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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 25, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, June 25, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com MIKE FORRESTER STEVE FORRESTER KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Chairman of the Board Astoria President Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer CORY BOLLINGER JEFF ROGERS Aberdeen, S.D. Director Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW Your vote can change the world We can learn something from England and Wales a decidedly minor player on the world scene. That’s to Britain, which this week shocked the detriment of the United States, the world by voting to leave the Europe and defenders of democracy European Union. It’s a reminder that our votes mean everywhere. The European Union is a a lot, and in a democracy it is the bureaucratic tangle, public that has the but you cannot argue power. It’s always Europe has ever good to remind the When we wield that been richer or more government and the our votes as peaceful during the elites of that fact — 50 years. but it’s also good to punishment or last Yet this country, remind ourselves. protest, we must the good old When we made our wield our votes be careful who U.S.A., Brexit a long time as punishment or protest, we must we aim at. We ago — way back in 1776 — when we be careful who we often punish eschewed rule from aim at. When we afar for local control. try to punish the ourselves as It worked out government and its well. well for the United institutions, we often States. The future of punish ourselves as the “United States of well. Europe” is in doubt. Perhaps leaving the European For now, we must let the Union will be a good thing for machinations of the global political Britain. More likely, it will cause and economic systems play out, years of protracted disentangling and let John Maynard Keynes and that will leave it isolated and the Winston Churchill roll in their graves. European Union weakened. But looking toward November, It’s no wonder the Donald Trumps we can learn a lesson. A vote is a and Vladimir Putins of the world cheered the vote. When powerful but powerful thing that can change the clearly lawed democratic institutions course of nations and the world. As German-American journalist weaken, authoritarians look to ill in H.L. Mencken put it in the last the vacuum. century, “Democracy is the theory It seems clear that Scotland will that the common people know what soon leave the United Kingdom they want, and deserve to get it good (and join the EU) and ever more and hard.” likely that Ireland will unify, leaving 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 Legislature continues to add business regulations The Oregonian/OregonLive S tate lawmakers have thrown a lot at Oregon businesses lately. Last year, they required all but the smallest businesses to provide paid sick leave to employees. Earlier this year, they hiked the state’s minimum wage, which already was among the nation’s highest. Looming on the horizon, meanwhile, is a public vote on a tax hike that would cost big businesses — and small businesses and consumers, too — billions of dollars every year. Having been forced to swallow so much so quickly — and in anticipation of a potential megatax — you can understand the fear with which businesses look forward to the 2017 legislative session and the possible consideration of additional mandates. Of particular concern to many is something called predictive scheduling. Never heard of it? You will. Generally speaking, predictive scheduling refers to regulations that compel businesses to provide greater certainty about the hours their employees are expected to work. The movement springs from a desire to help people for whom last-minute shift adjustments present big problems: parents struggling with child care, students with rigid class schedules, people with second jobs, and so on. But good intentions don’t necessarily lead to good policy, as numerous business groups explained to lawmakers considering predictive-scheduling legislation last year. One of last year’s proposals, House Bill 3377, received a public hearing and work session before dying in committee. Among other things, it would have penalized employers for adjusting schedules less than three weeks in advance. For each shift changed, a business would have had to pay an employee for one additional hour in addition to the compensation for time worked. And for each shift changed with less than 24 hours’ notice, a business would have had to pay an employee for four extra hours in addition to the compensation for time worked. Certain kinds of businesses are more prone to such uncertainty than others, and the consequences for employees, as unpleasant as they may be, aren’t necessarily the result of insensitive management. HB3377 did go belly up, fortunately, but the push for predictive scheduling did not. Rather, lawmakers hit “pause.” A work group on “schedules that work,” led by Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, and Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, met for the irst time late last month. Business groups quickly dropped out. They also alluded to the recent piling on of mandates, including the minimum wage, paid sick leave and an employee retirement program. Saying they simply couldn’t take any more, the industry groups said they’d ask lawmakers to extend the 2015 pre-emption of local work-schedule requirements. Lawmakers should do so. The Legislature has not been particularly sympathetic to businesses in recent years, to be sure. But that’s exactly why it should be now. Pushing any discussion of predictive scheduling to 2019, or later, will give businesses a chance to adjust both to recent mandates and to whatever response November’s vote on Initiative Petition 28 requires. To press on in 2017, on the other hand, will do more harm to employers — and, inevitably, to their employees. OTHER VIEWS At the edge of inside I just inside the edge of his own n any organization there are some discipline and making it better. people who serve at the core. These The person on the edge of inside insiders are in the rooms when the is involved in constant change. The decisions are made. Hillary Clinton, true insiders are so deep inside they for example, is now at the core of the Democratic Party. often get confused by trivia and locked Then there are outsiders. They into the status quo. The outsider is throw missiles from beyond the throwing bombs and dreaming of walls. They are untouched by far-off transformational revolution. But David internal loyalties and try to take over Brooks the person at the doorway is seeing from without. Donald Trump is a constant comings and goings. As Rohr Comment Republican outsider. says, she is involved in a process But there’s also a third position in of perpetual transformation, not a any organization: those who are at the edge belonging system. She is more interested in of the inside. These people are within the being a searcher than a settler. organization, but they’re not subsumed by the Insiders and outsiders are threatened by group think. They work at those on the other side of the boundaries, bridges and the barrier. But a person entranceways. Sen. Lindsey on the edge of inside Graham, for example, is neither idolizes the Us nor sometimes on the edge of demonizes the Them. Such a the inside of the GOP. person sees different groups I borrow this concept as partners in a reality that is from Richard Rohr, a paradoxical, complementary Franciscan priest who lives and unfolding. in Albuquerque. His point There are downsides to is that people who live at being at the edge of inside. the edge of the inside have You never lose yourself in a crucial roles to play. As he full commitment. You may writes in his pamphlet “The be respected and befriended, Eight Core Principles,” but you are not loved as when you live on the edge completely as the people of any group, “you are free at the core, the band of from its central seductions, but also free to brothers. You enjoy neither the purity of the hear its core message in very new and creative outsider nor that of the true believer. ways.” But the person on the edge of inside A person at the edge of inside can see can see reality clearly. The insiders and the what’s good about the group and what’s outsiders tend to think in dualistic ways: us good about rival groups. Rohr writes, “A versus them; this or that. But, as Rohr would doorkeeper must love both the inside and the say, the beginning of wisdom is to ight the outside of his or her group, and know how to natural tendency to be dualistic; it is to ight move between these two loves.” the natural ego of the group. The person on A person at the edge of inside can be the the edge of inside is more likely to see the strongest reformer. This person has the loyalty wholeness of any situation. To see how us and of a faithful insider but the judgment of the them, which seem supericially opposed, are critical outsider. Martin Luther King Jr. had actually in complementary relationship within an authentic inner experience of what it meant some larger process. to be American. This love allowed him to Lincoln could see the divisions between critique America from the values he learned North and South, but in his second inaugural from America. He could be utterly relentless he transcended these divisions and saw both in bringing America back closer to herself North and South as actors and partners in a precisely because his devotion to American larger human drama. ideals was so fervent. When people are afraid or defensive, they A person on the edge of the inside knows have no tolerance for the person at the edge how to take advantage of the standards of inside. They want purity, rigid loyalty and and practices of an organization but not be lock-step unity. But now more than ever we imprisoned by them. Rohr writes, “You have need people who have the courage to live on learned the rules well enough to know how the edge of inside, who love their parties and to ‘break the rules properly,’ which is not organizations so much that they can critique really to break them at all, but to ind their them as a brother, operate on them from the true purpose: ‘not to abolish the law but to inside as a friend and dauntlessly insist that complete it.’” they live up to their truest selves. When the behavioral economist Richard ■ Thaler uses the lessons of psychology to David Brooks became a New York Times improve economic modeling, he is operating Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. A person at the edge of inside can see what’s good about the group and what’s good about rival groups. YOUR VIEWS Don’t let tragedy make you numb —take positive action There is so much tragedy in our world today. We constantly see it in the news, and cannot escape it. Worldwide, innocent people are killed on a daily basis. The events in Orlando are truly devastating. Locally, a woman was recently killed by her husband, another was stabbed when she stopped at the rest area, and the list goes on. At times I want to throw my hands in the air and give up because I feel like there is nothing I can do to stop the madness. It is tempting to tune out all of this tragedy. Then some bad news hit me right between the eyes, so close to home. The death of an innocent baby belonging to a girl my kids had gone to school with. The young father arrested, with charges of murder. Could anything have been done to prevent it? As a society, what are we doing to counteract such tragedies? There are local programs in place to offer support to struggling families. One such program is Pregnancy Care Services with locations in Pendleton and Hermiston. The help goes way beyond a one-time visit and a free pregnancy test. Education, encouragement, and emotional support are offered to each client. People have the opportunity to earn maternity clothes, diapers, car seats and other baby necessities while learning parenting skills, and getting the encouragement they need to succeed in parenting (all at no cost to them). It is possible that the death of the baby could have been prevented had the young family been involved in a care program like the one Pregnancy Care Services offers. When you hear bad news, don’t let it make you numb. Instead, may you be kicked into action. Find the local programs in your town and get involved. If there is no program, help get one started. Sara Taylor, Pendleton PCS Director Athena 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 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. Correction The June 23 “Tips and kicks” editorial had the incorrect date of a Union Paciic diesel train leak near Troutdale. The 300-gallon leak was Tuesday and it is not known that any diesel leaked into the water table. If you notice a mistake in the paper, please call 541-966-0818.
