Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, February 27, 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
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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
Go read a book
Read Across America week kicks off Monday, followed by the birthday
of Dr. Seuss.
That makes this weekend as good a time as any to remind parents and
grandparents, teachers and students about the importance of reading.
In some respects, reading habits have changed for this generation. Instead
of reading the comics on the back of a cereal box at the breakfast table,
children are more likely to be poking at their screen of choice, watching
videos or playing games or conversing with classmates.
But text messaging has made reading and writing ever more critical,
perhaps at the expense of inter-personal skills. Being able to express yourself
through words is more important than ever. Use bae or fam or lol incorrectly
and watch your bae or fam lol at u.
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increases brain connectivity and function. The number of books in a home is
strongly linked to academic achievement.
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ell before I was an advanced enough reader to enjoy a
good book on my own, my parents were reading out
loud to me. We started with simple picture books, but the
tradition of reading out loud lasted far beyond the age of curling
up on mom or dad’s lap for a bedtime story. I was introduced
to many of the classics in elementary or middle school while
listening to one of my parents read out loud, stopping to explain
complicated words or confusing plot points when needed.
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time while listening to my mom read them out loud. I was eight
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her read the latest Harry Potter installment in the car during a two or three day drive
on our family’s summer vacation became as much a childhood tradition for me as
decorating the Christmas tree. We planned a few road trips around the release of a
Harry Potter book, because there was no better way to pass the time on the road and
guarantee that my brothers and I would not kill each other in the back seat before the
trip was over. We even pulled over on the side of the road for 20 minutes so we could
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Colorado.
I read many books on my own over the years that had a great impact on me,
but I don’t think anything cemented my love of reading as much as those trips to
Hogwarts in the family minivan.
— Jade McDowell, Hermiston reporter
I
f the point of learning how to read is to be able to absorb and
contextualize information, then the highest pinnacle of literacy
is baseball cards. I believed that when I was 10 years old and
couldn’t argue against it today.
The picture books, chapter books and young adult novels were
a regular part of my formative years, but none held my attention
the way a pack, or deck, or box of baseball cards could. From the
basic biographical information to complex statistical analysis,
each card carried all the argument you’d need for which player
or team was better, along with tiny pieces of the history of the
greatest game on earth.
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Baseball Prospectus guide — but none of those are as pure as a pack of glossy Upper
Deck cards.
— Daniel Wattenburger, managing editor
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Dr. Seuss. My mom and I would read it daily for months
on end. I’m still convinced that elephant-bird is out there
somewhere. ‘I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An
elephant’s faithful, one hundred per cent.’
— George Plaven, natural resources reporter
A
R
eading was a huge part of my life
growing up. My parents read to
me from the day I was born, and
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Published in 1950, the picture book follows a boy and
a horse in rural Maine as the years pass and technology
changes around them. In kindergarten, I read the book so
many times my teacher gave it to me at the end of the year.
The book had been well used and was going to be retired, but because of my love for
it, I took it home and still have it on one of my shelves — binding tape and all.
These days, my children read Fancy Nancy and Pete the Cat and Little Green
Peas, but there is always time for a family favorite like “One Horse Farm.”
— Jennifer Colton, Hermiston education reporter
W
hen I moved past picture books, I read newspaper
sports pages, as well as outdoor and adventure tales like
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about a young American Indian girl left alone on an island off the
California coast. I must have spent hours and hours, day after day,
in the world of that novel — remapping the island onto notebook
pages, inventing new tools to catch clams and, somehow, picking
and choosing the friends who would be join me in the next canoe.
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The reader grows, experiences, empathizes, imagines and wants to read again.
— Tim Trainor, opinion page editor
O
ne of the best things you can do for your
children (or nieces and nephews, or random
neighbor kids) is read to and with them from
infancy. One of my very favorite memories from my
son’s childhood is reading with him every night before
bed. Even when he got into trouble and had other
things taken away as punishment, we left his books.
My family went without TV for many years when
I was growing up, so we’re all voracious readers,
and the library is always like a second home. One of our family favorites is “Where
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when my three siblings and I were kids, and it was one of my son’s and nephews’
favorite books when they were young. I have a copy in a trunk with other favorites
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grandchildren (maybe) someday.
There are millions of books that I could recommend, but every kid is different.
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becomes a lifelong love affair.
— Renée Struthers, community records editor
OTHER VIEWS
The secret side of Trump
S
ometimes in a particularly awful
taxes are the ones who worked for the
presidential race you’re forced to
money.
take the most bleak and cynical
Trump said the poor people could
view of the candidates running for
be taken care of “through maybe
the most powerful job in the world.
concepts of Medicare. ... That’s called
And then you discover you’re
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overestimating.
Fast forward three days. Trump is
Today we will consider the upside
back at CNN talking with Jake Tapper,
of Donald Trump.
denying that he wants any mandate.
Gail
OK, it was never huge. Possibly not
Pop quiz. After Donald Trump said
Collins he did
even nugget-size. But people, wasn’t
not want a health care mandate
Comment
there a moment when you thought
after all, he added that he also did not
that he could think outside the normal
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conservative box? True, his riff against the
A) Any more hard questions.
power of big political donors was just another
B) People dying in the streets.
way to brag about being rich. And he was
You’re right! The answer is B, and in case
awful on ... so very many things.
anyone missed his big-heartedness, Trump
But once in a while, as
added that people would not
Trump ranted about the
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Republican insiders, some
either.
actual outsider remarks did
One of the most
pop up. Don’t mess with
universally popular
Social Security. Planned
parts of Obamacare is
Parenthood is a good thing.
the requirement that
And everybody ought to
insurance companies can’t
have health care.
discriminate against people
Earlier in the campaign,
who have pre-existing
he seemed to support a
conditions like diabetes or
single-payer health care
a prior bout with cancer.
plan, sort of like Bernie
The problem is how to keep
Sanders. Wow.
everybody from waiting
“I am going to take care
until they get sick to insure
of everybody. I don’t care
themselves. You can just
if it costs me votes or not.
create a kind of Medicare
Everybody is going to be
for all. Or you can require
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people to buy insurance, and
Pelley on CBS.
help the low-income pay the
Now it was pretty clear
cost.
Trump had not actually thought things through.
“I don’t like the term mandate, personally,
This happens so very frequently, you have to
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wonder what he talks about on all those plane
explained.
rides. Schedules? Golf scores? Dinner plans?
So what the heck does he want? Well, I
This month, Trump still seemed to be
checked with his campaign. He wants people
moving in the same general health care
to be able to establish health savings accounts.
direction. In a CNN town hall, Anderson
He is also looking into the possibility of letting
Cooper mentioned the Obamacare mandate
the states run Medicaid with federal block
that everybody must have insurance. The
grants, and making health insurance premiums
Republicans hate this idea. They believe all
tax-deductible.
Americans have a God-given right to refuse to
People will not die in the streets because
get health coverage and throw themselves on
there are, you know, emergency rooms.
the mercies of extremely expensive hospital
We will skip over the part where Trump is
emergency rooms if they get ill.
this far down the road and still working on a
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basic plan. The more important point is that
“OK, so here’s where I’m a little bit different.
he’s coming down to a health care policy that
I don’t want people dying on the streets and I
is the same as Marco Rubio’s and Ted Cruz’s.
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“If most Republicans didn’t agree on most
This is how far we have fallen. The leading of the features of reform then you’d have a
candidate for the Republican presidential
story. The fact that they agree should not be
nomination keeps bragging that he does not
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want people dying in the streets.
campaign’s senior policy adviser, in a phone
“Now some people would say, ‘That’s not a interview.
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The bottom line is that once you really
Wow, Trump clearly has a very low
pin him down, Donald Trump is a mail-order
opinion of Republicans. As well as insurance
conservative Republican, except more
companies. Do you see why a desperate
trash-talking about Muslims and Mexicans.
citizen might think he’s the lesser of three
Surrender hope and be careful not to die in the
front-running evils? Remember, right now the
streets.
party’s sensible establishment candidate is a
Ŷ
person who does not want to allow abortions
Gail Collins joined The New York Times in
for rape victims and who basically believes
1995 as a member of the editorial board and
that the only people who should have to pay
later as an Op-Ed columnist.
The leading
candidate for
the Republican
presidential
nomination
keeps bragging
that he does not
want people
dying in the
streets.
YOUR VIEWS
Pendleton, Hermiston rivalry
doesn’t need a name
I recall back in the 1990s when the Disney
Corporation bought the California Angels.
A few years prior to the acquisition they had
brought out a movie called “Angels In the
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angel wings.
Some genius in marketing thought it would
be a great idea if the fans in Anaheim would
adopt this as a tradition, so they planted
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a predetermined moment. The fans, to their
credit, weren’t having it. The shills were
pelted with whatever overpriced concessions
that people had on hand, and thus the
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completely stupid name invented for murky
reasons by the East Oregonian. (Never
mind that Hermiston is not on I-84.) I cringe
whenever I read it.
Most great rivalries don’t need a name.
Yankees/Redsox is simply Yankees/Redsox.
Enough said. Manchester United/Liverpool —
same deal. When the Packers play the Bears or
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manufactured name is necessary. Sports
fans know the history, emotion and rivalry
inherent.
I have never heard a sports fan in either
Pendleton or Hermiston call it “The War on
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and rejected. Let it die quietly with or without
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John Scanlan
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
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The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send
letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
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.