East Oregonian : E.O., June 24, 2016, Page Page 4A, Image 4

Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Friday, June 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
Tip of the hat;
kick in the pants
A kick in the pants to Union Paciic Railroad — not just for the train
crash earlier this month that dumped oil into the Columbia River and
caught ire near Mosier — but for the poor management and maintenance
that caused the crash and the speed with which the company resumed
transporting dangerous crude.
In today’s paper, we note the results of a
damning federal investigation into the June 3
crash. Investigators said the company failed
to properly maintain its track and used a
“brake system that is from the Civil War era.”
The derailment released 42,000 gallons of
crude oil and sparked a ire that burned for 14
hours. It’s lucky that no lives were lost and no
one was injured — and that the environmental
damage was not worse.
Union Paciic’s public relations response to
the oil train crash and ire was widely panned — it was short on information
and empathy. And their quick decision to resume oil train transport despite
the pleas of Oregon and Washington oficials smacked of bullheadedness
and putting proit ahead of safety and responsibility.
And the June 3 crash isn’t even the whole of it. It has not been a good
month for Union Paciic.
On Friday night, another train leaked thousands of gallons of diesel into
the water table and the Columbia River near Troutdale.
If Union Paciic wants to continue to have the ability to transport oil down
the Columbia River Gorge, they better get their act together before state and
federal oficials ind a way to bar them from doing any more damage than
has already been done.
A kick in the pants to the fact that some of the country’s best cowboys
will not be competing in Eastern Oregon’s best rodeos.
Some of those cowboys — including Pendleton Round-Up defending
champion Trevor Brazile — decided to shoot off from the Professional
Rodeo Cowboys Association, or PRCA. That means they won’t compete in
the Round-Up, Farm City or even in Chief
Joseph Days.
The splinter reminds us of when open-
wheel car racing split into two competing
tours in 1996, which kept the best drivers and
teams from competing in the best race, the
Indianapolis 500. The split was disastrous for
the sport and fandom of open-car racing is in
serious decline.
The rodeo circuit both locally and
nationwide isn’t going anywhere, but not
being able to see the best athletes compete sure isn’t going to help it grow.
The best cowboys and the best rodeos should work in tandem, not in
opposition. That they were unable to reach a workable compromise will be
to the detriment of our local events and the sport as a whole.
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
Southern Oregon must learn
to deal with wolves
The (Medford) Mail-Tribune
I
t was only a matter of time before
Southern Oregon’s growing wolf
population came into conlict with
domestic livestock. Now that a wolf has
killed a sheep and at least one goat in
Jackson County, it’s important to keep
the incident in perspective.
State wildlife biologists conirmed
a wolf killed on goat on June 9 near
Grizzly Peak and a
second was probably
injured. A third goat was
killed the next day, but
vultures had made it
impossible to conirm the
cause of death. A sheep
was conirmed killed by a
wolf the night of June 11.
Wildlife biologists
believe the wolf labeled
OR-33 was responsible.
Signals from his radio
collar placed him near the
kills.
Wolves are now a part of the
ecosystem in Oregon, as they were
historically before eradication efforts
wiped them out. Federal wildlife
biologists captured wolves in Canada
and released them in Yellowstone
National Park and in Idaho in the 1990s.
Some wolves migrated on their own into
northeast Oregon from Idaho, but none
were purposely introduced here.
Since the irst wolves arrived,
they have dispersed through the state.
One wolf in particular, a young male
named OR-7, became something of
a celebrity as he migrated alone into
Southern Oregon and then into Northern
California in search of a mate. He
eventually found one, and the pair
produced offspring.
While it’s unfortunate that anyone has
to lose livestock to predators, it is a fact
of life in the rural West. It’s important
to remember that wolves are still few in
number — the oficial minimum count
was 110 wolves statewide at the end of
2015, a 36 percent increase over 2014.
Most of those were in northeast Oregon,
not in this area.
Furthermore, livestock are lost to
cougars and coyotes
much more frequently
than to wolves.
Wolves in Western
Oregon are still protected
under the federal
Endangered Species Act,
and it is illegal to kill
them unless they pose
an immediate threat to
human safety. Wolves
rarely attack humans.
In Eastern Oregon,
eight wolves have been
killed by ODFW or authorized agents
since 2009 because of livestock losses
in Baker and Wallowa counties. In those
cases, ranchers and wildlife managers
tried non-lethal measures to limit conlict
before taking the lethal action.
Wildlife oficials recommend a
variety of non-lethal measures, including
guard dogs, lags on fences, special
boxes that give off a noise when a
radio-collared wolf approaches, and
removing carcasses or bone piles that
can attract wolves.
Oregonians take pride in the natural
beauty of our state, but nature is not
always benign. Wolves are another
beautiful but potentially damaging part
of the natural world, and living with
them is a learning process.
Wolves are
now part of
the ecosystem
in Southern
and Western
Oregon.
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 S.E. Byers
Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
OTHER VIEWS
Another age of discovery
H
to adapt. Now, like then, said Goldin,
ave we been here before?
“sizable parts of the population found
I know — it feels as if the
their skills were no longer needed,
internet, virtual reality, Donald
or they lived in places left behind, so
Trump, Facebook, sequencing of the
inequality grew.” At the same time,
human genome and machines that can
“new planetary scale systems of
reason better than people constitute a
commerce and information exchange
change in the pace of change without
led to immense improvements in
precedent. But we’ve actually been
choices and accelerating innovations
through an extraordinarily rapid
Thomas
transition like this before in history —
Friedman which made some people fabulously
rich.”
a transition we can learn a lot from.
Comment
Was there a Donald Trump back
Ian Goldin, director of the Oxford
then?
Martin School at Oxford University,
“Michelangelo and Machiavelli’s Florence
and Chris Kutarna, also of Oxford Martin,
suffered a shocking popular power-taking
have just published a book — “Age of
Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards when Girolamo Savonarola, a midlevel
friar from Ferrara, who lived from 1452 to
of Our New Renaissance” — about lessons
1498, exploded from obscurity in the 1490s
we can draw from the period 1450 to 1550,
to enthrall Florentines, who felt left behind
known as the Age of Discovery. It was
economically or culturally, with sermons that
when the world made a series of great leaps
forward, propelled by da Vinci, Michelangelo, laid blame upon the misguided policies and
Copernicus and Columbus, that produced
moral corruption of their leaders,” said Goldin.
the Renaissance and reshaped science,
“He and his zealous supporters, though a small
education, manufacturing,
minority, swept away the
communications, politics
Medici establishment and
and geopolitics.
seized control of the city’s
“Gutenberg’s printing
councils.
press provided the trigger,”
“From there, Savonarola
Goldin told me by email,
launched an ugly campaign
“by lipping knowledge
of public puriication,
production and exchange
introducing radical
from tight scarcity to
laws including against
radical abundance. Before
homosexuality, and attacked
that, the Catholic churches
public intellectuals in an
monopolized knowledge,
act of intimidation that
with their handwritten Latin manuscripts
history still remembers as the Bonire of the
locked up in monasteries. The Gutenberg
Vanities. Savonarola was amongst the irst
press democratized information, and provided to tap into the information revolution of the
the incentive to be literate. Within 50 years,
time, and while others produced long sermons
not only had scribes lost their jobs, but the
and treatises, Savonarola disseminated short
Catholic Church’s millennia-old monopoly of
pamphlets, in what may be thought of as the
power had been torn apart as the printing of
equivalent of political tweets.”
Martin Luther’s sermons ignited a century of
The establishment politicians of the day,
religious wars.”
who were low energy, “underestimated the
Meanwhile, Goldin added, Copernicus
power of that new information revolution to
upended the prevailing God-given notions
move beyond scientiic and cultural ideas” to
of heaven and earth “by inding that far
amplify populist voices challenging authority.
from the sun revolving around the Earth, the
Yikes! How do we blunt that?
Earth rotated around the sun,” and “voyages
“More risk-taking is required when things
of discovery by Columbus, da Gama and
change more rapidly, both for workers who
Magellan tore up millennia-old maps of the
have to change jobs and for businesses who
‘known’ world.”
have to constantly innovate to stay ahead,”
Those were the mother of all disruptions
Goldin argued. Government’s job is to
and led to the parallels with today.
strengthen the safety nets and infrastructure so
“Now, like then, new media have
individuals and companies can be as daring —
democratized information exchange,
in terms of learning, adapting and investing in
amplifying the voices of those who feel
themselves — as they need to be. At the same
they have been injured in the upheaval,”
time, when the world gets this tightly woven,
said Goldin. “Now, like then, public leaders
America “needs to be more, not less, engaged,
and public institutions have failed to keep
with the rest of the world,” because “the
up with rapid change, and popular trust has
threats posed by climate change, pandemics,
been deeply eroded.” Now, like then, “this
cyberattacks or terror will not be reduced by
is the best moment in history to be alive” —
America withdrawing.”
human health, literacy, aggregate wealth and
Then, as now, walls stopped working.
education are lourishing — and “there are
“Cannons and gunpowder came to Europe that
more scientists alive today than in all previous could penetrate or go over walls and books
generations.”
could bring ideas around them,” he said. Then,
And, yet many people feel worse off.
like now, walls only made you poorer, dumber
Because, as in the Renaissance, key
and more insecure.
anchors in people’s lives — like the workplace
■
and community — are being fundamentally
Thomas L. Friedman won the 2002 Pulitzer
dislocated. The pace of technological change
Prize for commentary, his third Pulitzer for
is outstripping the average person’s ability
The New York Times.
Key anchors
in people’s
lives are being
fundamentally
dislocated.
YOUR VIEWS
Reporters should have to take
test to write about a subject
The Associated Press story on the Orlando
gunman in the June 21 East Oregonian
contained the following statement: “No
background checks are required for anyone
buying guns privately online or at gun shows.”
There is no polite way to put it: That is
an outright lie. Gun sales at gun shows or
anywhere else must obey federal, state and
local laws. Online sales must be shipped
to a local gun dealer and picked up there,
background checks must be passed, all
pertinent laws must be conformed to.
This shows a crying need for one more law
in this country: Reporters wishing to write or
talk about a subject must take and pass a test
on said subject, to prove that they have some
slight notion of what they’re yapping about.
No pass, no write or speak.
Against the First Amendment? Not at all,
if you accept the gun-control lobby’s take
on the Second Amendment. They insist that
it only covers muskets, i.e. 18th century
irearm technology. By that logic, the First
would cover only face-to-face speech and the
muscle-powered printing press. It is possible
that steam-powered presses might be allowed,
but only with wood or coal-ired boilers.
Broadcast “journalism” would certainly not be
covered by the First Amendment.
This could be a “good irst step” for the
various media to regain some tiny shred of
credibility, something they haven’t had in
decades.
John Kaufman
Pendleton
Editor’s note: Neither federal nor
Florida law require private sellers to initiate
a background check when transferring a
irearm, including online and at gun shows.
The Associated Press story is accurate.
Civilians should not have
access to assault weapons
As an advisor in Vietnam, I carried an
M-16 — the military equivalent of the AR15
assault rile. It and similar assault riles are
the instruments of choice in America’s mass
murders. These are deadly weapons with only
one real use — killing people.
As I have followed the massacres with
these guns, I have silently asked myself one
question: why weren’t more killed? Then
Orlando happened. Forty nine killed and ifty
wounded. That’s what these guns can do.
Get ready for the body counts America. Fly
our lags permanently at half mast. The mass
killings are just beginning.
Only the military and law enforcement
should have these deadly weapons.
George Anderson
Hermiston