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OPINION
East Oregonian
Friday, July 1, 2016
OTHER VIEWS
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 tip of the hat to the East Oregonian’s subscribers.
Many have been with the paper longer than any of our employees, further
back than our computer databases track. They’ve followed the region’s news
in the EO’s pages delivered to their homes
and businesses for decades and decades.
Others have signed up for delivery in
the past days and weeks, taking a stand
with their pocketbooks and leisure time
against the unending proclamation that
print is dead. They are helping us prove it
is not.
It is commitment from our subscribers,
who realize the EO only exists because
people are willing to pay local journalists
to seek out and report the news, that keeps
us going as a media outlet and business.
To show our gratitude, beginning today we will be partnering with local
businesses to thank our readers one by one. On the front page each day we’ll
wish a randomly selected subscriber a good morning and offer a sponsored
prize for sticking with us.
Watch the space above the address bar on the left side of the page for your
name, and when your day comes up bring the clipping and your ID to the
sponsor’s business within a year for your prize.
And thanks for reading.
A tip of the hat to the soon-to-be Hermiston recycling center, which
will make returning glass and plastic bottles much easier.
Recycling rates everywhere in Oregon have been on a steady downward
trend since the glory days of the Bottle
Bill, when the return rate was up around 90
percent. Now, the rate is around 70 percent
and decreasing steadily.
There are a few reasons for that. One
is that a nickel just isn’t what it used to
be — ive cents in 1971 was worth 30 cents
today. And another is that many helpful store
employees have been replaced by slow, jittery
machines that often don’t make returning
bottles worth the time and energy.
Oregon just may change that, irst by doubling the return rate to a dime,
and secondly by looking to private enterprise to help make the return process
simpler and easier. Enter Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, which
is operating throughout the state and soon in Hermiston. They are clean and
well-staffed and allow recyclers to quickly do their good deed, make a little
money while they’re at it, and then get on their way.
We hope Hermiston residents embrace the new company and more shops
open throughout the state, especially on our side.
In turn, we’ll hopefully see fewer cans and bottles on the roadside, and
fewer will ind their way to ever-growing landills.
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
Oregon’s vanishing governor
The Oregonian/OregonLive
T
here’s big news these days in the
world of Harry Potter, the ictional
wizard conjured up by J.K.
Rowling. No, we’re not referring to the
appearance of a new play, “Harry Potter
and the Cursed Child.” What we’re
talking about is much bigger: Potter’s
invisibility cloak has been stolen. We
know this because Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown is wearing it.
Brown has decided not to show
up July 22 for a debate sponsored by
the Oregon Newspaper Publishers
Association. The ONPA debate
historically has kicked off the fall
election, and defections like hers
are rare. In her absence, Republican
candidate Bud Pierce, a Salem-based
doctor, will address those in attendance
and answer questions.
Brown’s debate snub is only her
most recent vanishing act. For months,
she’s declined to take a position on
a $3 billion annual tax hike that will
appear on November’s ballot. Even
so, the governor recently released a
broad plan for using the money the tax
hike would generate. It seems Brown
wants to avoid the consequences of
taking a position on the tax, but is more
than happy to smooth its path. Playing
political peekaboo in this fashion should
be beneath someone who’d like voters to
think of her as a leader, and even former
Gov. John Kitzhaber, whose resignation
last year thrust Brown into the state’s top
ofice, called her out for ducking.
Brown surely has strategic reasons
for remaining silent and invisible. As an
incumbent, she has more to lose than
gain from debating Pierce, who’s never
held elective ofice. And if nothing else,
refusing to take (or state) a position on
Initiative Petition 28 deprives Pierce of
a chance to criticize her for supporting
a tax hike that will cost low-income
Oregonians hundreds of dollars per year.
But this approach sends a worrisome
message to Brown’s constituents, who
still don’t know how their governor
stands on the biggest ballot initiative
in years, and who have never seen her
participate in a general election debate
for the ofice she now holds. The
message is this: My need to win, and to
do so with little effort, trumps your need
to know what I really stand for.
There’s a word for this. It’s arrogance.
That’s not particularly surprising
given the fact that Brown is the chosen
candidate of the dominant party in what
has become a single-party state. Why
engage any more than necessary in the
political process if you’re sure to win
anyway? Why act like a leader if you
don’t need to?
As strange as it may be to see a
candidate shut out the public during an
election — especially a candidate who
hasn’t been elected to the ofice she
holds — there’s really nothing new here.
Brown has been shutting out the public
since she inherited the governor’s ofice
last year.
Her ofice participated in a months-
long effort to delay the release of
public records while the Legislature
considered — and passed — a bill
exempting the records retroactively
from public disclosure. Later, her ofice
prohibited the members of the Public
Utility Commission from sharing their
concerns with a sweeping energy bill in
a timely fashion. When it has suited her,
Brown has tucked the workings of state
government beneath the same invisibility
cloak she now wears as a candidate.
Perhaps Brown will participate
enthusiastically in the campaign at some
point, agreeing to show up at more than
a minimal number of debates, taking
irm positions on important issues like
IP28 and sharing with voters a vision
for the governor’s ofice and where
transparency and openness it within it.
We certainly hope so. But the longer
she tries to remain invisible, the more
uncomfortable it will be for her to
answer the irst question Pierce should
ask her on the stage:
“When you were sworn in last year,
you said you valued transparency and
openness. How much of that did you
really mean?”
A bachelor named Britain,
looking for love
I
Like Norway. It and Britain have
t has been forever since Britain
plenty in common — they’re both
was single, and there will be many
lonesome and disorienting nights
wintry, watery, ishy, boozy — but also
ahead.
bring different, complementary assets
Maybe we should ix it up with
to the table. In Norway’s case, oil. In
Switzerland.
Britain’s, Adele. If that’s not a recipe
Not immediately, of course. The
for global domination, what is?
divorce from the European Union
Britain isn’t a bachelor like most.
was just announced. The paperwork
It has been married so many times
Frank
hasn’t been iled. There could be a
that it has pretty much run through the
Bruni
loss of nerve, a relaxing of conjugal
available options.
Comment
rules, tulips from Holland, chocolates
Its predicament reminds me of the
from Belgium. Greece and Portugal
movie “What’s Your Number?” which
could promise to stop leaving dirty dishes in
I saw so that you wouldn’t have to. Anna
the sink, Germany to quit
Faris plays a Bostonian who
hogging the remote.
believes that she has reached
But as things stand now,
her maximum allotment of
Britain will soon stand
sexual partners and that her
apart, and we all know how
only hope for a husband is to
that goes: exhilaration,
circle back and reconnect with
followed by panic, leading
someone she disconnected
to an age-inappropriate
from previously.
Tinder account. Oh, look,
For Britain that could be
here’s Iceland, lashing its most voluptuous
India. Australia. Much of Africa. Some of the
volcanoes. Nah, too stony and lugubrious, and Middle East. Its exes are everywhere, though
you can listen to only so much Bjork. Swipe
approaching any of them would require a new
left.
humility, as the Britain of yesteryear wasn’t a
Britain on its own is unfathomable. Think
particularly modest or accommodating suitor.
of its relationship history: epic trans-Atlantic
It typically got the better end of the deal,
romances, audacious trans-Paciic affairs,
until the EU came along and the arrangement
lings in this jungle, hookups on that dune.
wasn’t so lopsided.
It was usually dominant, occasionally
America is Britain’s most prominent ex of
submissive but always coupled — if not
all: the Elizabeth Taylor to its Richard Burton.
tripled, quadrupled or quintupled. It had a lust
Should our onetime colonial master become
for entanglement if no talent for idelity.
our 51st state? If we acted quickly enough,
But it’s not the overlord it once was. Those Boris Johnson could be tapped as Donald
imperial pheromones are gone. Where a crown Trump’s running mate, creating a tandem of
once rested, a bald spot spreads. Britain’s
tresses so perversely dazzling that it alone
going to need primping, prodding, perhaps a
makes the case. This may have been Johnson’s
prescription.
plan all along.
And introductions. So: Switzerland?
Britain is no more geographically
If marrying rich is the goal, marrying
nonsensical for us than Hawaii or Alaska,
Switzerland is the jackpot. And Switzerland
though it’s probably too long a cultural stretch.
won’t do what Britain loathed in its current
It simply lacks the requisite prevalence of gun
spouse and encourage poorer, darker people to ownership.
drop in for fondue.
Which makes it a better it for Canada.
But it’s so worryingly petite. So wearyingly Canada is saner, except about ice hockey. It’s
standofish, resisting the EU even while
Britain’s obvious match: comparably afluent,
enveloped and protected by it. And it’s sure
suficiently English-speaking. Together Britain
to insist on a prenup longer than all of the
and Canada can laugh at the crudeness of us
Harry Potter novels combined. Britain needs
Americans, a favorite shared pastime and an
freer and easier love than that, especially as its understandable one.
jowls sag and its pound droops.
Britain is suddenly leaderless, while
Maybe that means Albania, Montenegro or Canada suddenly has a leader, Justin Trudeau,
Macedonia. They’re the mail-order brides of
who’s an international heartthrob. He can
the continent, dreaming of an “I do” from the
expand his portfolio to two continents, and has
EU. Surely they’d settle for Britain.
tidy hair. Sorry, Boris.
But would Britain settle for them? The
And the monarchy survives! Canada never
bloated pride that brought it to this juncture
ceased its ceremonial fealty to it, and bows
won’t allow for a signiicant other that’s too
before Queen Elizabeth II much as Britain
other and insigniicant, and most outsiders
does. It’s a source of puzzlement, but it’s a
can’t locate Albania on a map. (Go south to
bridge to Britain, which is going to need the
the heel of Italy, turn left, cross the Adriatic,
love.
hope for the best.) There are better charted,
■
more ego-salving corners of Europe that
Frank Bruni, an Op-Ed columnist for The
haven’t bedded down with Brussels and are
New York Times since June 2011, joined the
still on the market.
newspaper in 1995.
Britain on
its own is
unfathomable.
YOUR VIEWS
Transgender guidelines are
in best interest of all students
The Oregon Department of Education May
5 provided guidelines for how schools are
to treat transgender students. Guidelines is
the key word. Christian fundamentalists, like
letter writers Stuart Dick and Nolan Nelson,
know no shame, no dishonor; they completely
ignore this word.
To quote Mr. Dick: “To force a policy on
our youth where boys who in their own eyes
think they are girls are encouraged to use girl’s
bathrooms and locker rooms is to call evil
good.”
The policy does not call for force in
anything, it calls for “accommodation” in
considering the privacy of both the cisgender,
boys or girls who identify with their biological
gender, and the transgender. In no way
does the policy call for genderless anti-God
bathrooms. It simply recognizes the need for
individual consideration such as “unisex”
bathrooms or some other alternative.
The policy is “trying to make sure everyone
has options,” that it is in the best interest of
all the students, the kindergarten, the middle
school, the high school.
To quote Nolan Nelson: “Women are
terribly uncomfortable with a mercurial
revelation that they believe violates their
inherent natural right to feel safe and private
in their person. This policy provides many the
opportunities to indulge in deviant impulses.”
No, it seeks to insure everyone can feel safe
and private in their person. That is the purpose
of the Oregon Department of Education’s
15-page guideline.
The guidelines do not take a position
either way on whether a child may be born
gay or not, or whether being homosexual or
transgender is a sin or not, or whether being
transgender is a mental disorder or not.
Both these men, with regard to this issue,
think they know it all. They make their
statements as fact. They accept no alternate
consideration. They apparently never question
themselves as to whether what they espouse
is a brazen distortion of the truth or not. It
seems they see only with a limited view, their
interpretation.
They never ask themselves, what if Jesus
had a message that truly could change the
world, but we have missed the point? What if
the Oregon Department of Education had the
best interest of all in mind when considering
divergent views, and we have missed the
point?
Ron Gavette
Pendleton
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 phone number. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.