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OPINION
East Oregonian
Tuesday, June 20, 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
Zinke, Perdue listen
and break tradition
Farmers and ranchers throughout
of hope and change as it applied to
the West are accustomed to periodic
rural issues.
visits from cabinet officials from
You don’t fly 2,500 miles to tell
Washington, D.C. These tours have
a crowd that nothing is going to
been standard operating procedure for change.
administrations of both parties since
No surprises here.
before the New Deal.
We’d be willing to write it off as
So it wasn’t surprising when
business as usual, a harmless, fairly
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny
upbeat encounter that carried with it
Perdue and Interior
no real expectations.
Secretary Ryan Zinke
But, they also did
It’s not just
visited Idaho together
something a little
June 2.
something
farmers and different,
Bigwigs from
they’re still talking
ranchers who about in Idaho.
Washington always
come to town for
In a closed-door
are talking.
a reason, usually
meeting with 10
to deliver the
producers before the
administration’s talking points as they Boise State event, Perdue and Zinke
relate to a particular audience.
didn’t make speeches. They listened.
And Perdue and Zinke followed
“They just didn’t have an agenda.
tradition. They came to Boise State
They truly wanted to listen to us,”
University to vow that their two
said Aberdeen potato farmer Ritchey
departments will partner closely
Toevs. “It was a pro-producer
with states and communities on land
meeting. It was a completely different
management and other issues.
experience than I’ve ever had.”
It’s not just the farmers and
“We’re here to make that
ranchers who are talking. Gov. Butch
commitment to you today,” Perdue
Otter, a seasoned political hand who
said. “We’re (here) talking direct,
has attended these kinds of events for
eyeball-to-eyeball. We’re going to
years, was surprised.
make a (change) in the way we do
“They sat there for a solid hour and
business.”
listened to 10 different producers,”
Of course they are. Everyone,
Otter told the Capital Press. “In every
Democrats and Republicans,
case, both the secretaries ended up
promises big changes, something
with one question — ‘What can we
new and better. For eight years Tom
Vilsack, an affable Iowan who served do to help you?’ That’s refreshing.”
Indeed. It will be even more
as President Obama’s ag secretary,
brought the administration’s message refreshing if they deliver.
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.
CULTURE CORNER
Nautilus Magazine
Rock climber Alex Honnold allowed neuroscientists to map his brain — to
surprising results.
A peek inside Alex Honnold’s brain
orget what the commercials tell
you: Alex Honnold is the most
interesting man in the world.
He recently free climbed El Capitan,
the vertical cliff in Yosemite National
Park. Free climbed, as in without a rope.
Or a net. Or help from anyone else.
His accomplishments have been
profiled earlier this month in the The
New York Times and The New Yorker
magazine, and his El Capitan feat will
soon be immortalized in the pages of
National Geographic.
But now is a good time to look
back at this August 2016 article from
Nautilus, where Honnold allowed
neuroscientists a peek into how his
F
mind works. Is his brain broken? Is it
missing something essential that keeps
the rest of us alive? Or is it advanced far
beyond his fellow man, allowing him to
accomplish what we would never try?
We won’t give away too much, but
the results are fascinating. So, too are the
quotes from Honnold and hearing him
describe how and why he does what he
does. If you have a mountain to climb
in your life — literal or metaphorical —
reading about how the very best get to
the top can be very revealing.
Find it by typing “Alex Honnold +
Nautilus” into Google.
— Tim Trainor, opinion page editor of
The East Oregonian
OTHER VIEWS
Only mass deportation
can save America
I
n the matter of immigration, mark
demographic death spiral that now
this conservative columnist down
confronts Japan.
as strongly pro-deportation. The
Bottom line: So-called real
United States has too many people
Americans are screwing up America.
who don’t work hard, don’t believe in
Maybe they should leave, so that
God, don’t contribute much to society
we can replace them with new and
and don’t appreciate the greatness of
better ones: newcomers who are
the American system.
more appreciative of what the United
They need to return whence they
States has to offer, more ambitious
Bret
came.
Stephens for themselves and their children, and
more willing to sacrifice for the future.
I speak of Americans whose
Comment
families have been in this country for a
In other words, just the kind of people
few generations. Complacent, entitled
we used to be — when “we” had just
and often shockingly ignorant on basic points
come off the boat.
of American law and history, they are the
OK, so I’m jesting about deporting “real
stagnant pool in which our national prospects
Americans” en masse. (Who would take
risk drowning.
them in, anyway?) But then the threat of
On point after point,
mass deportations has
America’s nonimmigrants
been no joke with this
are failing our country.
administration.
Crime? A study by the
On Thursday, the
Cato Institute notes
Department of Homeland
that nonimmigrants are
Security seemed prepared
incarcerated at nearly
to extend an Obama
twice the rate of illegal
administration program
immigrants, and at more than
known as Deferred Action
three times the rate of legal
for Childhood Arrivals,
ones.
or DACA, which allows
Educational achievement?
the children of illegal
Just 17 percent of the finalists in the 2016
immigrants — some 800,000 people in all —
Intel Science Talent Search — often called the to continue to study and work in the United
“Junior Nobel Prize” — were the children of
States. The decision would have reversed one
U.S.-born parents. At the Rochester Institute
of Donald Trump’s ugly campaign threats to
of Technology, just 9.5 percent of graduate
deport these kids, whose only crime was to
students in electrical engineering were
have been brought to the United States by
nonimmigrants.
their parents.
Religious piety — especially of the
Yet the administration is still committed
Christian variety? More illegal immigrants
to deporting their parents, and on Friday the
identify as Christian (83 percent) than do
DHS announced that even DACA remains
Americans (70.6 percent), a fact right-wing
under review — another cruel twist for young
immigration restrictionists might ponder as
immigrants wondering if they’ll be sent back
they bemoan declines in church attendance.
to “home” countries they hardly ever knew,
Business creation? Nonimmigrants start
and whose language they might barely even
businesses at half the rate of immigrants, and
speak.
accounted for fewer than half the companies
Beyond the inhumanity of toying with
started in Silicon Valley between 1995 and
people’s lives this way, there’s also the
2005. Overall, the share of nonimmigrant
shortsightedness of it. We do not usually find
entrepreneurs fell by more than 10 percentage happiness by driving away those who would
points between 1995 and 2008, according to a love us. Businesses do not often prosper by
Harvard Business Review study.
firing their better employees and discouraging
Nor does the case against nonimmigrants
job applications. So how does America
end there. The rate of out-of-wedlock births
become great again by berating and evicting
for U.S.-born mothers exceeds the rate for
its most energetic, enterprising, law-abiding,
foreign-born moms, 42 percent to 33 percent.
job-creating, idea-generating, self-multiplying
The rate of delinquency and criminality
and God-fearing people?
among nonimmigrant teens considerably
Because I’m the child of immigrants and
exceeds that of their immigrant peers. A recent grew up abroad, I have always thought of the
report by the Sentencing Project also finds
United States as a country that belongs first
evidence that the fewer immigrants there
to its newcomers — the people who strain
are in a neighborhood, the likelier it is to be
hardest to become a part of it because they
unsafe.
realize that it’s precious; and who do the most
And then there’s the all-important issue
to remake it so that our ideas, and our appeal,
of demographics. The race for the future
may stay fresh.
is ultimately a race for people — healthy,
That used to be a cliché, but in the Age of
working-age, fertile people — and our
Trump it needs to be explained all over again.
nonimmigrants fail us here, too. “The increase We’re a country of immigrants — by and for
in the overall number of U.S. births, from 3.74 them, too. Americans who don’t get it should
million in 1970 to 4.0 million in 2014, is due
get out.
entirely to births to foreign-born mothers,”
■
reports the Pew Research Center.
Bret Stephens won a Pulitzer Prize for
Without these immigrant moms, the
commentary in 2013. He began working as a
United States would be faced with the same
columnist at The New York Times in April.
On point after
point, America’s
nonimmigrants
are failing
our country.
YOUR VIEWS
Boutique an improvement
over previous airline
Taking four flights between Pendleton
and Portland on Boutique Air has been a
smooth experience — consistently good
quality and no-muss, no fuss among
agents or pilots. Boutique service is
more professional than that of SeaPort
Airlines, which preceded Boutique.
Boutique has a first-rate terminal
building just yards from the long lineup
of airlines at Portland International.
And travelers going just to Portland
are not subject to body searches. Seats
in the eight-passenger cabin are an
improvement over the SeaPort seating.
Flights I have taken have been mostly
full. I appreciate the Boutique schedule:
three flights daily Pendleton-to-Portland
and three daily Portland-to-Pendleton.
Boutique is supported partly by
federal funds servicing rural parts of
the country, and the amount of support
depends partly on numbers of seats
sold. This airline does not meet all of
Umatillla county’s transportation needs,
but it is an important service.
Mike Forrester
Pendleton
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 phone number. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.