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OPINION
East Oregonian
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
GMOs neither
villain nor cure-all
The controversy over genetically
(GMO) proponents was that we
need genetic engineering to feed the
modiied organisms will make an
world, and we’re going to use genetic
interesting chapter in some future
engineering to make that increase
historian’s cultural analysis of our
in yield go up faster. We saw no
time. Rarely have so many worried
evidence of that,” said the leader of
so much about so little.
That is the underlying message of the academy study.
This month also saw judicial
a omnibus study released this week
rejection of local
by America’s
GMO bans in
pre-eminent
National Academy GMOs are a distrac- Jackson and
counties
of Sciences. The
tion from far more Josephine
in Southwest
academy found
GMOs — largely
important basics of Oregon, based
a state law the
seed crops
agriculture. Such as on
preempts such
designed to
survive weed and
soil conservation and activism.
Neither a magic
insect sprays, or
imbued with other protection of farmland bullet for world
nor a
theoretically useful
from urban and desert hunger
Frankensteinian
traits — aren’t
threat to our
risky to eat.
encroachment.
existence, GMOs
This lies in
are a distraction
the face of a
from far more important basics
favorite phobia of modern Western
of agriculture. These include
civilization — that genetic tinkering
will in some manner turn around and such unglamorous topics as soil
conservation, protection of farmland
bite us, a trope that fuels countless
movie and television scripts. To give from urban and desert encroachment,
improving worldwide distribution
worrywarts their due, carelessly
networks to stave off famine and
monkeying around with the genetics
ensuring the adequacy of fresh water
of germs would warrant such
supplies.
concerns. But tweaking corn and
We should care about what our
soybeans in minor ways ought to be
families eat and the consequences
close to the least of our concerns.
of food production for earth’s plants
On the other hand, the national
and animals. However, it’s time to
academy also punctured much
corporate hype touting GMOs. GMO breathe easy about the easy villain
of GMOs, and instead refocus on
crops aren’t a game-changer when
agriculture’s fundamental practices
it comes to enhancing crop yields.
and ethics.
“The expectation from some of the
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.
Culture corner
If you love movies, check out Tony
Zhou’s YouTube channel “Every
Frame a Painting.”
Zhou is a ilmmaker and editor, and
his video essays
on YouTube
are superb mini
classes in ilm.
I came across
his work in
late 2014 with
the episode
“The Silence
of the Lambs
— Who Wins
the Scene?”
Inside of three
minutes, Zhou
breaks down
how the camera work sets the tension
in the 1991 thriller during the irst
meeting between FBI newbie Clarice
Starling (Jody Foster) and serial killer
Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins).
After that, I was hooked.
Zhou delivers his lessons in plain
language and uses plenty of examples
from popular movies and popular
ilmmakers. Zhou’s work brings
you inside what makes for good
ilmmaking, and what does not. The
longest episodes run a little more than
nine minutes.
Some of the
best moments
come when
he is critical
of what
Hollywood
does poorly.
Zhou’s “Jackie
Chan — How
to Do Action
Comedy”
reveals why
so many
Hollywood-
lick ight scenes stink.
Zhou also draws lessons from bad
ilmmakers (“Michael Bay — What
is Bayhem?”) and shows off what
makes the best ilmmakers so good.
Blockbuster maker Steven Spielberg,
for example, is more subtle about his
craft than you might guess.
— Phil Wright
YOUR VIEWS
The old shell game
What does the city manager do
when he doesn’t want to budget money
for a project? He asks the city council
to get approval from the Pendleton
Development Commission, which
is made up of the mayor and city
council. They in turn ask the Pendleton
Development Advisory Committee
for their recommendation. This is the
committee formed to do the actual
legwork on proposals.
The PDC was formed to administer
projects for the Urban Renewal District
and is funded through bank loans, which
in turn provides funding for projects
through loans and grants to increase the
tax base. Those loans are then repaid
with the increase in taxes received.
Since I had decided to run for city
council, I began attending different
commission and committee meetings
to see if I could get a glimpse of “The
Big Picture.” In the case of the two
downtown parking lots, the committee
decided, since PDC funds were so
scarce and the city budget had not yet
been inalized, to recommend that the
city fund the projects rather than take
funding from the PDC since no increase
in the tax base would be realized.
Jordan McDonald presented an
alternate plan that would enable the
project to be funded out of the general
fund, and Chuck Woods agreed.
At the ensuing PDC meeting,
the mayor objected to the advisory
committee’s recommendation and Chuck
Woods failed to present Mr. McDonald’s
sensible approach. I did catch a glimpse
of “The Big Picture” and it wasn’t pretty.
It was a shame our newest council
member missed both meetings.
Rick Rohde
Pendleton
OTHER VIEWS
How Facebook
warps our worlds
hose who’ve been raising
swarm in defense of Sanders or the
alarms about Facebook are
surreal success of Donald Trump’s
right: Almost every minute that
candidacy, whose historical tagline
we spend on our smartphones and
may well be “All I know is what’s on
tablets and laptops, thumbing through
the Internet.”
favorite websites and scrolling
Those were his exact words,
through personalized feeds, we’re
a blithe excuse for his mistaken
pointed toward foregone conclusions.
assertion that a protester at one of his
We’re pressured to conform.
rallies had ties to Islamic extremists.
Frank
But unseen puppet masters on
He’d seen a video somewhere. He’d
Bruni
Mark Zuckerberg’s payroll aren’t to
chosen to take it at face value. His
Comment
blame. We’re the real culprits. When
intelligence wasn’t and isn’t vetted
it comes to elevating one perspective
but viral — and conveniently suited
above all others and herding people into
to his argument and needs. With a creative or
culturally and ideologically inlexible tribes,
credulous enough Google search, a self-
nothing that Facebook does to us comes close serving “truth” can always be found, along
to what we do to ourselves.
with a passel of supposed experts to vouch
I’m talking about how we use social media for it and a clique of fellow disciples.
in particular and the Internet in general —
Carnival barkers, conspiracy theories,
and how we let them use us. They’re not so
willful bias and nasty partisanship aren’t
much agents as accomplices, new tools for
anything new, and they haven’t reached
ancient impulses, part of “a long sequence of
unprecedented heights today. But what’s
technological innovations that enable us to
remarkable and sort of heartbreaking is the
do what we want,” noted social psychologist
way they’re fed by what should be strides
Jonathan Haidt, who wrote
in our ability to educate
the 2012 best seller “The
ourselves. The proliferation
of cable television networks
Righteous Mind,” when we
and growth of the Internet
spoke last week.
promised to expand our
“And one of the things
worlds, not shrink them.
we want is to spend more
Instead they’ve enhanced
time with people who think
the speed and thoroughness
like us and less with people
with which we retreat into
who are different,” Haidt
enclaves of the like-minded.
added. “The Facebook
Eli Pariser parsed all
effect isn’t trivial. But it’s
of this in his 2011 book
metabolizing or amplifying
“The Filter Bubble,” noting
a tendency that was already
how every tap, swipe and
there.”
keystroke warps what comes
By “the Facebook effect”
next, creating a tailored reality that’s closer
he didn’t mean the possibility, discussed
extensively over recent weeks, that Facebook to iction. There was subsequent pushback
to that analysis, including from scientists at
manipulates its menu of “trending” news to
Facebook, who published a peer-reviewed
emphasize liberal views and sources. That
study in the journal Science last year that
menu is just one facet of Facebook.
questioned just how homogeneous a given
More prevalent for many users are the
Facebook user’s news feed really was.
posts we see from friends and from other
But there’s no argument that in an era
people and groups we follow on the network,
that teems with choice, brims with niche
and this information is utterly contingent
marketing and exalts individualism to the
on choices we ourselves make. If we seek
extent that ours does, we’re sorting ourselves
out, “like” and comment on angry missives
with a chillingly ruthless eficiency. We’ve
from Bernie Sanders supporters, we’ll be
surrendered universal points of reference.
confronted with more angry missives from
We’ve lost common ground.
more Sanders supporters. If we banish such
“Technology makes it much easier for us
outbursts, those dispatches disappear.
to connect to people who share some single
That’s the crucial dynamic, algorithm or
common interest,” said Marc Dunkelman,
whatever you want to call it. That’s the trap
adding that it also makes it easier for us to
and curse of our lives online.
avoid “face-to-face interactions with diverse
The Internet isn’t rigged to give us right
ideas.” He touched on this in an incisive 2014
or left, conservative or liberal — at least not
book, “The Vanishing Neighbor,” which
until we rig it that way. It’s designed to give
belongs with Haidt’s work and with “Bowling
us more of the same, whatever that same is:
Alone,” “Coming Apart” and “The Fractured
one sustained note from the vast and varied
Republic” in the literature of modern
music that it holds, one redundant fragrance
American fragmentation, a booming genre all
from a garden of ininite possibility.
its own.
A few years back I bought some scented
We’re less committed to, and trustful of,
shower gel from Jo Malone. I made the
large institutions than we were at times in the
purchase through the company’s website.
past. We question their wisdom and substitute
For months afterward, as I toggled through
it with the groupthink of micro-communities,
cyberspace, Jo Malone stalked me, always
many of which we’ve formed online, and
on my digital heels, forever in a corner of
their sensibilities can be more peculiar and
my screen, a Jo Malone candle here, a Jo
unforgiving.
Malone cologne over there. I’d been proiled
Facebook, along with other social media,
and pigeonholed: fan of Jo Malone. Sure, I
deinitely conspires in this. Haidt noted that it
could choose from woody, citrus, loral and
often discourages dissent within a cluster of
even fruity, but there was no Aramis in my
aromatic ecosphere, and I was steered clear of friends by accelerating shaming. He pointed
to the enforced political correctness among
Old Spice.
students at many colleges.
So it goes with the iction we read, the
“Facebook allows people to react to each
movies we watch, the music we listen to
other so quickly that they are really afraid to
and, scarily, the ideas we subscribe to.
step out of line,” he said.
They’re not challenged. They’re validated
But that’s not about a lopsided news feed.
and reinforced. By bookmarking given blogs
It’s not about some sorcerer’s algorithm. It’s
and personalizing social-media feeds, we
about a tribalism that has existed for as long
customize the news we consume and the
as humankind has and is now rooted in the
political beliefs we’re exposed to as never
fertile soil of the Internet, which is coaxing it
before. And this colors our days, or rather
toward a full and insidious lower.
bleeds them of color, reducing them to a
■
single hue.
Frank Bruni, an Op-Ed columnist for The
We construct precisely contoured echo
New York Times since June 2011, joined the
chambers of afirmation that turn conviction
New York Times in 1995. Over his years, he
into zeal, passion into fury, disagreements
has worn a wide variety of hats, including
with the other side into the demonization of
chief restaurant critic and Rome bureau chief.
it. Then we marvel at the Twitter mobs that
T
Every tap, swipe
and keystroke
warps what comes
next, creating a
tailored reality
that’s closer to
iction.
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.