VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, April 8, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 5A
You can get anywhere from here
I was a passenger in a van headed out
before sunrise hoping to find sage grouse on
their mating leks, a tour offered by the John
Scharff Migratory Birding
Festival in Harney County.
The man sitting next to me
was from Seattle. “When you
retire,” he asked our Fish and
Wildlife Service guide, “you’ll
be moving closer to the city,
right? Portland, or Seattle?”
Oh, no, said our driver. He
loved Harney County. All
this sky, the sage around us.
Besides — he waved his arm
— “You can get anywhere
from here!”
He was talking about highways. I knew
that. I live in Pendleton, and we say the
same thing (Boise, Spokane, Portland, John
Day? We’re at the hub!). Still, I couldn’t stop
smiling. I’m not only a rural person but also
a writer, and writers, too, believe you can
get anywhere from here. It’s what keeps us
writing.
Headlines these days would have us
believe we fall into one of two categories:
them and us. Just who is this “other?”
Muslims, as we’re being told? Trump
supporters? Liberal “elites?”
Even dry and wet side
Oregonians can feel separated
by more than distance.
But I’ve seen writing break
those barriers. It isn’t automatic,
and it certainly isn’t easy. Many
drafts, much crumpled paper.
Midnight oil. Don’t quit your
day job. All of that, and more.
And yet.
“I didn’t know anyone
else felt like this,” the woman
said. She was sitting next to the classroom
window in BMCC’s Umatilla Hall, a middle-
aged white student with tears welling in her
eyes. We had been reading James Baldwin’s
short story “Sonny’s Blues.” I didn’t know
if she had a younger brother struggling with
a heroin addiction or an African-American
uncle who had been run down on a dark
highway, or a beloved two-year-old daughter
who had died of polio. I doubted it. But what
It’s harder to
hate people
who have
feelings like
your own.
Quick takes
WIcked Kitty owner, drug
dealer gets no prison time
Wow ... all I can say is ... WOW!
— Janet Mcgowan Taylor
Close the doors already!
— SPH
Amen he almost made my (breasts) off
by piercing my areola instead of my nipple.
Oh god the pain — had to tell my local
piercer to help me get them out.
— Kendall Wigginton
No PERS plan yet this session
Not wise.
— Candace Gates
Good! Leave police, teachers and fire-
fighters retirement alone. We work hard
for the day we can retire, and changing the
system is breaking the promise the state
made to each of us.
— Matt Fisher
Kick the can down the road for another
year.
— Steven Pelles
Bankruptcy.
— Arne Swanson
One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is
that much can be summed up in just a few words.
Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours
@Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian.
com, and keep them to 140 characters.
she had was deep.
It’s April, National Poetry Month. Don’t
be surprised if someone tucks a poem into
your pocket.
Don’t worry: it’s not a test. It’s a
connection. A glimpse into a human life that
just may bring a lump to your own throat as
you recognize your own feelings in someone
else’s words. Your own human vocabulary
will expand, too, as you imagine — live, in
a way — the experiences of others that are
different from your own.
Novels will do this, too. Plays. And
memoir. When we read the stories of other
people’s thoughtfully examined lives, no
matter how different those lives are from our
own, we better understand ourselves.
It’s not magic. It’s just the way we are.
When the National Endowment for the Arts
bumper stickers tell you ART WORKS,
that’s what they mean. Also: It’s harder to
hate people who have feelings like your own.
■
Bette Husted is a writer and a student of
T’ai Chi and the natural world. She lives in
Pendleton.
B ette H usted
FROM HERE TO ANYWHERE
State teaches how to save money
F
or decades, the Oregon State
research shows that saving for college
Treasury has excelled at
makes students three times more
investing the pensions of
likely to enroll and four times more
state workers and making sure
likely to graduate, regardless of the
other state agencies’ banking
amount saved. The implication is
needs are met. We are proud to
clear: Saving specifically for higher
do so, but we also want people to
education tells your loved ones that
know that we manage programs to
you believe in their future. That
help individual Oregonians invest
makes them believe it, too.
Tobias
in their own futures.
The Oregon College Saving Plan
Read
In 2001, Treasury launched
allows Oregonians to save to send
Comment
the Oregon College Savings Plan
their kids to any accredited university,
with the simple goal of helping
community college or trade school
Oregonians save to send their children
in the country. Most of the time, that
and grandchildren to college or vocational
money stays in the state as students opt to
school. More recently we launched the
study closer to home. And when students
groundbreaking Oregon ABLE Savings
graduate, they bring needed skills and
Plan, which allows people with disabilities
knowledge to build their communities. They
to save toward financial independence
bring new technology to the family farm.
without risking critical public benefits.
They start businesses. They become local
And this summer, we will begin rolling out
leaders.
OregonSaves, which will give all working
Oregon College Savings Plan accounts
Oregonians the opportunity to save for
now have $1.5 billion in assets, including
retirement at work.
more than $9 million already saved by
April is Financial Literacy Month and
Umatilla County families to help fund their
one of the smartest money moves that
higher education goals.
Oregonians can make is to save for their
The tax advantages available to those
own futures and the futures of their family
saving for college is now available to
members.
people and families living with disabilities
This week, staff from the Oregon
through ABLE. By saving money through
College Savings Plan and Oregon ABLE
ABLE, people and families with disabilities
Savings Plan will be in Pendleton to talk
can save hundreds of thousands of dollars
about how you can use these programs to
without losing Social Security or Medicaid
meet your financial goals. Please join them
eligibility. ABLE funds can be used to pay
Wednesday, April 12 at Blue Mountain
for any health, independence or quality
Community College at 6 p.m.
of life improvements including housing,
When it comes to college savings
transportation, training and much more.
Free events in Pendleton
College Savings 101
April 12, 6-6:45 p.m.
Blue Mountain Community College
Science & Tech Building, Room 214
Pendleton
ABC’s of ABLE
April 12, 6:45 to 7:30 p.m.
Blue Mountain Community College
Science & Tech Building, Room 214
Pendleton
Living with a disability shouldn’t force
a person to live in poverty to be eligible
for vital benefits, like Medicaid and
Supplemental Security Income.
ABLE helps people with disabilities
to save money while accessing critical
programs and opportunities and to fully
participate in their communities. It offers
their families the peace of mind that can
come from knowing that money is there for
expenses to come.
Big goals can often seem intimidating,
but taking the first step is key. It’s said
that when Einstein was asked for the most
powerful force in the universe, he identified
compound interest. The Oregon State
Treasury is working hard to make it easier
for you to use that power to build the future
you want for yourselves and your loved
ones.
■
Tobias Read is the Oregon State
Treasurer.
We’re creating a world with just us humans
W
e live in a
hunger, population
time where we
pressure and cultural
are heading
norms, then multiply all
towards a world without
that by corporate greed,
wildlife. We have a voice
energy development, rapid
and a vote, yet we elect
deforestation and climate
people who support
change, and you begin to
the destruction of what
understand the true cycle
makes our planet livable.
Stephen of genocide that modern
But perhaps our gravest
civilization is waging
Capra
sin continues to be our
against wildlife — and
Comment
treatment of wildlife. How
ultimately itself.
is it that, given an earth so
We have a long history
rich in life, humanity has chosen to of destroying wildlife. The Great
Plains remains for many the
kill — to destroy — the oasis we
centerpiece of America’s shame,
have been granted?
We live in a time of great
the site of a wanton waste of
knowledge about animals, and
wildlife, which left species like
many people have become
the passenger pigeon extinct and
advocates for all species. Yet
the bison all but gone. In order
prejudice, war and social unrest
to destroy the Native American
make even our relationships with
cultures and take control of the
our fellow humans complex.
land, many of us saw the killing
Governments are already slow to
of wildlife as almost a patriotic
act to protect the natural world.
endeavor. The aftermath of decay
Now, consider how hard we
and dried bones scattered across
find it to deal with species that
a vast expanse of America marks,
look nothing like us, that live
without question, wildlife’s own
underwater or fly through the sky,
“Trail of Tears.”
that compete with us for food or
Our growing awareness of the
could even make us their next
decimation of the West’s native
meal.
species eventually inspired the
enactment of laws and regulations
Add into the mix poverty,
designed to prevent such a killing
spree from occurring again.
Conservationists began working to
make people understand the value
of species that do not resemble
human beings.
In 2014, the World Wildlife
Fund issued a report with the
Zoological Society of London,
which found that a number of
species of wild animals had lost
half their populations in 40 years.
The culprits were many —
humans killing wildlife for food
in unsustainable numbers, the
pollution and destruction of habitat.
The report went on to point out
that we are “cutting trees faster
than we regrow them, catching
fish faster than the oceans can
restock, pumping water from rivers
and aquifers faster than rainfall
can replenish them, and emitting
more climate-warming carbon
dioxide than oceans and forests can
absorb.”
The most rapid decline of
wildlife populations has occurred
in freshwater ecosystems, where
wildlife numbers have plummeted
more than 75 percent since 1970.
Yet most of us continue to
confront such situations with a
shrug of recognition, a new-normal
sense of futility, or maybe the
vague hope that science will
ultimately save us from our
madness.
Right now, we are witness to the
last great extinction of species in
our history, one that, if not stopped,
will remove the final barrier to
our complete isolation as humans.
Think of the karma we will inherit
for our refusal to share our world
and to accept our responsibility to
live in harmony with all species.
The shift to harmony may only
be realized after the implosion of
our material-based society, once
we make massive shifts in our
diet and break the back of the
corporations that feed the sickness
in our society.
But most of all, it requires
leadership — placing in power
people who respect all species and
understand the value of a shared
earth. This change will only come
with basic human kindness and
love. If we pass laws that end
cruelty and protect more lands and
more waters, we can truly embrace
the concept that all life matters.
Like all politics, this shift must
begin locally; like all education,
it requires great teachers who
will provide the next generation
the chance to get it right. What is
different for wildlife today is that
we are running out of time. We
cannot look to make change in 20,
30 or 40 years. The change must
happen now.
We are moving towards a world
without wildlife, not because
we want it, but because we have
not accepted a formula that truly
allows coexistence.
That formula will only exist
when society, nations and people
understand the limitations of being
human — when we accept such
limits on ourselves in order to
share, not control, the world we
live in.
The Zen of that concept is the
deeper connection and relationship
with species that will enrich our
lives. Only then will we have
finally matured as the species we
call human.
■
Stephen Capra is a contributor
to Writers on the Range, the
opinion service of High Country
News. He is the executive director
of Bold Visions Conservation,
based in New Mexico.