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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 5, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Friday, February 5, 2016 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Tip of the hat; kick in the pants A tip of the hat to Danny Bane, the new violence prevention coordinator for Umatilla County. We tip our hat not so much for what Bane has accomplished so far — it’s a newly created job and he’s just getting started — but for the depth at which he is looking at the issue of violence. Many view violence as an effect of crooked and cruel thinking — a single or series of acts that can be cured, or at least vindicated, with punishment. Bane and the Umatilla County Health Department are looking to the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES) done by the Centers for Disease Control, which points to links between childhood trauma and violent acts later in life. By addressing these roots and providing treatment before the trauma turns into abuse and other life- crippling crime, Bane is making a difference. He understands the issue intimately. In a story written by Kathy Aney in Thursday’s East Oregonian (“Cutting off violence at the root”), Bane talks about growing up in the shadow of tragedy, which led to problems in school, drug abuse and crime. For the last 16 years he has worked as a drug abuse counselor and started the Lost & Found program in Pendleton. His job is funded by St. Anthony Hospital, Umatilla County Public Health and Greater Oregon Behavioral Health Inc., who all deserve a tip of the hat for their forward-looking approach. A kick in the pants to the Umatilla City Council, the second public body in recent months to try to appoint a councilor in a secret and illegal fashion. We have to assume there was no ill intent, just a misunderstanding of Oregon law, but DVDJHQHUDOUXOHHOHFWHGRI¿FLDOVVKRXOG be wary of making decisions on a secret ballot. They’re elected so they can be held accountable to their decisions, no matter how minor. On Tuesday each councilor jotted down the name of who they thought should be appointed to an open seat on the council, ZKLFK¿YHFLWL]HQVKDGVKRZQDQLQWHUHVW in: Mark Ribich, Graig Gunsolley, Craig Simpson, Lyle Smith and Kristle Wyant. Mayor Dave Trott collected the ballots and announced that Ribich was the winner. Doesn’t sound like democracy, does it? Pilot Rock selected a councilor in a nearly identical fashion in November, and convened at the next meeting to take the vote in public. We hope to see Umatilla make the same correction at the earliest opportunity, although it would be even better if they followed the news and learned from nearby city governments facing many of the same issues they are. 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 Oregon graduation rate not worth crowing about yet The (Bend) Bulletin D on’t break into your happy dance just yet. While Oregon’s high school graduation rate did go up last year, it’s still certain to be near the bottom of the national pack. Moreover, if the current rate of increase is sustained, we won’t reach the laudable 100 percent graduation rate until around 2029, well past the 2025 JRDOVHWE\IRUPHU*RY-RKQ.LW]KDEHU Oregon, it seems, still hasn’t found the keys to helping all students get through the most basic education they’ll receive. The Oregon graduation rate was up by slightly less than 2 percent. Even at that, fewer than 80 percent of youngsters in this state can expect to complete high school within four years of starting it, well below the national average. Thus, in 2014, the last year for which complete numbers are available, 72 percent of Oregon high schoolers graduated on time; nationally the number was 82 percent. Meanwhile, in Central Oregon, the two smallest school districts, Culver and Sisters, continued to boast the strongest graduation rates, and traditional high schools in most communities also posted above average rates. It’s no doubt impossible to blame a single thing, or even a handful of single things, for Oregon’s inability to get kids through school on time. We know that up to a point, money plays a role, and that keeping students connected with teachers and with one another helps. And, though the evidence isn’t crystal clear, we suspect that more time in school for all students — more days, more hours — can help. Too, we know that kids who routinely miss school are less likely to graduate, and Oregon’s children miss lots of school. In fact, youngsters who are not in class at least 90 percent of the time are considered chronically absent. Oregon has an epidemic of chronic absenteeism. All that suggests that if Gov. Kate Brown’s as-yet-unnamed education innovator does one thing it should be to concentrate on absenteeism. Help Oregon schools keep kids coming day after day, and all the state’s goals should be easier to reach. Social media: Destroyer or creator? O ver the last few years we’ve Ghonim, because “we failed to build been treated to a number of consensus, and the political struggle “Facebook revolutions,” from OHGWRLQWHQVHSRODUL]DWLRQ´6RFLDO the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street PHGLDKHQRWHG³RQO\DPSOL¿HG´ to the squares of Istanbul, Kiev and WKHSRODUL]DWLRQ³E\IDFLOLWDWLQJWKH Hong Kong, all fueled by social media. spread of misinformation, rumors, But once the smoke cleared, most of echo chambers and hate speech. The these revolutions failed to build any environment was purely toxic. My sustainable new political order, in Thomas online world became a battleground part because as so many voices got Friedman ¿OOHGZLWKWUROOVOLHVKDWHVSHHFK´ DPSOL¿HGFRQVHQVXVEXLOGLQJEHFDPH Supporters of the army and the Comment impossible. Islamists used social media to smear Question: Does it turn out that each other, while the democratic social media is better at breaking things than center, which Ghonim and so many others at making things? RFFXSLHGZDVPDUJLQDOL]HG7KHLUUHYROXWLRQ Last month an important voice answered was stolen by the Muslim Brotherhood this question with a big “yes.” That voice was and, when it failed, by the army, which then Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian arrested many of the secular Google employee whose \RXWKVZKR¿UVWSRZHUHG anonymous Facebook page the revolution. The army has helped to launch the Tahrir its own Facebook page to Square revolution in early defend itself. 2011 that toppled President “It was a moment of Hosni Mubarak — but then defeat,” said Ghonim. “I failed to give birth to a true stayed silent for more than democratic alternative. two years, and I used the In December, Ghonim, WLPHWRUHÀHFWRQHYHU\WKLQJ who has since moved to that happened.” Silicon Valley, posted a Here is what he TED talk about what went concluded about social wrong. It is worth watching media today: “First, we and begins like this: “I once don’t know how to deal said, ‘If you want to liberate with rumors. Rumors that a society, all you need is FRQ¿UPSHRSOH¶VELDVHVDUH the Internet.’ I was wrong. now believed and spread I said those words back in among millions of people.” 2011, when a Facebook Second, “We tend to only page I anonymously created communicate with people helped spark the Egyptian that we agree with, and revolution. The Arab Spring thanks to social media, we revealed social media’s can mute, unfollow and greatest potential, but it block everybody else. Third, also exposed its greatest shortcomings. The online discussions quickly descend into angry same tool that united us to topple dictators mobs. ... It’s as if we forget that the people eventually tore us apart.” behind screens are actually real people and not ,QWKHHDUO\V$UDEVZHUHÀRFNLQJ just avatars. to the Web, Ghonim explained: “Thirsty for “And fourth, it became really hard to knowledge, for opportunities, for connecting change our opinions. Because of the speed with the rest of the people around the globe, and brevity of social media, we are forced to we escaped our frustrating political realities jump to conclusions and write sharp opinions and lived a virtual, alternative life.” in 140 characters about complex world affairs. And then in June 2010, he noted, the And once we do that, it lives forever on the “Internet changed my life forever. While Internet.” browsing Facebook, I saw a photo ... of a Fifth, and most crucial, he said, “today, tortured, dead body of a young Egyptian our social media experiences are designed guy. His name was Khaled Said. Khaled in a way that favors broadcasting over was a 29-year-old Alexandrian who was engagements, posts over discussions, shallow killed by police. I saw myself in his picture. comments over deep conversations. ... It’s as ... I anonymously created a Facebook page if we agreed that we are here to talk at each and called it ‘We Are All Khaled Said.’ In other instead of talking with each other.” just three days, the page had over 100,000 Ghonim has not given up. He and a few people, fellow Egyptians who shared the same friends recently started a website, Parlio.com, concern.” to host intelligent, civil conversations about Soon Ghonim and his friends used controversial and often heated issues, with the Facebook to crowdsource ideas, and “the page aim of narrowing gaps, not widening them. (I became the most followed page in the Arab participated in a debate on Parlio and found it world. ... Social media was crucial for this engaging and substantive.) FDPSDLJQ,WKHOSHGDGHFHQWUDOL]HGPRYHPHQW “Five years ago,” concluded Ghonim, DULVH,WPDGHSHRSOHUHDOL]HWKDWWKH\ZHUH “I said, ‘If you want to liberate society, all not alone. And it made it impossible for the you need is the Internet.’ Today I believe if regime to stop it.” Ghonim was eventually ZHZDQWWROLEHUDWHVRFLHW\ZH¿UVWQHHGWR tracked down in Cairo by Egyptian security liberate the Internet.” services, beaten and then held incommunicado Ŷ for 11 days. But three days after he was freed, Thomas Friedman won the 2002 Pulitzer the millions of protesters his Facebook posts Prize for commentary, his third Pulitzer KHOSHGWRJDOYDQL]HEURXJKWGRZQ0XEDUDN¶V for The New York Times. He became the regime. paper’s foreign-affairs Op-Ed columnist in Alas, the euphoria soon faded, said 1995. The euphoria soon faded. Social media had only ampliied the polarization by facilitating the spread of misinformation, rumors, echo chambers and hate speech. YOUR VIEWS Plute recall drive irresponsible waste Larry Anderson’s letter is irresponsible. Accusing Pendleton city councilor Al Plute of wrongfully defending himself in a lawsuit, which both sides resolved between themselves, is no reason for a recall. Have you ever been sued, Mr. Anderson? Are you dropping the allegation of Plute voting for the $5 monthly charge for water service (as did several other council members) or are you deferring that to someone on your “committee” to bring up again in a subsequent letter? Mr. Plute not only saved the old Temple Hotel from demolition, but fully restored the hotel, adding a number of living spaces to our downtown. He also has been an enthusiastic cheerleader for the future of Pendleton, including writing several features in the East Oregonian about funding of various departments within city government. It will be interesting to see the names of those signing the recall petition, if it is ever completed. I’d suggest you run for one of the seats coming open on the council, if you think you can do a better job! Bill Bridges Pendleton 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.
