current national debt, which is approaching $19 trillion. This amount is unfathomable for my pea brain to FRPSUHKHQG3HUKDSV,¶OO¿QGP\ “Einstein hat” and get back with you. I just found an example: A trillion $1 ELOOVZRXOG¿OOIRUW\IRRWVKLSSLQJ containers, stretching 1.27 miles. Wow! Thanks for your patience. Rod Triplett Hermiston Sentencing reform would save Oregon billions I am writing in response to what Barbara Dickerson wrote about Measure 11 reform. We shouldn’t just focus on Measure 11, but reform from top to bottom for everybody serving GD\IRUGD\VHQWHQFHV If we just allow all inmates with a release date the chance to earn up to 20 percent off their sentence, Oregon could invest the $137 million into education for our children and our police force to have a stronger presence to deter future crime and invest in programs to help those in need of change. With just the numbers I see in the paper here, Oregon could redirect, over DWHQ\HDUVSDQRYHUELOOLRQ:KDW we see behind bars is all the problems in Oregon where budget cuts need to take place and programs need funding. If Oregon is serious about our youth and helping those in need, look at the Department of Corrections. If an inmate has a release date already, and giving him or her the chance to earn 20 percent off their sentence doesn’t hurt anybody and allows the inmate to prove they deserve the time off, why not? I am like other Oregon inmates, I have a family that needs me and would like me home doing my duty as a man, as a father. Yet I made a bad choice and KHUH,DPVHUYLQJDGD\IRUGD\VHQWHQFH — costing Oregon taxpayers instead of being a taxpayer. As a whole our children need education, the best we can provide, and people need to feel protected. Time for reform. Jeremy Leighton Two Rivers Correctional Institution, Umatilla 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. 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. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
