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OPINION
East Oregonian
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
Disaster averted,
threat remains
Friday’s oil train wreck at Mosier, foreign oil.
as destructive and damaging as it
And in the short term,
was, could have been much worse.
transporting oil by rail makes it
dangerous than if we used pipelines
Many people could have been
— although environmental and
killed.
health and safety dangers exist there,
Many buildings — even a whole
too.
town — could have been burned to
Oregon and Washington
the ground.
representatives have called for a
The train could have tipped
temporary moratorium on oil trains
toward the river, spilling even more
through the Gorge, and Tribal and
oil into the Columbia.
environmental groups have called
It could have closed Interstate 84
for making it permanent. Clearly,
for days or weeks.
they hold a stronger
It could have
hand than they did
put rail lines out
There will be
when a iery oil
of commission for
train crash in the
weeks or months.
long-lasting
was just a
Some certainly
environmental Gorge
hypothetical.
consider Friday’s
Right now, it is
derailment a
and economic
imperative to clean
disaster, no matter
damage, though up the damage to the
how much worse
extent possible. We
it could have been.
thankfully no
need to know why
And there will
lives were lost. the train crashed, and
be signiicant,
if additional rules
long-lasting
and regulations can
environmental
help reduce derailments. We need
and economic damage, though
to demand Union Paciic and other
thankfully no lives were lost and no
railroads invest in the safest railcars
major infrastructure destroyed.
But plenty more could have gone and technology, to prove that safety
really is job one. We must realize
wrong. The same engine, cars and
that this additional expense will raise
caboose that derailed and caught
the price of oil, but perhaps save
ire had earlier rumbled through
destruction and death down the road.
Boardman and Arlington and past
American infrastructure is as
Hermiston, as well as numerous
other railtowns in Idaho and Oregon. weak now as it has ever been, due to
our bifurcated political system and
Carrying crude oil from the Bakken
the remnants of more than 15 years
region of North Dakota, many
populations both large and small feel of war and divestment abroad.
The Columbia Gorge is too
the vibration of these rolling, highly
important a place ecologically
lammable loads as they course
and economically, to tourists and
through their city centers. That
Tribes and citizens from Astoria
deinitely doesn’t sound safe.
to Arlington. We’ve spent billions
But rail is currently the only way
there to restore salmon runs, money
to transport large quantities of oil
that could all be undone in an
across the country. Politically, it
instant. Eastern Oregon, southern
has become impossible to approve
Idaho and the Intermountain West
massive pipeline projects that move
has everything to lose if rail and
fossil fuels from one part of the
interstate and even barge trafic was
country to another. Perhaps that is a
disrupted through it.
long-term good, and will help keep
The dangers and the threats are
more muck in the ground rather than
high, and we must ask ourselves if
in the ozone, though at the same
the risk is still worth it.
time it increases our dependence on
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
Trump’s attack on judge
breathtaking in its vileness
The Dallas Morning News
onald Trump’s presidential
campaign is littered with more
insults and disrespect than
anyone can count. Now he’s added a
racist assault on a member of the federal
judiciary to his hit list. Has he no respect
for anyone or institution?
Trump’s latest
target is U.S. District
Judge Gonzalo
Curiel, the presiding
judge over two of
the three Trump
University lawsuits
that accuse the
billionaire’s business
venture of defrauding
students. Last week,
Trump ranted and
tweeted that Curiel
is “Mexican” and is
biased in the court
proceedings. Why?
Trump claims the
judge opposes his plan to build a wall
on the border between Mexico and the
United States and is a “hater.”
No evidence exists of any of these
vile accusations. But that hasn’t slowed
Trump’s hair-trigger tongue. Given his
status as the presumptive GOP nominee,
these comments undeservedly trash the
integrity of a federal judge, threaten the
independence of the judiciary and reveal,
once again, the smallness of the man
who could become president.
Judge Curiel was born in Indiana to
Mexican immigrants who arrived with
elementary school educations. He is as
American as Trump, who is the grandson
of immigrants. Suggesting that Curiel is
biased because of his heritage insults any
minority who has pursued the American
Dream to laudable accomplishments.
Curiel’s parents gave him an
D
opportunity at the American Dream, as
did Trump’s ancestors. Are we to assume
that any judge is unit to judge someone
of another background? For the sake
of the judicial system, the answer had
better be “no.”
Some Republicans who back the
party’s presumptive nominee are
shocked by Trump’s behavior. No less a
Trump supporter than
former Speaker Newt
Gingrich called the
comments inexcusable
and labeled them
among the worst
mistakes of Trump’s
campaign — and that’s
saying something.
Sadly, others,
including Senate
Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell and
former U.S. Attorney
General Alberto
Gonzales, offered
weak-kneed responses
that prioritize politics over principle. On
“Meet the Press,” McConnell said he
disagreed with Trump’s comments but
favored party unity behind Trump. In his
op-ed in The Washington Post, Gonzales
defended Trump’s right to question
whether a judge is biased.
That misses the point. Trump crossed
a line when he questioned Curiel’s
judgment based on his ethnicity and
threatened to do something about the
judge when he becomes president. Such
actions are indefensible and should have
been denounced without equivocation.
Trump continues to pick vile ights
with anybody who doesn’t look like him
— women, Mexican-Americans, even
the Pope. The very future of the GOP
— not to mention personal reputations
— are at stake each time Republican
leaders tolerate his foul behavior.
Trump continues
to pick ights
with anybody
who doesn’t
look like him —
women, Mexican-
Americans, even
the Pope.
OTHER VIEWS
Let’s have a better culture war
T
he recent ight over transgender
That has to be the opening assertion
of a new traditionalism — that we’re
bathrooms represents the
not primarily physical creatures.
reductio ad absurdum of the
There’s a ghost in the machine.
culture war.
We have souls or consciousness or
We argue about cultural and moral
whatever you want to call it. The irst
matters in the irst place because
step of a new traditionalism would
we care about our characters and
be to put the spiritual and moral
the characters of our children. We
David
implications of everyday life front and
understand that a free society requires
individuals who are capable of
Brooks center.
Comment
If public life were truly infused
handling that freedom — people who
with the sense that people have souls,
can be counted on to play their social
we would educate young people to
roles as caring parents, responsible
have vocations and not just careers. We would
workers and dependable neighbors.
Further, we know that this sort of character comfortably tell them that sex is a fusion of
loving souls and not just a physical act. We’d
formation can’t be done just individually.
celebrate marriage as a covenantal bond.
It’s carried out in families, schools and
We’d understand that
communities. It depends
citizenship is a covenant,
on some common
too, and we have a duty
assumptions about
to feel connected to those
what’s right and wrong,
who disagree with us.
admired and not admired
We’d see cloning
— a common moral
and the death penalty
ecosystem.
as reckless acts that
So we care intensely
tamper with something
about the health of that
mysterious. When we
ecosystem and we argue
talked about foreign
about how to improve it.
policy we’d talk not
The laws
just about our material
commanding where
interests but also about
transgender people go
what purpose we’ve been
to the bathroom, on
called to play in history.
the other hand, show
If we talked as if people had souls, then
how the culture war has devolved into an
we’d have a thick view of what is at stake in
overpoliticized set of gestures designed to
everyday activities. The soul can be elevated
push people’s emotional hot buttons.
and degraded at every second, even when
These laws are in response to a problem
you’re alone not hurting anybody. Each
that doesn’t seem to exist. They are in
thought or act etches a new line into the core
response to a threat of sexual predators that
piece of oneself.
has no relation to the existence of transgender
The awareness of that constant process of
people. They are about legislating a group, not
elevation and degradation adds urgency to a
about what constitutes good behavior. They
bunch of questions. For example, what are we
are an attempt to erect crude barriers when a
doing to a prisoner’s soul when we throw him
little local consideration and accommodation
in solitary? Can we really tolerate having so
could get the job done.
many people falling out of the labor force and
For some reason, some defenders of
unable to realize the dignity that comes with
traditional values are addicted to sideshows
steady work? In what ways do our phones lead
that end with the whiff of intolerance. At the
same time, the larger culture itself has become to attachment or isolation? When is shopping
fun and when is it degrading?
morally empty, and therefore marked by
We’d also need a new political science. The
fragmentation, distrust and powermongering.
old one was based on the model that we’re
The larger culture itself needs to be
utility-maximizing individuals, seeking power.
revived in four distinct ways: We need to
That’s true, but love is the elemental desire of
be more communal in an age that’s overly
the spirit. People are desperately motivated to
individualistic; we need to be more morally
love something well, and be loved. A core task
minded in an age that’s overly utilitarian; we
of communities is to arouse and educate the
need to be more spiritually literate in an age
loves, to widen and deepen the opportunities
that’s overly materialistic; and we need to be
for love and to appraise people by how well
more emotionally intelligent in an age that is
and what they love.
overly cognitive.
Our culture is overpoliticized and
Rather than ighting endless losing battles
undermoralized. This new traditionalism
over sexual identity, we need a better culture
would shift the debate and involve a thicker
war. We need a new traditionalism.
way of seeing and talking about public life.
A tradition, whether it’s Thanksgiving
The debates that would follow would not be
dinner, an annual family reunion or a burial
ceremony, takes a physical activity and infuses divided along the conventional lines.
■
it with enchantment. There’s a warmth to our
David Brooks became a New York Times
traditions and rituals that is fueled by love and
Op-Ed columnist in September 2003.
contact with the transcendent.
The larger culture
itself has become
morally empty; and
therefore marked
by fragmentation,
distrust and
powermongering.
YOUR VIEWS
Judge Temple unfairly
criticized for doing her job
Minimum wage increase
already having an effect
Your article “Judge’s mistake restarts rape
trial” inaccurately portrays the role of a judge
in a trial. In that case, evidence was offered by
an experienced, competent prosecutor. It was
objected to by the defense attorney. It involved
a dificult question of law. Judge Temple
made a decision based upon the law and facts
presented. In this case, as in many cases, the
Court of Appeals disagreed and sent the case
back for a new trial.
I have handled over 200 appeals to the
Oregon Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.
In every case someone could say the appeal
was based on a “judge’s mistake.” Actually,
however, most were based on a disagreement
over law or evidence.
Judges are called upon to make split second
decisions during trial. Judge Temple did so
here. Many of the very best judges are at times
overruled by the Court of Appeals. That is the
way our system is supposed to work. Judges
don’t deserve criticism for doing their jobs.
Be careful what you ask for.
The big announcement by Walmart a few
months ago about raising wages hits home.
Asset Protection forces cut and cashiers
replaced with self-checkout here in our
local store. Evidently it’s cheaper to allow
shoplifting and machines don’t require
beneits. Is it just me or is dealing directly
with a person a thing of the past?
This is just the irst step as wages begin to
rise. The answer? We need more subsidized
housing for the unemployed such as the new
Sergeant City being constructed, affectionately
called Pendleton Heights. I wonder if
Governor Brown would approve of the
progress we’ve made since her last visit. Take
a drive out and visit if you really want a look
at the professional landscaping that the city is
inancing. This is just the beginning. I think
the city calls it progress.
Has anyone been to Pizza Hut lately?
W. Eugene Hallman
Pendleton
Rick Rohde
Pendleton
Editor’s note: Pendleton’s Pizza Hut
franchise recently closed.
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.