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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 13, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, August 13, 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 Not good enough for our students school students must be provided The Pendleton School District is 990 hours, except seniors, who are getting three new schools this year allowed to ease out of K-12 with — a huge upgrade to the learning environment — yet the construction 960 hours. Those are, however, among the season will push back the start of lowest minimum requirements of classes at those schools by three any state in the union, and pales in whole weeks. comparison to our Because of union closest neighbor. contracts, state rules Oregon is at In Washington DQGWKDWLQÀH[LEOH state, the state old Gregorian the bottom of provide at calendar, students the barrel when must least 450 hours are in danger of not meeting the it comes to the of kindergarten 1,000 minimum number hours students instruction, hours for students of hours Oregon 4-6 requires students are in school, in and grades 1,080 hours to spend in the and it shows. for high school classroom. students. Losing a few Even states at the weeks of classes bottom of the education rankings, may not seem like much in the like Alabama and West Virginia, grand scheme of a 12-year public require 990 hours for students education, but for those students through all elementary grades and who are already behind the eight high school. ball, it can be disastrous. Many Oregon is at the bottom of the teachers need to squeeze the most barrel when it comes to the hours out of every minute they have, and students are in school, and this year have an impossible task at that. Subtract a few weeks, and you have Pendleton students are in danger of not even clearing that low hurdle. a real problem on your hands — a Any way you measure it, Oregon problem that may remain unsolved has among the worst education and even be compounded for systems in the country. We fund it struggling students. poorly, and in turn it runs poorly And that’s the real injustice. and sets low standards that it barely While high-achieving students are more likely to bridge the gap during meets. And the product, when measured by high school graduation long summers and other breaks, rates, shows the defects. at-risk students are the ones who A simple way to start to get desperately need that class time to better is to keep children in school keep up. longer, and increase the number Every state sets rules for the of hours schools are required minimum number of instruction to operate and teach. Because hours a school must provide. In teachers, while part of the system, Oregon, full-day kindergarten are not part of problem. programs must offer at least 900 Yes, it will take more money hours along with their elementary DQGHIIRUW%XWLWZLOOEHD¿UVWVWHS and middle school peers. That’s to getting us get off the bottom a big jump from two years ago, of the pile when it comes to K-12 when most kindergartners spent education. 450 hours in the classroom. High 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 ambiguous wink wink to ‘Second Amendment people’ A nd that, ladies and gentlemen, against the Oslo accords,” and the is how Israeli Prime Minister security services who failed to heed the Yitzhak Rabin got assassinated. warnings that the incitement could get His right-wing opponents just kept out of hand. delegitimizing him as a “traitor” and “a “Mr. Rabin is almost invisible in Nazi” for wanting to make peace with WKH¿UVWWZRKRXUVRIWKH¿OP´VKH the Palestinians and give back part of reported. “Benjamin Netanyahu, the the Land of Israel. Of course, all is fair opposition leader at the time, is shown in politics, right? And they had God on Thomas in now-infamous historical footage their side, right? They weren’t actually Friedman addressing a feverish right-wing rally telling anyone to assassinate Rabin. That from a balcony in Jerusalem’s Zion Comment would be horrible. Square, as protesters below shouted for But there are always people down the death of Rabin — the ‘traitor’ — and the line who don’t hear the caveats. They just held up photomontage posters of him dressed in hear the big message: The man is illegitimate, an SS uniform.” the man is a threat to the nation, the man is the Netanyahu, now prime minister, insisted he equivalent of a Nazi war criminal. Well, you never saw the posters or heard the curses. know what we do with people like that, don’t I am sure that is what Trump’s supporters you? We kill them. will say, too. But Trump And that’s what the Jewish knows what he is doing, extremist Yigal Amir did to and it is so dangerous in Rabin. Why not? He thought today’s world. In the last he had permission from a year we have seen a spate of whole segment of Israel’s lone-wolf acts of terrorism in political class. America and Europe by men In September, I wrote and women living on the a column warning that fringes of society, some with Donald Trump’s language petty criminal records, often toward immigrants could with psychological problems, end up inciting just this kind often described as “loners,” of violence. I never in my and almost always deeply wildest dreams, though, immersed in fringe jihadist thought he’d actually — in social networks that heat his usual coy, twisted way — suggest that them up. They hear the signal in the noise. They Hillary Clinton was so intent on taking away the hear the inspiration and the permission to do Second Amendment right to be bear arms that *RG¶VZRUN7KH\DUHQRWFRROHGE\XQ¿QLVKHG maybe Second Amendment enthusiasts could sentences. do something to stop her. Exactly what? Oh, After all, an informal Trump adviser on Trump left that hanging. veteran affairs, Al Baldasaro, a Republican “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, state representative from New Hampshire, the Second Amendment,” Trump said at a rally already declared that Clinton should be “shot in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Tuesday. for treason” for her handling of the Benghazi “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, terrorist attack. nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second During the Republican convention, with its Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t repeated chants about Clinton of “lock her up,” know.” a U.S.-based columnist for Israel’s Haaretz Of course Trump’s handlers, recognizing just newspaper, Chemi Shalev, wrote: “Like the how incendiary were his words, immediately extreme right in Israel, many Republicans denied that he was suggesting that gun owners conveniently ignore the fact that words can do anything harmful toward Clinton. Oh my kill. There are enough people with a tendency God, never. Trump, they insisted, was just for violence that cannot distinguish between UHIHUULQJWRWKH³SRZHURIXQL¿FDWLRQ´<RX political stagecraft and practical exhortations know those Second Amendment people, they to rescue the country by any available means. just love to get on buses and vote together. If anyone has doubts, they could use a short But that is not what he said. What he said session with Yigal Amir, Yitzhak Rabin’s was ambiguous — slightly menacing, but with assassin, who was inspired by the rabid rhetoric just enough plausible deniability that, of course, hurled at the Israeli prime minister in the wake he was not suggesting an assassination. Again, of the Oslo Accords.” it’s just like the Rabin story. When I wrote about 3HRSOHDUHSOD\LQJZLWK¿UHKHUHDQGWKHUH this issue back in the fall it was to urge readers LVQRELJJHUÀDPHWKURZHUWKDQ'RQDOG7UXPS to see the new movie “Rabin: The Last Day,” Forget politics; he is a disgusting human being. His by the Israeli director Amos Gitai, timed for the children should be ashamed of him. I only pray 20th anniversary of Rabin’s assassination. that he is not simply defeated, but that he loses all As The Times’ Isabel Kershner reported 50 states so that the message goes out across the IURP,VUDHOZKHQWKH¿OPZDVUHOHDVHGLW land — unambiguously, loud and clear: The likes “is unambiguous about the forces it holds of you should never come this way again. responsible” — the extremist rabbis and militant Ŷ settlers who branded Rabin a traitor, the right- Thomas L. Friedman won the 2002 Pulitzer wing politicians who rode the “wave of toxic Prize for commentary, his third Pulitzer for The incitement against Rabin as they campaigned New York Times. People are playing with fire here, and there’s no bigger flamethrower than Donald Trump 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. YOUR VIEWS Umatilla County towns should compete for best puncturevine Pendletonians, let us join forces to claim a Number 1 in Umatilla County. Yes, as an individual, church, business, club or government group, travel to the county fair. Check out the plant exhibits, especially the open class. Then take a look at Hermiston’s puncturevine/goatheads and judge for yourself if ours are the larger, biggest and meanest plants. Missed going to the fair? Be sure and write the Fair Board to add on open class for a real weed — puncturevine. But stay away from tumbleweed, as west of Rew Elevator will take it hands down, even though the railroad right- of-way is growing some really nice tumbleweeds. Maybe next year’s request or a sure thing is yellow starthistle. Joseph LaVerdure Pendleton A refuge in the ballot measure storm 1RZWKDWLWKDVTXDOL¿HGIRUWKH ballot, there has been a noticeable increase in public discourse about what is now known as Measure 97, the corporate gross receipts tax measure. This ballot measure will continue to generate intense interest, with a deluge in advertising from opposing campaigns sure to follow. 2IWHQFDXJKWLQWKHFURVV¿UHRI WKHVHKLJKSUR¿OHEDOORWPHDVXUH battles is the average Oregon YRWHUZKR¿QGVLWLQFUHDVLQJO\ GLI¿FXOWWRNQRZZKHUHWKH\ can turn to obtain factual and unbiased information that they can understand. For these Oregonians, help is on the way. This month, the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) will take place on the campus of Western Oregon University in Monmouth. The CIR starts by identifying a panel of 24 randomly selected registered voters, who are politically and demographically representative of Oregon’s electorate. These ordinary citizens will come together to learn about Measure 97 from experts and from advocates for and against the measure. After four days of deliberation facilitated by neutral moderators, the panel will draft a “Citizens’ Statement” highlighting WKHLUPRVWLPSRUWDQW¿QGLQJV about the measure. This statement is then published in the statewide Voter’s Pamphlet distributed by the Secretary of State. The Oregon legislature established the CIR in 2011 so that voters would have easy access to clear, useful and trustworthy information at election time. It is administered by the Citizens’ Initiative Review Commission, DQGGHOLYHUHGE\WKHQRQSUR¿W organization, Healthy Democracy. The CIR Commission is comprised in part of appointees nominated by both Republican and Democratic legislators, and is the decision- making body that selects which ballot measure is to be reviewed. The Citizens’ Initiative Review is a unique voice in Oregon’s political landscape that all Oregonians can be proud of. Robin Teater, executive director of Healthy Democracy Portland