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OPINION
East Oregonian
Friday, August 12, 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 Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, whose
ofice has produced clear and helpful upgrades to Oregon’s public records
laws.
The legislation, which should go before the 2017 Legislature, would
most importantly give priority to the
public’s right to know. Government
departments would have to make the case
why information should be kept from the
public, instead of the public having to
make the case for why it should be made
available. That places the burden where it
should be.
Rosenblum also asks the Legislature to
set clear deadlines for public agencies to
respond to records requests and provide a
manual for understanding exemptions.
It’s not a perfect solution, but a step in
the right direction. It makes it easier for
the public and the press to understand the process of our public servants
and thereby hold our government and its employees accountable for their
actions.
Yet, like everything, there’s a catch.
“It is important to emphasize that we cannot implement these suggested
reforms without the active support and involvement of our governor and the
Legislature,” Rosenblum noted.
In the past, the Legislature has woefully unresponsive on the issue —
after all, the public can use knowledge against them. But pressure must be
applied next year in order to help revive Oregon’s gutted public record laws.
Most every child’s most vivid memory of the county fair is the carnival.
Whether it’s a joyful, fearful or stomach-turning experience, it builds
character and the experience lasts a lifetime.
A kick in the pants to the debacle this
week at the Umatilla County Fair where
rides for the youngest thrill-seekers weren’t
available on Wednesday. We’re glad to
know safety standards are followed, but
disappointed that the subcontractor providing
the rides wasn’t up to speed with an Oregon
permit (as reported on Page 3A today).
The carnival scrambled and found another
supplier of the rides, but not before many had
already put money and time into their fair
experience.
The stalled rides have left a lot of folks, parents and kids alike, upset. And
rightfully so. Getting the whole family down to the fair can be an expensive
outing, and paying for it twice in a week because not all the attractions were
available the irst time around is unfair. Pardon the pun.
We’re glad to know Davis Amusements is giving those who bought
passes for Tuesday or Wednesday another free pass. We’d hope the fair
would follow suit and let those families back through the gates to enjoy the
rides.
A tip of the hat to the city of Hermiston for doing the requisite
pre-planning necessary to get the city’s public art scene off the pavement.
Some temporary or permanent
installations would be great for Hermiston,
and the city will sidestep some headaches
and confusion by putting the rules out
there irst. And the rules and discussion
might also inspire people to come forward
with some ideas of their own.
It looks like the city learned some
lessons from its neighbor Pendleton, which
had dificult roll-outs of unpopular projects
that left a bad taste in the mouth of many
residents.
By making its standards and the process
clear, Hermiston is now well situated to
avoid those hangups and be able to enjoy a more beautiful, interesting place.
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.
YOUR VIEWS
Comply with police and
probably be unharmed
Baltimore federal prosecutor Marilyn
Mosby has done the right thing,
even though she remains deiant and
unrepentant. She just dismissed the case
against the last of the oficers involved in
the Freddie Gray case.
However, this comes only after she
failed to prove her case against the irst
four oficers, a lawsuit was iled against
her by two of the oficers for false arrest
and defamation, and suggestions were
made that she may be disbarred or ired.
Even Maryland Governor Larry Hogan
has publicly stated she was wrong to
even ile these suits.
They were costly, too: $7.4 million
for the city of Baltimore for costs
related to the rioting and protests, then
another $6.4 million awarded to the
Freddie Gray family — awarded by the
Baltimore City Council before any of
the trials even started. So all the oficers
were found innocent, yet the family of
Freddie Gray gets rich anyway?
Most reasonable people are willing to
listen to the facts and make an informed
decision. I inally realize the Black Lives
Matter folks are not interested in facts
The Olympics make a grown man cry
omewhere between the Zika
The swimmer Dana Vollmer, a gold
medalist in 2012, stopped training,
stories, the doping stories and
became a mother and attended to her
the stories about what a fetid,
newborn. But the pool still beckoned,
toxic swamp Rio really is, I got the
and last weekend, just 17 months after
message: I was supposed to feel cynical
giving birth, she won a silver and a
about these Olympics, the way we feel
bronze in Rio. Good for her. Good for
cynical about pretty much everything
all women who don’t want to obey
these days.
some timeline that they never signed
I was supposed to marvel at our
Frank
on to or stay in a box of someone else’s
talent for making messes, cutting
Bruni
construction.
corners, evading responsibility,
Comment
These champions usually aren’t
procrastinating. Rio was a testament to
children of extreme privilege. Biles was
that, both as the host of the games and
separated from her mother, who battled drug
as a sublime, wretched theater of humanity.
and alcohol addiction, at an early age. Others
All the promises we fail to keep, all the plans
that go awry: They were and would be on vivid had worse odds and more daunting setbacks.
But they had a drive more powerful
display. I was supposed to shake my head in
than that. They swapped
disgust. Sigh in frustration.
resentment for goals. And
Instead I cried, and I
they worked. By God,
mean good tears. It was
did they work. We tend
Monday morning, and I was
to marvel at their freakish
telling someone what he’d
gifts, but we should marvel
missed on Sunday night:
even more at their freakish
how American swimmer
devotion. That’s what made
Michael Phelps deied
the difference.
age and his own stabs at
They invested hour upon
self-destruction to swim
hour, day after day. They
toward yet another gold, in a
sacriiced idle time and
men’s relay.
other pursuits. They honed a
How American gymnast
conidence that eludes most
Simone Biles, in the team
of us and summoned a poise
qualifying round, responded
that we can only imagine.
to the gaudy expectations for
They took risks, big ones.
her not by crumbling but by
And they pressed on, because there was this
meeting, even surpassing, every one of them.
thing that they wanted so very, very badly and
And then there was that tiny wisp of a
Brazilian girl — 4-foot-4, 16 years old — who the only way to know if they could get it was
to put everything on the line.
loated onto the balance beam, whirled the
I’m no naif. I know that there’s another,
length of it and turned in a near perfect routine
darker side to this — that some of them are
that no one expected. The roar from her
hometown crowd was so loud, so true, that I’m overly preoccupied with fame, with riches. At
least they’re earning it.
certain it crossed time zones. I bet it traversed
I know that there are laws in the system,
the stratosphere. No lottery winner, no matter
the purse, has ever matched the glow of elation even corruption. I’m reading and I’m hearing
plenty about that, about the inane remarks that
on her face.
NBC’s commentators have made, and about
I hadn’t even reached the part about the
the excessive commercial breaks that the
British gymnast who tumbled onto her head,
network builds into the prime-time telecast. A
stood up dazed and kept on going when I
certain crassness and greed have taken over.
myself had to stop, because I was suddenly so
choked up that I couldn’t get another word out. It’s true.
But I fear that with the Olympics, as with so
Don’t tell me what’s wrong with the
much else, we’ve let the language of complaint
Olympics. Let me tell you what’s right with
supplant the language of wonder, and there’s
them.
wonder aplenty here.
In a world rife with failure and bitter
Just watch Phelps kick or Biles vault
compromise, they’re dedicated to dreaming
heavenward, a force of will seemingly bound
and to the proposition that limits are entirely
for the stars. Just think about what it means to
negotiable, because they relect only what has
aim that high, commit that much and invite the
been done to date and not what’s doable in
eyes of the world to see it all come together or
time.
all fall apart.
They make the case that part of being fully
If that doesn’t put a lump in your throat and
alive is pushing yourself as far as you can go.
a tear in your eye, you’re made of stone.
Every Olympic record, every personal best
■
and every unlikely comeback is an individual
Frank Bruni has been an Op-Ed columnist
achievement, yes, but it’s also a universal
for The New York Times since June 2011.
example and metaphor.
S
I fear that with
the Olympics
we’ve let the
language of
complaint
supplant the
language of
wonder.
OTHER VIEWS
Legalize at the federal level
The (Boulder, Colo.) Daily Camera,
or the truth. They have an agenda that is
going to be pushed forth, regardless of
the facts. For example, a study published
by the journal Injury Prevention shows
that only about one in 291 police stops
or arrests ends in injury or death.
Ted Miller was the lead study author
and principal research scientist at
the Paciic Institute for Research and
Evaluation in Maryland. He says the
study shows those injured or killed by a
police oficer is more a function of who
resisted or put a weapon on the oficer
than what race they are. The Golden
Rule still applies — comply and you
will probably walk away unharmed.
The study also shows that children
are actually less likely to be seriously
injured or killed by police than older
folks.
So when you clear out the cobwebs
and fog of deceit, rumor and outright
lies, when you ilter that down to the
essence, you have nothing left but the
truth. Truth and honesty — that is what
really matters.
So can you handle the truth, BLM?
OK, then who killed Freddie Gray? It
was Freddie Gray.
David Burns
Pendleton
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public
issues and public policies for publication. Submitted letters must be signed
by the author and include city of residence. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave.
Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
olorado’s now yearslong experiment
with legal medical and recreational
cannabis markets has been mostly
positive and fascinating, and yet the federal
government has been slow to rethink its
decades-long prohibitionist position.
We hope the Obama administration takes
advantage of its historic opportunity to end or
take steps toward dismantling the destructive
war on pot. What an irony it would be if
Obama, who has openly admitted to pot use
in his early years, and who has shown great
tolerance toward local legalization laws,
left ofice without having moved the nation
away from the antiquated reefer-madness
enforcement of past presidencies.
The problem appears to be entrenchment
at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration,
which missed the July 1 deadline it set for
itself to reach a determination on whether
to reclassify marijuana from its current
— laughable — position as a Schedule I
substance. Like heroin, the classiication is
reserved for the most dangerous drugs with
which the DEA concerns itself.
Certainly the issues are complex. But few
of the social-ills predictions for Colorado
and the small handful of state and local
jurisdictions that allow recreational sales,
as well as the many that allow medical
marijuana, have come to pass. In June, for
example, data from the state’s Healthy Kids
Colorado Survey showed that marijuana use
among high school students has not increased
and tracks the national average.
Meanwhile, families trust medical
C
marijuana to help children with seizures
and other ailments. Patients with serious
conditions seek medical marijuana for a range
of treatments. They do so largely without
signiicant scientiic study to guide them.
Both medical and recreational markets
struggle with the fact that the federal deinition
of marijuana continues to block law-abiding
dispensary owners from access to banks,
creating a largely cash-only business model
that invites risk and related security expense.
The businesses also face enormous tax
penalties and layer upon layer of regulatory
hurdles few other legal businesses would
tolerate.
In the absence of sensible national rules,
Colorado also faces tensions when it comes
to regulating medical marijuana patients who
opt to grow their own, as we saw last month
when state regulators took action against four
doctors for recommending excessive numbers
of plants to patients. If marijuana were legal,
such problems would wither away.
We get it that ending marijuana prohibition
would be dificult. Back in 2012, when
Colorado voters were asking themselves
whether to support Amendment 64, we urged
them to vote against it for reasons speciic to
the amendment itself and yet also called for an
end to prohibition at the federal level, which
we considered the more appropriate approach.
Perhaps more debate is needed before the
feds can get behind full-scale legalization.
But without the kind of scientiic research that
prohibition shackles, it is dificult to see how
that debate could be well-informed.
The DEA should step up and look past its
ridiculous hard-line approach.