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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 27, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, May 27, 2017 OTHER VIEWS 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 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 OUR VIEW Lord willing and the creek don’t dry understand the needs of rural No one is pleased that the agriculture. Westland Irrigation District pulled Environmentalists are satisfied out of the Central Project plan earlier with the plan. And over a long this week. period of winning over one vote at Dollars that could have enriched a time, a majority in the Legislature members of the district (and local gave the basin $11 million to help tax coffers) have dried up — for fund the program. The state stepped now. The infusion of water that up to the plate and they likely won’t could have greatly increased land again, if we don’t and crop values the faith is likely to go There is no blaming reward they had in the elsewhere, if it basin. goes anywhere the bogeyman of at all. environmentalists, is in The our future hands And that’s what is at stake nor lamenting Salem now, and if we fail we have no now for the has forgotten our one to blame Umatilla Basin. ourselves. A Decades of corner of the state. but single lawsuit, work cobbling disputing the together votes application of water rights in the and funding, data and legal hurdles, district, is the project’s undoing. is at risk. There is risk, of course. Nothing J.R. Cook, director of the in water or entrepreneurship is Northeast Oregon Water guaranteed. It will take a spirit Association, said something to the of cooperation, of optimism, of East Oregonian editorial board can-do spirit and the desire to Wednesday that he never thought he’d say: The organization has water see improvement and change. It will take a lot of work. It will and nowhere to go with it. For years, farmers and developers take a recognition that relying on the Umatilla River and McKay and political representatives Reservoir for irrigation will only get throughout the basin have pleaded: worse, and that drawing down our Just let us access some water out of the Columbia River, and we’ll make underground water reserves — a a fantastic return on that investment. finite resource — has the ability to put future growth and sustainability We’ll grow more and hire more, in danger. Milton-Freewater and the pay more in property and business Walla Walla basin are learning that taxes, create growth in supportive lesson the hard way. industries. We’ll benefit ourselves and the entire region. That spirit could not be found But here we are, water all but in right now in Westland. We hope hand, and the window is closing. We for the sake of the region, it can have until April 2019 to spend those be found in next projects — East state dollars. and West — that need to start There is no blaming the showing progress. If not, we will bogeyman of environmentalists, nor have squandered a very lucrative opportunity that may not come lamenting that Salem has forgotten around again. our corner of the state, or doesn’t 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. The way they kill now A RRAS, France — In the from the element of surprise, from springtime of 100 years ago, turning a pop concert, a national holiday, nations that shared a Christian a Christmas market, into its own peculiar heritage slaughtered one another over Western Front. They bring an element of a few miles of mud. In just one battle, lethal menace to everyday life. When you see the prosthetics on the great powers of Europe fought display at the Museum of the Great for more than a month outside this War in the Somme Valley town of magnificently reconstructed medieval city, and suffered 280,000 casualties. Timothy Peronne — fake noses and eyes for faces scraped of their features by At the same time, French Egan artillery — when you try to imagine infantrymen began to mutiny after Comment 630,000 war widows in France in 200,000 of their young men fell — 1919, you can’t help but think that we dead, wounded or missing — in another have made progress of a sort. senseless grind of human flesh to the south. After all, the Great War, as it was initially All of that — the poisonous gas, the mowing down of teenage boys in ashen fields, called, sucked up lives at rate of almost 50,000 the legless legions of the Lost Generation — is a day at one point. The Germans committed behind us. In its place, a century later, are atrocities against civilians in Belgium and cowards who kill children in the name of reduced the Cathedral of Arras to rubble. The soil of Northern France, pockmarked with war religious perversion. craters, is all one big burial ground for lost Manchester, where the 22 died Monday souls — the graveyards you see, 410 military and more than 60 people were injured in cemeteries, and the graveyards you don’t see. the worst terrorist attack on British soil in When the war ended, after 17 million more than a decade, would seem small by deaths worldwide, a headline in Britain’s comparison. Some perspective is in order. Daily Mirror proclaimed: “Democracy But every war is awful in its own way. Triumphs Over the Last of the Autocrats.” Manchester was badly bombed during World If only. Another hundred-year anniversary War II. Those planes were under the command now marks the Russian Revolution — the of Adolf Hitler, a corporal in France during collapse of the czar, power seized by the World War I, who later reached deeper Bolsheviks, followed by decades of crimes into the bowels of hell searching for more against humanity committed by heartless and sophisticated forms of savagery. The homemade bomb that killed those kids autocratic followers of Karl Marx. The autocrats of modern terror seethe and at a concert a few days ago — one victim was plot in the shadows, and their control is limited an 8-year-old — packed a disproportionate to a handful of fellow child killers. Their design, amount of firepower. Old-fashioned war, as the saying goes, is diplomacy by other means. such as it is, is to sweep away basic democratic values and put Europe in lockdown. Britain just There’s a certain warped rationality to it. raised its threat alert to the highest level, and the What happened in Manchester is unexplainable. The Islamic State called the killer new French president, Emmanuel Macron, is seeking an extension of emergency powers for — identified as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, three more months. a British-born citizen of Libyan descent — a For something stirring to say, President soldier. Nothing could be further from the truth. Trump could look to his own passport, and the Abedi was a psychopath — dispossessed words of John F. Kennedy embossed inside: in a tired part of England, perhaps, and “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us warped by a toxic strain of Islam, but a well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear psychopath nonetheless. The question of the any burden, meet any hardship, support any moment is: Are there enough people like him friend, oppose any foe, in order to ensure the to destabilize Europe? World War I, after survival and the success of liberty.” all, started with the lone assassination of an And what exactly did Pope Francis tell obscure Balkan figure. him? Neither side is leaking. Francis is sly, The child killers of modern Europe have no though. He has enough sense of history to armies, no tanks or cannons at their disposal. know that the wars of today could easily They are stateless murderers plotting from failed-state ghettos like Libya. Their terror comes escalate into the wars of yesterday. YOUR VIEWS OTHER VIEWS A tradition of courage, honor and sacrifice M emorial Day is a holiday our citizens today have not been rooted in tradition. directly impacted by war. The Every year, thousands same cannot be said for our Gold of Oregonians participate in Star families, who have lost a ceremonies, parades and other loved one in service to our nation. solemn events. We can never forget the true But long before the first cost of war — a cost far beyond Memorial Day processions wound dollars and cents. A hundred their way down city streets, long Cameron years ago, in World War I, we lost before dignitaries across the over 115,000 dedicated service Smith country took to podiums to honor members — almost 1,000 of Comment service and sacrifice, the holiday whom were from Oregon. Those started, informally, with a much who survived the battlefields in simpler tradition: the laying of flowers Europe did not come home to a robust upon the grave of a fallen service system of veterans’ health care and member. benefits. But they banded together in It was in the wake of the American service organizations and fought to Civil War that communities began the advocate for the nationwide network of practice of decorating soldiers’ graves support we have today. with flowers. This military family Across the ages, from the beaches of and community tradition was later Normandy and the Pacific islands to the formalized as a national day of honor in mountains and jungles in Asia, countless Decoration Day, and what we now call Americans have stood up to serve and Memorial Day. have laid down their lives. At the most In 1866, no family or community was basic level, they fought to protect the untouched by the Civil War. America’s one on their right and the one on their bloodiest conflict resulted in over 1 left, but ultimately their fight protects million casualties and claimed over us all and preserves the values we hold 620,000 lives. The impacts of the war dear. were intensely and personally felt across This Memorial Day, as we kick the nation. off the start of summer and turn to Today, over 320,000 veterans call enjoy Oregon’s incredible parks, Oregon home. We are a strong and diverse beaches, rivers and mountains, we must community, spanning four generations encourage all citizens to pause and honor across five major wars. With every veteran our fallen and Gold Star families. We counted, we must also recognize the stand on the shoulders of all those who sacrifice of their spouses and families, came before us and will never forget our who served on the home front while their veterans’ service, especially those who loved ones were in uniform. made the ultimate sacrifice. Thank you At the same time, we must for your support of Oregon’s military, acknowledge that today’s battles are veterans and their families. fought by less than 1 percent of our ■ population. The weight of the most Cameron Smith served three tours in recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan Iraq as a Marine and is director of the has been borne by the few. Most of Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs. ‘Death Panel’ must be put down The GOP failed to repeal Obamacare, and with that, left in place one of its most destructive pieces. The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), sometimes called the “Death Panel,” is a provision of Obamacare disliked by Republicans and Democrats alike. It was recently triggered to go into effect, but it is not too late to change that. The IPAB is a board of 15 individuals tasked with the politically difficult goal of reducing Medicare costs. The board frees politicians from accountability for tough decisions, but it does it by making no one accountable. Membership on the board is limited to “experts,” not physicians or those associated with a hospital. The IPABs recommendations are submitted to Congress to pass into law, but if Congress does not act on the recommended changes, they are automatically implemented by the board. This means 15 unelected technocrats are creating law without any accountability, “laws” that were not enacted by Congress in any way or form. Board members can be appointed, but not fired, by the President. To who or what the board is accountable to is still unknown. The IPAB is so “independent” they are answerable to no one. Increasing health care costs have triggered the creation of the IPAB, and a resolution to disable it needed to be passed by Congress by February 1, 2017. America now has a board with almost infinite powers in an area where people’s lives are at stake. Never has America seen such flagrant disregard for the rule of law and the procedures by which the people are governed and represented. We vote for our elected officials to create and pass laws on our behalf. That’s the definition of a republic. We do not expect, nor do we want, the technocrats in Washington to create policies and laws for us to live by. Our seniors deserve Medicare as promised by their elected officials. Our members of Congress often run on planks protecting Medicare but the 15 individuals on the IPAB do not promise such protection and are not accountable for their decisions. Now is the time for leadership. I urge Rep. Greg Walden to go a step further beyond support, and lead his colleagues by co-sponsoring House legislation (HR 849) to repeal IPAB and regain congressional control over Medicare policy. Jeff Reynolds Portland How will new trail affect traffic? There have been several articles regarding new projects in Hermiston. Improving turn lanes for trucks, the new senior center project, etc. Today it is stated in the East Oregonian that the Highland Trail/bike lane will probably begin in early 2018. No one has explained how this will affect the 11th Street and Highland church on the corner with beautiful lawn, sidewalk and shrubs and an entrance/exit onto Highland, or the two exits/entrances to the adjoining apartment or to 13th Place and 13th Street. Someone on this committee should spend a day on Westland Avenue and see the “395” traffic 24/7 who have getting through the lights just fine and the use of the apartment accesses for 42 apartments. All we need all the way on the north side of Westland to the river is foot traffic. Please explain how this will be done for pedestrians and bikes. Also, Highland Avenue is used for produce trucks and to move farm machinery to fields plus other various truck traffic with no problems. Jacqueline Hood 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.
