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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 2, 2016)
VIEWPOINTS Saturday, April 2, 2016 Quick takes Wallowa wolves killed Who would of thought that wolves were going to act like wolves? — Rob Schaefer Wolves are cool animals but to coexist in this landscape there must be management. — Mark Woolbright You know the state could make a lot of money by selling tags to hunters and make a little money while resolving the problem. — Diego Mendoza Landlords say Pendleton needs jobs, not housing Businesses won’t come to Oregon because of the minimum wage and the tax structure. Watch how many start leaving the state just like in California. — Maryl Featherstone Affordable housing and workforce development, and more entry level jobs is what is needed — Mandie Bates Of course the owner of the multiple apartment complexes doesn’t want more housing .... basic economics. — Kevin Dunham Pendleton goat quintuplets Wow, poor little lady needs some rest now. — Linda Case Meier Only in Pendleton does the birth of goats make headlines! — John W. Cohn One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is that much can be summed up in just a few words. Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours @Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian. com, and keep them to 140 characters. East Oregonian Page 5A Unemployment hits record low in Eastern Oregon by CHRISTOPHER RICH Oregon Employment Department T he unemployment rate is likely the most talked about statistic when it comes to labor market information and economic jargon. It’s quoted and tossed DURXQGE\JRYHUQPHQWRI¿FLDOV reporters and especially economists. And while you may not know your current country, state, or county rate, chances are good that if you’re reading this you have an interest in whether it’s up or down. In general, people recognize that a high unemployment rate is bad, while a low unemployment rate is good. A high rate indicates a struggling economy because a high percentage of people who are willing and able to work are actually without a job. A high rate implies that people seeking work have a WRXJKWLPH¿QGLQJHPSOR\PHQW A low rate indicates that the economy is well off because fewer people are out of work. A low rate implies that people seeking a job have an easier WLPH¿QGLQJHPSOR\PHQW The unemployment rate can’t tell us which jobs are available, what wages are, or how many jobs are full or part time. But it can help us understand the OLNHOLKRRGRI¿QGLQJDMREDQG it offers insight into the state of our economy. One of the most important things to remember about the unemployment rate is that high and low are relative to the region and its history. In January and February 2016, the non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Eastern Oregon was at a record low 7 percent. It’s the lowest rate for the region since at least ZKHQWKHRI¿FLDO%XUHDX of Labor Statistics series started. Looking back over the previous 26 years, the average January rate was 10.5 percent and the average February rate was 10.4 percent. The high January rate (13.5 percent) and February rate (13 percent) both came in 2009 at the height of the recession. And the previous record- setting January and February lows of 8 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively, were in 2007 at the height of economic expansion. The 2016 marks improve on 2015 by 1.5 and 1.3 percentage points, respectively. If you read my latest labor trends article “Growth, decline, and the shift effect in Eastern Oregon industry employment,” then you might wonder if the region’s record rate was caused by dramatic growth in Morrow or the size of Umatilla. In short, no! Grant, Harney, Malheur, Morrow and Umatilla each had a February unemployment rate that was a record low for the county. Baker and Union both had their second lowest February rate since 1990. Wallowa’s rate came in as worst RIWKHJURXS¿IWKORZHVWIRUWKH county over the period. As for the January rate, results were similar. Ŷ Christopher Rich is a regional economist for the Oregon Employment Department. He studies Baker, Grant, Harney, Malheur, Union and Wallowa counties. Road rage on the superhighway T Donald Trump and abortion J women, sympathy shifts. ust when you Anti-abortion activists thought Donald have generally taken a Trump couldn’t savvy approach over the say anything more years by concentrating on shocking, he suggested extreme situations — such that women who get as late-term so-called abortions should be partial-birth abortions — punished. On MSNBC, he Nichilas and on legislating obstacles said abortion must be Kristif that in practice reduce access: Of the 1,074 state banned and then “there Comment restrictions on abortion put has to be some form of in place after Roe v. Wade punishment” for women who manage to get abortions. in 1973, more than one-quarter He declined to say what the were enacted since 2010, according to the Guttmacher punishment should be, dodging Institute. a question about whether it Many Americans are should be “10 years” in prison ambivalent on abortion. But or something milder. But his comment raised the possibility of Trump has now turned the attention back from the fetus to following the lead of countries the woman. And remember that like El Salvador, where women 3 in 10 American women get an can be dragged off from a abortion at some point in their hospital to prison for getting an lives. abortion. Second, the data suggests Indeed, rights groups say that women were wrongly imprisoned that one of the most effective ways to reduce the number of in El Salvador simply for having abortions would be to increase miscarriages. the availability of publicly Trump doesn’t seem to funded family planning. In 2013, have thought deeply about the publicly funded family planning issue — what a surprise! — and prevented 2 million unintended he departed from the mainstream pregnancies, including almost anti-abortion position of targeting not women but abortion 700,000 abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. providers. As one person said on Yet Republicans try to defund Twitter: “He’s a walking cartoon parody of every leftist accusation Title X, the traditional family against Republicans.” planning program in the United After the TV interview was 6WDWHV$IWHULQÀDWLRQLWVIXQGLQJ over and the backlash had begun, level is less than one-third what it Trump tried to back off his was in 1980. comment, saying in a statement, In truth, Trump’s stance — “The doctor or any other person whatever it is — would matter performing this illegal act upon only if a more conservative a woman would be held legally Supreme Court revisited responsible, not the woman.” Roe v. Wade and some states Who knows where that leaves were allowed to ban abortion us! altogether. One lesson is that Trump is an Moreover, medical abortion, uninformed opportunist, but the achieved by taking two kinds episode does highlight two basic of pills, is gaining ground problems for the anti-abortion on surgical abortion and is movement. PXFKPRUHGLI¿FXOWWRVWRS First, as long as the focus is In particular, one of the pills, on the fetus or on the claim of misoprostol, is very cheap, has “protecting women,” many in other uses and is at least 80 the public are sympathetic to the percent effective on its own anti-abortion view. The moment in inducing an abortion early the focus shifts to criminalizing in pregnancy. The upshot is that early abortions will be LQFUHDVLQJO\GLI¿FXOWWRSUHYHQW Trump’s comments about punishing women are worth SRQGHULQJEHFDXVHWKH\UHÀHFW the logical conclusion of equating a fetus with any other human being. This penalizing approach has been tried before and failed. A dozen years ago, I went to Portugal to cover such an effort. The police staked out women’s health clinics, looking to arrest women who appeared likely to have just had abortions based on being pale or seeming upset. Some 48 women and a 16-year-old girl were prosecuted, along with accomplices such as husbands, boyfriends, parents and even a taxi driver who drove a woman to a clinic. The women were humiliated at trial, their most intimate gynecological history revealed to the public. And the public was revolted. The women were all acquitted, and the public turned decisively in favor of abortion rights, by a majority of 79 to 14 percent. “Forbidding abortion doesn’t save anyone or anything,” Sonia Fertuzinhos, a member of the Portuguese Parliament, told me at the time. “It just gets women arrested and humiliated in the public arena.” The episode left many Portuguese both anti-abortion and pro-choice. They were distressed by abortion, especially late in pregnancies, but they were aghast at the idea of prosecuting young women for making wrenching personal choices. I think many Americans feel the same way. So maybe Trump, in his ÀLSÀRSSLQJZDYHULQJDERXW women’s issues, can at least remind us of a larger truth. Whatever one thinks of abortion, criminalizing it would be worse. Ŷ Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in Yamhill. A columnist for The New York Times since 2001, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 and 2006. he term “information outside sources — superhighway” websites that cater to was coined in the clicks and post news that late 1970s by then-Sen. is highly biased at best, Al Gore to describe the completely fabricated at totality of electronic worst. But the links and communications. Even memes and clickbait cause Gore, technologically pileups, and we suddenly years ahead of his fellow realize we took the wrong Daniel statesman during his time Watten burger exit off the superhighway. LQRI¿FHOLNHO\GLGQ¶W The result is an Comment imagine how spot on the environment that no metaphor would be in rational person would 2016. want any part in, so those people The Internet has always been with something thoughtful to say a tool for connecting people to stay out of it and the knuckleheads information, but only recently control the conversation. It’s asking has it become a massively shared a lot to expect someone to write a experience — much like a crowded serious thought about a serious topic freeway. When things are running for an Internet audience, knowing smoothly in either case, it’s a they’ll be shouted down by a small beautiful experience. Drivers, each gang of anonymous people who with their own destination in mind, disagree with them but won’t bother are also mindful and courteous articulating why, or will base their of everyone else on the road. attack on a poor grasp of reality. Users, looking for information or On the East Oregonian Facebook entertainment or simply a little page, which has nearly 20,000 interaction, try to be helpful and followers, we have a short list of enhance the experience for others. users we have banned for aggressive But it doesn’t take widespread and abusive behavior. The same on stupidity to ruin either experience, our website, which gets 150,000 or just a few knuckleheads who don’t more unique visitors a month. We care that there are people in the don’t ban people for disagreeing other vehicles, or on the other end of with an opinion, questioning a story the Internet connection. or generally being bothersome. We And it’s a shame, because the have no interest in playing online interstate and the Internet are so WUDI¿FFRS valuable in our daily lives. And we have some great Websites that allow commenting, commenters who treat the online from news sites like ours to forum the same as a letter to editor Facebook to Reddit, often become — take a minute, make a point and victims of the reckless users, cutting be courteous. It’s not about winning RWKHUVRIIZLWKDPLGGOH¿QJHURXW an argument, it’s about increasing the window and a heavy hand on the your knowledge of a topic, sharing horn. They inevitably collide with your insight and understanding another driver, and as they shout another point of view. back and forth in the middle of the We don’t have the answer yet as road the rubberneckers can’t help to how to get unclog the information but slow down to see what’s going superhighway. Social media is still on. in its infancy and the rules of the It’s free speech and human nature URDGDUHQ¶WZHOOGH¿QHG%XWDVLW WRFUDYHWKDWNLQGRIFRQÀLFWDQG grows, hopefully the novelty of attention, but it ultimately ruins doing cookies in the fast lane will what should be a good thing for the wear off and we’ll all be able to rest of us. Because instead of a place enjoy the ride. that allows us all to get to where we Ŷ want to go, we’re stuck in gridlock. Daniel Wattenburger is managing editor of the East Oregonian. That gridlock is then fed by
