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OPINION
East Oregonian
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
MARISSA WILLIAMS
Regional Advertising Director
MARCY ROSENBERG
Circulation Manager
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
Business Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
OUR VIEW
OTHER VIEWS
Mad Trump, happy W.
Maad al-Zikry/Associate Press
Udai Faisal, an infant suffering from acute malnutrition, is hospi-
talized at Al-Sabeen Hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, last year.
The face of starvation A
This is the face of hunger. It’s hard
year, U.S. farmers grew 2.3 billion
bushels.
to look at, yet if you have a heart you
The huge stockpile drags on wheat
should not be able to look away.
The little boy in the photo, Udai
prices, which continue to hover at or
below farmers’ cost of production,
Faisal, died last year, and 1.4 million
threatening their livelihoods and
other children like him in far-away
places such as Yemen, Somalia, South well-being. Economists estimate that
Sudan and Nigeria face the same
if nothing changes, wheat prices will
awful fate. Some 20.4 million people
remain low for up to five years.
are caught up in famine across the
In a silo, that wheat is helping no
region.
one.
If the U.S.
They need our
Congress and
help.
Nobody, regardless the Trump
We know the
reasons — war,
of race or religion, administration
were to step
drought, political
buy that
corruption — but
deserves to die of forward,
wheat and send
none of the victims
it to sub-Saharan
were at fault.
malnutrition.
Africa and other
In February,
corners of the
United Nations
world gripped by hunger, it will save
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
millions of lives.
held out his hand and asked for
Congress and the White House
help. “We are already facing a
need to recognize our nation’s
tragedy; we must avoid it becoming
obligation to help the millions of
a catastrophe,” he said at a press
people who are facing starvation.
conference. He said the U.N. needs
There is nothing we’d rather see than
$4.4 billion by the end of March
U.S. Marines delivering shiploads of
to avoid that catastrophe. He has
wheat directly to the hungry people of
received $90 million.
sub-Saharan Africa and Yemen. On
In Ethiopia alone, 10.2 million
each bag should be printed a U.S. flag
people are in need and about 2.1
and the words: “From the People of
million are acutely malnourished,
Challiss McDonough, a spokeswoman the United States of America.”
An additional outcome of feeding
for the World Food Program, told The
people is they will ultimately be
Los Angeles Times. She estimates her
able to fend for themselves and
nonprofit has only 5 percent of the
resources it needs in that nation alone. grow their own food, stemming
the massive number of refugees
The U.N. and charities such as the
flooding neighboring countries and
World Food Program are fighting a
the rest of the world.
losing battle. They need food, and they
We have been at war 15 years. In
need it now, to rescue men, women and
children whose only mistake was to live Afghanistan and Iraq, we have sent
our young men or women into harm’s
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
way and spent more than $4 trillion.
The United States of America is
uniquely able to step forward and help. We can certainly afford to spend a
tiny fraction of that to save millions of
The U.S. already buys some food
for overseas aid programs, but it needs lives.
Nobody, regardless of race
to do more. According to USAID,
or religion, deserves to die of
the federal agency that provides food
malnutrition, especially when we have
aid, 795 million people worldwide
the food and the resources readily
suffer from chronic hunger. Although
available to help them get through this
USAID already sends $2.5 billion
crisis.
in food aid to those in need, we as a
Our hope is that Congress and
nation can and should do more.
President Trump will work together
It’s our obligation to humanity.
to provide more food aid for those in
We live in a land of plenty. Silos
need.
across the U.S. are bulging with
It’s the right thing to do, but it needs
excess wheat. According to the
to be done now. Every minute, and
USDA, 2.07 billion bushels of wheat
every life, counts.
were in storage as of December. Last
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.
nd a huge sigh of relief went up
But when he behaves more
in the land. The mad king could
normally, the guard comes down.
stay on script long enough to
It’s an optical delusion. People get
fake normality.
terrified by Crazy Trump. But really,
The truculent sovereign could be
that makes it easier to fight back,
yanked away, for a blessed hour, from
because we see the crazy right out there
Twitter to a teleprompter.
on Twitter.
He could emerge from his dystopian,
People were relieved at Calm
carnivorous man cave, guarded by the
Maureen Trump. But really, that’s more
fanged two-headed Stephenbeast of
potentially dangerous because if
Dowd
Bannon and Miller, and condemn the
he learns how to behave in a more
Comment
hate he spent so long stirring up.
measured, charming way on the
Liberal pundits were nonplused by
surface, he can put a disarming face on
the shock of the president using his “indoor
harsh policies or duplicitous practices.
voice,” as he traded the cudgel of “American
If he seems less like a mad man aiming to
carnage” for “the torch of truth, liberty and
rip everything apart, he can more easily rip
justice” in his maiden speech to Congress. For a everything apart.
moment, at least, the shrieking chorus dimmed,
When I asked Silicon Valley mogul and
the demands that Donald Trump be put in a
Trump adviser Peter Thiel recently if he was
straitjacket and that the 25th Amendment be
worried about Trump appointing heads of
invoked quieted down.
agencies who wanted to blow up those agencies,
Trump was at long last conforming, and
the contrarian replied that I had it backward.
following the norms of Washington. And that
“If you actually want to change things
always pleases Washington.
in D.C., who should you appoint?” he said.
He didn’t let the usual barrage of petty
“Maybe if you appoint someone who says, ‘I
insults fly or indulge in his loony lovey-dovey
want to shut down this whole agency,’ then that
talk about the lethal Vladimir Putin.
person will just have to deal with a staff revolt.
Mike Pence and Paul Ryan beamed behind
And everybody will ignore their orders for
the president, like the proud parents of a hockey three or four years.
goon who gets through the game without a trip
“So I think, in theory, to probably change
to the penalty box.
things the most, it’s better if you appoint
Liberal CNN commentator Van Jones was
someone who sounds like they’re not that
effusive in praising Trump for his paean to
controversial but then will just really work at
Ryan Owens, the Navy SEAL who died in the
changing things.”
first counterterrorism mission hastily authorized
As W. ambled back on to the public stage
by the new president.
a few days ago, promoting his new book of
“He became president of the United States
paintings and stories, “Portraits of Courage: A
in that moment, period,” Jones said, calling it
Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s
“one of the most extraordinary moments you
Warriors,” we had a vivid illustration of how far
have ever seen in American politics, period.”
likability can get you.
The emperor of chaos was able to muster
When Jimmy Fallon ruffled Trump’s hair
60 minutes 14 seconds of non-embarrassing
during the campaign, it was treated as a hideous
behavior before we were all ensnared once
breach, normalizing the invading vulgarian.
more in the bizarre and venal Russian subplot
But when Jimmy Kimmel joked with W. on
of the Trump presidency and another Twitter
Thursday night, the audience reacted warmly.
onslaught against Chuck Schumer and Nancy
Compared to Trump, it was like W. was the
Pelosi for having met with Russians.
soul of decency and self-deprecation, on his
What is the moral of this?
way to Mount Rushmore.
That if you talk more like a Washington
So does it really matter that his policies
insider than a barbarian at the gate, you’re more helped contribute to the greatest economic
likely to persuade people to raise the gate and
collapse since the Great Depression and the
let you do whatever you want, no matter how
worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history?
alarming or perfidious.
Asked by Willie Geist on “Sunday Today”
Trump critics resist in real time, wide-awake about his decision to send soldiers into Iraq and
to dangers. By contrast, the public and press
Afghanistan, W. replied lamely: “I don’t regret
belatedly woke up to Dick Cheney’s demented
sending soldiers into battle. I regret they got
fake news plot on Iraq because Cheney was
hurt.”
a known known, a Washington player with
Chatting about the Oscar flub, Kimmel
a capital boys’ club résumé and soothing
noted that W. had also been “involved in many
headmaster’s voice.
notable faux pas,” as W. laughed.
Ordinarily, Trump enjoys plots, gossip and
“Mission accomplished,” W. replied,
subterranean deals. But now he is frustrated by
smirking.
his rocky debut and increasingly paranoid about
It’s still too soon to laugh about “Mission
what he sees as the Vast Deep-State Conspiracy. Accomplished,” especially when peddling
When he froths about crowd size like
anguished portraits of wounded veterans. In
a bus-and-truck “Caine Mutiny,” when he
fact, it will always be too soon to laugh about
compares the intelligence community to Nazi
“Mission Accomplished.”
Germany and labels the press “the enemy of the
■
American people,” when he insists that black is
Maureen Dowd won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize
white and night is day and makes up whoppers
for distinguished commentary and served as
about voter fraud, the body politic’s defenses go a correspondent in the paper’s Washington
up on alert against the Trump virus.
bureau since 1986.
YOUR VIEWS
Hermiston School District
is bursting at the seams
Hermiston is the largest town in Eastern
Oregon and the second fastest growing school
district in Oregon.
Did you know that because we are
growing at such a fast rate the Hermiston
School District has had to utilize 34 modular
classrooms across the district since our last
school bond that passed in 2008? Most of
those modular temporary classrooms serve
320 students and most of them are located on
our elementary school campuses. The district
is on track to grow another 24 percent, which
equates to 1,100 additional students within the
next seven years. If this bond does not pass
there will be even more modular classrooms
throughout the district.
New and safe schools are good for
Hermiston’s economy. When businesses,
corporations or employee recruits are seeking
information about Hermiston, schools and
what they offer are typically at the top of the
list for inquiries, which leads to visits and
tours of the facilities. We have a lot to be
proud of and, in order to continue to grow
and provide for the needs of our students,
we must think about building and expanding
to adequately provide the classroom space
needed.
What is included in the bond? Replace the
aging Rocky Heights Elementary School on
the same site, build a new elementary school
on district-owned property located on Theater
Lane, expand Hermiston High School, replace
Highland Hills Elementary School on the
same site, and address deferred maintenance
issues at Sandstone Middle School.
We have been blessed with great
leadership, administration and faculty taking
us to new heights, and now is the time to back
them up with the facility improvements, safe
new schools, additions and space we need, all
for the benefit for our children and our future
leaders.
I am asking you to vote with me and
approve the Hermiston School District bond
that will be on your ballot May 16, 2017.
Debbie Pedro
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 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.