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OPINION
East Oregonian
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
TIM TRAINOR
Business Ofice Manager
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
High hopes
for expanding
drone industry
It should come as no surprise
end game is.
to our readers that drones are soon
In a perfect world, Pendleton
expected to quite nearly ill the
truly becomes a drone tech hub.
skies.
Developers have such a positive
experience in our little Western town
The Federal Aviation
that they set up permanent shop
Administration announced Monday
here, pay their employees a healthy
it expects 600,000 drones used for
salary and join our effort to make
commercial enterprises to be in the
Pendleton the best town it can be.
air in the coming year. They’ll be
They even decide to manufacture
used in everything from agriculture
their systems here, creating family-
to mapping to package delivery to
wage jobs and making good use of
journalism. It’s quite an increased
the industrial park
from now, when
located conveniently
they are lown
next to the
almost exclusively
There’s no doubt right
airport/UAS range.
by hobbyists and the
Pendleton is
But just as the
military.
FAA
drone
Pendleton has
playing a role in users requires
keep their
been angling for
years to become the
this new world machines in their
at all time,
“Silicon Sky” of the
of technology. sights
we don’t want to
industry, boasting
lose track of what’s
wide open spaces
feasible. We know
where developers
that manufacturers require a skilled
can test and reine their products as
and able workforce, adequate
the demand grows exponentially
housing and capable infrastructure.
in new directions. Jeff Lorton, a
Studies by Umatilla County and
creative director of an advertising
the city of Pendleton showed that
irm and one of the creators of the
Pendleton UAS Range Future Farm, workforce and housing are in short
supply, and Chrisman has explained
even compared the recent Drone
that prime industrial land is still
Rodeo as a Kitty Hawk moment
a few million dollars away from
for the industry, hearkening back to
having the minimal infrastructure for
the monumental irst manned light
such a development.
by the Wright Brothers more than a
Progress isn’t achieved by
century ago.
counting the hurdles and then
There’s no doubt Pendleton is
turning around and going home. And
playing a role in this new world
there is undoubtedly a huge drone
of technology. Paciic Northwest
industry about to take off, with
National Laboratories — the
billions and billions of dollars up for
Richland-based researcher with
grabs.
a greatest hits list including
But we need to know where
radioactive cancer treatments
Pendleton its. If we want to be an
and compact discs — is using the
accommodating place for developers
Pendleton airport range to test
to test their aircraft, we’re on the
unmanned aerial systems.
right track. We’re doing that well.
And Pendleton has the unique
But if we want to be a brand name
advantage of being allowed to test
associated with drone development
large drones at high altitudes. Right
(like we are with Round-Ups and
now commercial drones must be
Woolen Mills), we’ve got some big
less than 55 pounds and ly lower
problems to solve irst.
than 400 feet, but soon companies
If the city spends millions to
are going to want to spread their
build infrastructure that no one
rotor-propelled wings and take full
in the drone industry is asking
advantage of the skies.
them to build, we could solve one
We’ve been covering the
of those problems. But we could
development for years, including
then be looking at another piece
economic development director
of infrastructure that sits idle and
Steve Chrisman’s pitches to the city
council and the state’s funding of the empty in an industrial park that
attracts nothing but cobwebs.
range. We’ve also asked what the
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
Weak Oregon law
helps in Oracle case,
hurts public right to know
The Bend Bulletin
N
obody should know better the
weaknesses in Oregon’s public
records law than Gov. Kate
Brown.
Those weaknesses just helped her
ofice win a public records case with
the software company
Oracle.
The state of Oregon
and Oracle are battling
over who’s to blame for
Cover Oregon’s failure.
Oracle wants access to
emails by former Gov.
John Kitzhaber as part
of that case.
Kitzhaber used
three email accounts
to conduct oficial
business. There was an
oficial email account
and two personal accounts. The state
archived some of those records. Oracle
argued the state violated the public
records law by not disclosing the emails.
Circuit Court Judge Mary Mertens
James dismissed that speciic claim
earlier this week. The broader case of the
blame for Cover Oregon continues.
But look closely at this week’s
decision. The real loser is the public
because of the law.
The decision says the law does not
give a court the ability to review how
swiftly a public agency responds to a
request.
The decision says the public doesn’t
have much recourse if a public agency
doesn’t do a good job of keeping records
or searching for them.
The decision says
an elected oficial
can shield campaign-
related activities from
disclosure. That makes
sense to an extent. It
could also be abused.
Kristen Grainger,
a spokeswoman for
Brown, called the
decision “a double
win.”
“Governor Brown
is fully vindicated and
Oracle is foiled yet again in its repeated
desperate attempts to burden and harass
the state and waste public resources,”
Grainger wrote in an email to The
Oregonian.
But Brown’s ofice won this case by
arguing some of the weaknesses in the
very public records law she has pledged
to strengthen. When is she going to get
around to ixing the weaknesses?
OTHER VIEWS
The dumbed down democracy
A
once. The Princeton Review found
re you smarter than an
that the Lincoln-Douglas debates of
immigrant? Can you name,
1858 were engaged at roughly a high
say, all three branches of
school senior level. A century later,
government or a single Supreme Court
the presidential debate of 1960 was at
justice? Most Americans, those born
a 10th grade level. By the year 2000,
here, those about to make the most
the two contenders were speaking like
momentous decision in civic life this
sixth-graders. And in the upcoming
November, cannot. And most cannot
— “Crooked Hillary” against
pass the simple test aced by 90 percent
Timothy debates
“Don the Con” — we’ll be lucky to
of new citizens.
Egan
get beyond preschool potty talk.
Well, then: Who controlled the
Comment
How did this happen, when the
Senate during the 2014 election, when
populace was so less educated in the
control of the upper chamber was at
days when most families didn’t even have
stake? If you answered Dunno at the time,
an indoor potty to talk about? You can look
you were with a majority of Americans in the
at one calculated loop of
clueless category.
But surely now, when
misinformation over the last
election news saturation is
two weeks to ind some of
thicker than the humidity
the answer.
around Lady Liberty’s lip,
A big political lie often
we’ve become a bit more
starts on the Drudge Report,
clue-full. I give you Texas.
home of Obama-as-Muslim
A recent survey of Donald
stories. He jump-started a
Trump supporters there
recent smear with pictures
found that 40 percent of
of Hillary Clinton losing
them believe that ACORN
her balance — proof that
will steal the upcoming
something was very wrong
election.
with her. Fox News then
ACORN? News lash: That community-
went big with it, using the Trump adviser and
organizing group has been out of existence for free-media enabler Sean Hannity as the village
six years. ACORN is gone, disbanded, dead.
gossip. Then Rudy Giuliani, the internet
It can no more steal an election than Donald
diagnostician, urged people to Google “Hillary
Trump can pole vault over his Mexican wall.
Clinton illness” for evidence of her malady.
We know that at least 30 million U.S.
This forced Clinton to prove her stamina, in an
adults cannot read. But the current presidential appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel,” by opening
election may yet prove that an even bigger
a jar of pickles.
part of the citizenry is politically illiterate
The only good thing to come out of this is
— and functional. Which is to say, they will
that now, when you Google “Hillary Clinton
vote despite being unable to accept basic facts illness” what pops up are scathing stories
needed to process this American life.
about a skeletal-faced rumormonger named
“There’s got to be a reckoning on all this,”
Rudy Giuliani, and a terriic Stephen Colbert
said Charlie Sykes, the inluential conservative takedown of this awful man.
radio host, in a soul-searching interview
But what you don’t know really can hurt
with Business Insider. “We’ve created this
you. Last year was the hottest on record.
monster.”
And the July just passed was earth’s warmest
Trump, who says he doesn’t read much
month in the modern era. Still, Gallup found
at all, is both a product of the epidemic of
that 45 percent of Republicans don’t believe
ignorance and a main producer of it. He
the temperature. We’re not talking about doubt
can litter the campaign trail with hundreds
over whether the latest spike was human-
of easily debunked falsehoods because
caused — they don’t accept the numbers, from
conservative media has spent more than two
all those lying meteorologists.
decades tearing down the idea of objective
Of late, almost half of Floridians have done
fact.
something to protect themselves from the Zika
If Trump supporters knew that illegal
virus, heeding government warnings. But the
immigration peaked in 2007, or that violent
other half cannot wish it away, as the anti-
crime has been on a steady downward spiral
vaccine crowd on the far left does for serious
nationwide for more than 20 years, they would and preventable illnesses.
scoff when Trump says Mexican rapists are
I’m sorry that my once-surging Seattle
surging across the border and crime is out of
Mariners dropped two out of three games to
control.
the New York Yankees recently. I just prefer
If more than 16 percent of Americans could not to believe it. And look — now my guys
locate Ukraine on a map, it would have been a are in irst place, no matter what the skewed
Really Big Deal when Trump said that Russia
“standings” show. In my own universe,
was not going to invade it — two years after
surrounded by junk fact and junk conclusions,
they had, in fact, invaded it.
I feel better already.
If basic civics was still taught, and required,
■
for high school graduation, Trump could not
Timothy Egan worked for 18 years as a
claim that judges “sign bills.”
writer for The New York Times, irst as the
The dumbing down of this democracy has
Paciic Northwest correspondent, then as a
been gradual, and then — this year — all at
national enterprise reporter.
Most Americans
cannot pass the
simple test aced
by 90 percent of
new citizens.
The decision
says an
elected oficial
can shield
campaign-
related activities
from disclosure.
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. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton,
OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.