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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 22, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, September 22, 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 We’ve got 99 problems but this measure ain’t one In Hermiston and Pendleton, We think it’s worth it. outdoor school is an important part Talk to anyone who attended of each elementary student’s career. outdoor school and they will tell And when the program was you it’s one of the most memorable, threatened by reduced state funding rewarding and educational and cutbacks, each community experiences of their lives. They stepped up and learned about leveraged private themselves at dollars and Lottery money an important, if volunteer hours. awkward, moment should go School boards and of their lives. administrations They learned more to education made it a priority. deeply about their and the great classmates and they Together, they ensured the week- learned about their outdoors: long educational planet. program in the As an editorial This measure Blue Mountains board, we’re always does both. continued, even looking for ways when dollars were to span the urban/ thin. rural divide. This is Other districts have not been one way. For rural children, outdoor so lucky. In some of the state’s school helps them celebrate their poorer schools, or in places where culture and fall in love with their administration doesn’t see its value, own back yards, some for the irst outdoor school has been reduced time. For urban students, this is or it has been excised from the an opportunity to see what a great curriculum entirely. big state they live in, and perhaps Measure 99 is an attempt to stop appreciate the beauty of rural life that precipitous slide, to preserve and the natural world. and fund a staple of growing up and When voters created the Oregon being educated in Oregon. It takes Lottery in 1984, it was intended money from the Oregon Lottery and to support, among other things, speciically earmarks it for Outdoor education and our great outdoors. School. It does not raise taxes, This measure requires that about $22 but will capture money that could million of the revenue does both. have gone elsewhere in Oregon for Voters now should support Measure education or economic development. 99. 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 Dignity and sadness in the working class A few weeks ago I met a guy in adjusted, made the best of what was Kentucky who’d lived through every possible within my constraints and trend of deindustrializing America. lived up to my responsibilities. He grew up about 65 years ago on a There’s honor to that, too. Still, tobacco and cattle farm, but he always over the past many months speaking liked engines, so even while in high with people in these situations, I can’t school he worked 40 hours a week in help feeling that society is failing a garage. Then he went to work in a them in some major way, and not just series of factories — making airplane economically. David There is often a sad, noncumulative parts, car seats, sheet metal and casings Brooks pattern to working-class lives. In some for those big air-conditioning fans you Comment professions as you get older, you rise see on the top of buildings. to more responsible positions. And that Every few years as the economy was true under the old seniority-based work would shift, or jobs would go to Mexico, rules in factories. he’d get hit with a layoff. But the periods of But now there is a stochastic, episodic unemployment were never longer than six nature to many careers. As workers get older, months and he pieced together a career. potential employers become He’s in semiretirement more suspicious of their now, but he hasn’t been able skills, not more conident in to take a vacation for four them. As a result, you often years because he and his meet people who had been wife take care of her elderly happiest at work in middle mother, who has trouble age, and then moved down swallowing. He’s saved her to a series of positions they life 10 times so far with the were overqualiied for and Heimlich maneuver, and felt diminished in. they have to be nearby, in Furthermore, I often run case she needs it again. across people who have His best job came in the gone back to menial work middle of his career, when in their 60s and 70s because he was a supervisor at the they just want to get out of sheet metal plant. But when the house. When you ask the technology changed, he them more questions, you ind that they are was no longer qualiied to supervise the new devoted to home and work, but that they often workers, so they let him go. He thought he’d just come in quietly on his don’t have rich connections outside these spheres. inal day, clean out his desk and sneak away. Many of their friends came through work, But word got out, and when he emerged but those friendships tend to fade away when from his ofice, box in hand, there was a double line of guys stretching all the way from the job ends. There are older people who feel unneeded. There are younger people who feel his ofice in back, across the factory loor and lost. Somehow these longing souls never ind out to his car in the lot. He walked down that whole double line with tears lowing, with the each other. Suburbia isn’t working. During the baby guys clapping and cheering as he went. boom, the suburbs gave families safe places to We hear a lot about angry white men, but raise their kids. But now we are in an era of an there is an honorable dignity to this guy. aging population, telecommuting workers and Some of that dignity comes from the fact single-person households. that he knows how to ix things. One of the The culture and geography of suburbia are undermining conditions of the modern factory is that the workers no longer directly build the failing to nurture webs of mutual dependence. We are animals who can’t lourish unless products, they just service the machines and we can’t get along without one another. Yet software that do. one inds too many people thrust into lives of As the sociologist Richard Sennett once semi-independence. put it, “As a result of working in this way, the These are not the victims of postindustrial bakers now no longer actually know how to blight I’m talking about; they are successful bake bread.” But this guy in Kentucky can people who worked hard and built good lives take care of himself — redo the plumbing at but who are left nonetheless strangely isolated, home or replace the brake pads. in attenuated communities, and who are left He also had a narrative about his own life. radiating the residual sadness of the lonely It’s not the agency narrative you often ind in heart. the professional segments of society: I found ■ my passion and steered my own ship. It’s David Brooks became a New York Times more of a reactive, coping narrative: A lot of Op-Ed columnist in 2003. the big forces were outside my control, but I Suburbia isn’t working. The culture and geography are failing to nurture webs of mutual dependence. YOUR VIEWS City ponders remedy to deteriorating stairway The Pendleton City Council will be considering proposals to eliminate the deteriorating stairway on Southwest 13th near the Early Learning Center. Although this could not be veriied, proposals include a serpentine path, a tram such as the one at OHSU in Portland, a covered escalator, an elevator or, the most unlikely, a continuation of the new sidewalk up Southwest 15th and Goodwin Lane. The big question there would be which side of street, since the new sidewalk on the west side contains power poles and would require the cooperation of PP&L to relocate or move underground to make allowances for the handicapped and compliment those new corner handicapped-accessible curbs. That might, however, upset the close relationship the Arts Commission president has had in the past with securing statue grants from the utility. I have to agree with the lady who is concerned with the power cables and rubber mats present up and down Main Street during the Round-Up. I believe the city was not aware of this safety issue considering the Main Street show is still in its infancy. I’ve heard that a consulting agency will be hired to study this very problem, perhaps recommending a permanent electrical system be installed rather than those rustic-looking plywood temporary service meter centers currently used. This, however, depends entirely on whether the city of Pendleton and the Main Street Cowboys decide to continue the free show during Round-Up. Rick Rohde Pendleton Eastern Oregon must protect water resources As I read through the “Draining Oregon” articles in the Oregonian my thoughts returned to a quote in the New York Times from Thayliah Henry-Suppah, as well as a past comment from Alma Campbell, a Gilliam County rancher. “Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children.” “I will pass this land on in better shape than when I received it; and my parents left it in good condition.” As a producer, and past Gilliam SWCD chairman, I read the Oregonian articles with interest, and in entirety. What is my take, and what would be my ask? The job of restoring and retaining watershed function (soil health/groundwater, etc.) in Eastern Oregon is not yet complete. Having worked in this arena for the last two decades, this is not a surprise. This effort is an ongoing, forever adjustment to how we look at the land and water resource. • A 1938 SCS study from Gilliam County showed 25 percent of the croplands had already lost 75 percent of the topsoil through erosion (wind/rain). Producers have shifted toward conservation tillage/direct seeding; and much work remains. • As critical water issues developed in the Hermiston/ Boardman area, producers moved toward reporting use, managing statics, working to get off of the wells; and much work remains. • The challenge faced in restoring riparian vegetation to Eastern Oregon streams was signiicant; and yet the CREP program has returned vegetation to many streams, as discussed with Fifteen Mile Creek; and much work remains. This was never a long weekend project, and nothing will be gained by focusing blame on any one party, agency, senator, irrigator, etc. • It is time to bring funding for groundwater research in line with that available for addressing upland and riparian issues. • It is time to accept that funding for this research will be borne, to an extent, by those beneiting from the resource. • It is time to prepare for meters on all wells, as well as usage reports. Balancing of the resource will require these steps; and likely others as well. The alternatives to taking these steps, as shown in the Harney County example; can be far worse. My ask: The resources being discussed are held in common by all of us, and should be managed in common, balancing the economic needs of our rural communities with those of the resource. Walter Powell Condon The world is changing, and confusing to some I am lummoxed by the current political situation. We recently commemorated Constitution Day or Citizen’s Day. I was reminded that this nation is a work in progress and that the citizenry have a role in the reinement, progress, outcome, and our place in the world. A few years ago, Bill Bishop wrote “The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart.” In this book he describes how we have contributed to various cultural shifts from religion and politics to economics and geography via our own individual choices. We have self-sorted into neighborhoods and regions in order to live nearer to people who are more like us. We seek news sources: television, print media, social media, blogs, internet sites, and periodicals that conirm or reafirm our views, perceptions and preconceptions. We crowd source and simultaneously suffer from conirmation bias. Demographic and hegemonic shifts are also afoot, from race and gender to age and ethnicity. As such, major political parties are being redeined in ways that we may not have seen in this country since the days leading up to the Civil War. I am bewildered at my own poor abilities to grapple with issues and choices for which I seem to have little or no preparation. I am willing to accept responsibility for my choices, but I seem to lack the knowledge to make such a choice. Drowning in misinformation, biased information, or insuficient information, I ind myself lailing about in a sea of naiveté with currents and riptides pulling me this way or that, wondering if I will ever again stand on familiar terra irma. Kim B. Puzey Hermiston 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 let- ters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
