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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 11, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, May 11, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW OTHER VIEWS Putting grit in its place W Opioid epidemic needs action As opioid abuse continues to grow, politicians from both sides of the aisle are trying to get their head around the issue and igure out how best to ight it. Credit U.S. Rep. Greg Walden for calling together a roundtable discussion about the problem during his recent visit in Hermiston. Opioid addiction — and the sometimes fatal consequences of it — is no longer hidden from mainstream view. The problem is real and solutions are needed. First, a few quick data points: Heroin is an opioid, but so too are legally prescribed formulations such as morphine, codeine, demerol, hydrocodone and oxycodone, which have medical beneits. All are chemically similar and highly addictive. According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, about 2.1 million Americans are addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and another 467,000 are addicted to heroin. Those numbers keep growing, and unintentional deaths from opioids have quadrupled in the last decade. Nearly half of young heroin users irst used and then abused prescription opioids. There are a number of bills currently being debated in the House of Representatives and the Senate aimed at reversing the rising rates of opioid addiction and overdose deaths. One that is long overdue and should have signiicant impact if enacted is the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016, which passed the Senate in March. There’s a similar bill before the House. It directs a task force to develop best practices for pain management and a strategy for getting this information to providers and the public. Several other bills aim to reduce over-prescribing opioids. In speaking with the editorial board, Walden noted one that would allow pharmacists to partially ill an opioid prescription, thus reducing the number of unused pills in bathroom cabinets and the number of patients who take more pills than necessary and become addicted. Another bill would direct the Food and Drug Administration to recommend educational programs for providers who prescribe opioids. Another would provide funding to states to improve monitoring of prescription drug abuse. There are also two bills aimed at improving access to treatment for people addicted to opioids. There are two more aimed at helping pregnant women addicted to opioids as well as their newborns who may suffer from neonatal abstinence syndrome. And another bill seeks to educate teen-aged athletes about the dangers of prescription opioids. And three more focus on making naloxone — which reverses the effects of opioids in overdose cases — more available. Education, research and access to care has to be at the forefront of government’s response to the opioid epidemic right now. Naloxone should have a presence in all user communities. And prescribers should take opioid abuse seriously and err on the side of caution. Relieving short-term pain may not be the best decision for a patient’s long-term health. Insurance companies must understand that too, and change their policies and plans to cover alternative treatments that don’t rely so heavily on prescription drugs. This menace must be faced head- on, and no longer be relegated to the shadows. 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. different set of questions and e all know why it exists, but approaches. How do we help students the grade-point average is decide what they want? How do we one of the more destructive improve the quality and ardor of their elements in American education. longing? Success is about being passionately The GPA mentality is based on good at one or two things, but students the supposition that we are thinking who want to get close to that 4.0 creatures. Young minds have to be have to be prudentially balanced taught self-discipline so they can about every subject. In life we want David knowledge. That’s partly true, independent thinking and risk-taking, Brooks acquire but as James K.A. Smith notes in his but the GPA system encourages Comment students to be deferential and risk own book “You Are What You Love,” averse, giving their teachers what they human beings are primarily deined by want. what we desire, not what we know. Our wants Creative people are good at asking new are at the core of our identity, the wellspring questions, but the GPA rewards those who can whence our actions low. answer other people’s questions. The modern At the highest level, our lives are directed economy rewards those who can think in ways toward some telos, or vision of the good computers can’t, but the life. Whether we are GPA rewards people who aware of it or not, we’re can grind away at mental all oriented around some tasks they ind boring. set of goals. As David People are happiest when Foster Wallace put it in his motivated intrinsically, but Kenyon commencement the GPA is the mother of all address, “In the day-to-day extrinsic motivations. trenches of adult life, there The GPA ethos takes is actually no such thing as spirited children and pushes atheism. There is no such them to be hard-working thing as not worshipping. but complaisant. The GPA Everybody worships.” Some mentality means tremendous worship money, or power or emphasis has now been popularity or nursing or art, placed on grit, the ability to trudge through but everybody’s life is organized around some long stretches of dificulty. Inluenced by longing. The heart is both a driving engine and this culture, schools across America are busy a compass. teaching their students to be gritty and to have I don’t know about you, but I’m really “character” — by which they mean skills like bad at being self-disciplined about things I self-discipline and resilience that contribute to don’t care about. For me, and I suspect for career success. many, hard work and resilience can only Angela Duckworth of the University of happen when there is a strong desire. Grit is Pennsylvania is the researcher most associated thus downstream from longing. People need with the study and popularization of grit. And a powerful why if they are going to be able to yet what I like about her new book, “Grit,” endure any how. is the way she is pulling us away from the Duckworth herself has a very clear telos. narrow, joyless intonations of that word, and As she deines it, “Use psychological science pointing us beyond the way many schools are to help kids thrive.” Throughout her book, you now teaching it. can feel her passion for her ield and see how Sure, she starts the book by describing gritty she has been in pursuing her end. grit as persevering through unpleasantness. Suppose you were designing a school to She describes Beast Barracks, the physical help students ind their own clear end — as ordeal that irst-year West Point cadets have to clear as that one. endure. Say you were designing a school to elevate She writes about high school students and intensify longings. Wouldn’t you want to who grind away at homework for hours and provide examples of people who have intense athletes capable of practicing in the most longings? Wouldn’t you want to encourage arduous way possible. students to be obsessive about worthy things? And yet Duckworth notes that moral Wouldn’t you discuss which loves are higher purpose also contributes to grit. People who than others and practices that habituate them are motivated more by altruism than personal toward those desires? Wouldn’t you be all pleasure score higher on grit scales. She also about providing students with new subjects to notes that having a hopeful temperament love? contributes to perseverance. In such a school you might even Most important, she notes that the quality de-emphasize the GPA mentality, which puts of our longing matters. Gritty people are a tether on passionate interests and substitutes resilient and hardworking, sure. But they also, other people’s longings for the student’s own. she writes, know in a very, very deep way ■ what it is they want. David Brooks became a New York Times This is a crucial leap. It leads to a very Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. The GPA ethos takes spirited children and pushes them to be hard-working but complaisant. OTHER VIEWS Pendleton must be run with more professionalism ow about calling Pendleton city government a timeout on the on a more professional, Pendleton ire station businesslike basis. Too discussion and going back often, city oficials have to basics — basics in local made decisions in shoot- government and community from-the-hip style. Drafting development? a gasoline tax proposal and First, Pendleton’s ire extending Barnhart Road chief should not be going were examples. Seemed Mike around town trying to ind Forrester to me those community a new site for the main ire discussions were disjointed Comment station. In 40-plus years of and spasmodic. I could not covering local government tell if city council members for newspapers in Oregon, I think were getting the help or analysis the best way is for the ire chief to from city staff that they needed to recommend to the city manager make informed decisions. any major changes, such as a new When such community dialogue ire station, that the chief feels are drags on, pressure grows to take needed. action of some kind. In that sort If the city manager agrees with of atmosphere, decisions can the chief, the manager then makes more easily be lawed. Potholes recommendations to members of really need attention, and utility the city council. If the city council lines really need to be expanded agrees with the city manager’s for more business, but follow advice, then come things such as businesslike procedures to address a task force to identify available such problems. Department options, advise on inancing managers report to and support the capital projects, advise on siting city manager, and the city manager of projects, advise on when to put reports to and supports the city bond measure proposals on the council. That way of doing the ballot. Seeking voter approval is of public’s business is more apt to course the ultimate goal in all this. result in a successful outcome. With upbeat new people coming To go from a ire station idea into city council and mayor all the way to completion of a new positions, this is a good time to put facility takes many steps, ending H in voter approval of a bond issue. replacement building. Are there Pendleton city government. I think Voters are inclined to approve such other things the report fails to a good irst step in that is to adopt measures only if they feel their address? The number one question businesslike procedures for dealing public oficials are on a proposed new with things such as adequate ire protection facilities. Clarify the role honest and informed. city facility: Is it of department managers at City If they think city The would help really needed? Hall and the role of the city council. hall is disorganized, If city council themselves if members decide to Schedule public hearings. Get news ignorant, lazy releases out to old media and new. or less than a new they reached recommend Work for openness. forthcoming, then irehouse at another My hometown here has a they understandably site, they could out to those practice on which I have mixed tend to vote no. It’s a schedule public who may not hearings so residents feelings: the group of 8 to 12 matter of trust. respected wise heads designated So what now for can weigh in. be in “the to tackle a task or solve a problem Pendleton’s main Finally, a campaign ire station? The city committee would be with limited input from outside. establishment.” Many such groups have been has a consultant’s needed to promote successful. But I feel they would recommendations the ballot measure. help themselves if they reached out advising that the station at Blue Mountain Community Northwest 10th and Court be College’s last bond issue drive did a more to those bright, innovative replaced. It has been a while since good job of informing voters on that Pendletonians who may not be in “the establishment.” the report was completed, so it measure. ■ would make sense for city staff One more point: City Mike Forrester, of Pendleton, and city council to read or re-read oficials and others in town is board chairman of EO Media the report to see if it answers all have been calling for improved Group. questions about the ire station. communications regarding One oficial told me he wishes the report had looked more at LETTERS POLICY whether the 10th and Court The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less irehouse could be satisfactorily on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper remodeled on its present site. As and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or one Pendleton citizen said last letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters week, it could be the difference must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a between spending $1 million daytime phone number. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, on a remodel or $9 million on a OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.