Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Friday, August 4, 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
Tip of the hat,
kick in the pants
A tip of the hat to the volunteers who spent Saturday preparing the
new Umatilla County Fairgrounds for its first big show, and those putting
in extra hours this week getting ready to
welcome the crowds next week.
Moving is never easy, even if it’s from a
smaller place into a bigger one, and putting
on a fair and rodeo is a monumental task in
itself. We’re watching all the pieces come
together this week and hoping the first year
in the new home is a success.
One thing to keep in mind: This will be
a learning experience for everyone. With so
many organizations getting used to the new
fairgrounds at the same time, there will be
plenty of bumping elbows and bouts of confusion. A good dose of patience
and understanding will go a long way.
We look forward to seeing the new facility put to use. Make sure to stop
by and visit the East Oregonian booth in the air conditioned event center.
A tip of the hat to the Pendleton Air Museum finding a home downtown.
The Pendleton airport has a rich aeronautical history, including acting
as training grounds for both the Doolittle
Raiders during World War II and the
all-black Triple Nickles smokejumping
unit. A permanent home for the nearly
30-year-old museum is well warranted,
and putting it in historic downtown near
the Underground Tours and the Heritage
Station Museum is a good move. At least
until it gets some wind beneath its wings.
We look forward to touring the WWII-
centric exhibits in the coming months, and
the possibility of a larger location telling
the history of the National Guard Chinook training facility, agricultural crop
spraying and, hopefully one day, the emergence of the drone industry.
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
Tell Walden not to sell
the sky to the airlines
By KRIS CRAIG
Efficiency, compassion, timeliness,
and integrity: These are all words that
nobody in their right mind would ever
associate with today’s airline industry.
And yet, just recently, a House panel
voted to put the major commercial
airlines in charge of air traffic control
nationwide.
Here’s how this brilliant idea works:
All air traffic
control, both in
terms of safety
and the collection
of fees, would be
handed over to a
private corporation
that the major
airlines largely
control. This
basically places
the sky itself under
the authority of the
same geniuses who
brought us such
innovations as “non-internet booking
fees” and dragging customers off of
overbooked flights. Only an abject fool
would entrust the people responsible for
one of America’s most failed industries
with such unchecked power.
Privatizing might sound like a good
conservative idea, but consider who
the government wants to sell to: The
airlines. You know, the people who
needed government bailouts because of
their ineptness. Who better to manage
the sky over our heads than a bunch of
buffoons who couldn’t even manage
their own businesses without taxpayer-
funded bailouts?
Another problem is that the same
airlines that brag about inventing new fees
to compensate for a fundamentally broken
business model would essentially have the
power to collect from anyone who wants
to fly, including licensed pilots in their
own private planes, which groups like the
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
strongly oppose. If you were to charter
a private flight out of La Grande/Union
County Airport, for example, either you
or the pilot would still be on the hook for
whatever fees the airlines demand.
Unsurprisingly, the major airlines are
willing to pay large sums of money to
“persuade” members of Congress to let
them have their way yet again. That’s why
it’s important for voters to examine their
representatives’ campaign contributions
and make sure they’re held accountable.
Whenever anyone criticizes our politicians
for being on the take, the politicians
always respond by insisting that campaign
contributions don’t have any effect,
whatsoever, on how
they vote. The fact
that they always
seem to vote the way
their biggest donors
want is purely a
coincidence.
So here’s
my preemptive
response to that
argument: Prove it,
Mr. Walden. Prove
it by voting against
any legislation
that would hand
over our public skies to the airline
industry. Prove it by standing up for
your constituents instead of the special
interests who so eagerly line your
pockets. If you’re still not convinced,
imagine what the world might look like
with the airlines in charge of everything.
To be fair, there are some things that
the airline industry might do well. They
would be uniquely qualified to oversee
our nation’s prisons, for example. After
all, if anyone knows how to herd people
like cattle into a small, overcrowded space
and make them wait an excruciatingly
long period of time, it’s the airlines. On
the other hand, even prisoners are allowed
to use the bathroom … I could go on, but I
believe I’ve made my point.
Regardless of your ideological views
on government and privatization, handing
control of our skies over to the big
airlines is about as bone-headed a move
as Congress could make. That is why I
urge you to call Congressman Walden
at 202-225-6730 and tell him not to
outsource our safety to the airline industry.
■
Kris Craig is a columnist who lives in
College Place.
Only an abject fool
would entrust the
people responsible
for one of America’s
most failed
industries with such
unchecked power.
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.
OTHER VIEWS
I
Can people change
after middle age?
sometimes read that people don’t
Peter really care how low his handicap
change much after middle age. But
was?
everyday experience contradicts this
“In the dark recesses of my mind I
on a weekly basis.
didn’t trust people enough to let them
For example, this week in
know what was going on.” Then he
Shreveport, Louisiana, I met two
was handed a book called “The Master
guys in their 60s named Bo Harris
Plan of Evangelism” and by Page 5 his
and Mike Leonard. Bo was a football
life was altered.
star at Captain Shreve High School.
Shreveport saw a lot of ugliness
David
During his junior year, the school was
Brooks during the civil rights era. But it is
integrated, but in the worst possible
fortunate today to have Community
Comment
way.
Renewal, one of the nation’s most
The black players, whose high
impressive community-building
school was closing, were told to watch the
groups. Community Renewal builds
existing team practice through a chain-link
settlement houses for kids in crime-ridden
fence. Words were exchanged and Bo went
communities. It sponsors over 1,500 Haven
out and pinned one guy, who had a broken
Houses in neighborhoods rich and poor
bottle in his hand, up against the wall before
where volunteers sponsor activities and build
administrators intervened.
relationships. It’s one of the most successfully
Racial tensions ripped through the school,
integrated organizations I’ve seen.
and for his own safety
Mike pulled out of his
Bo was told to come
dental practice at age 49
to school only for the
and works at Community
classes he absolutely
Renewal, often without
needed for graduation.
pay. Bo heard about
He went on to play
the organization from a
linebacker at LSU and
member of his breakfast
wasn’t always a gentle
group and is now a
soul. “Anger was a
volunteer and donor.
resource I called upon
When I sat with Bo and
on the field” — and
Mike after the staff and
sometimes off it.
volunteer meeting on
Mike joined Bo on
Monday, three things
the LSU football team a
struck me, which often
few years later, though
strike me about people
they didn’t get along.
who have transformed
Mike’s father, who died
their lives for the final lap.
when he was 14, had the
First, they’ve gone
bigoted attitudes of the
through a sort of moral
time and place. Mike
puberty, as if a switch
was raised in that tough
turned. They’ve lost most
guy culture. Once, an
of their interest in egoistic
LSU fan threw a whiskey bottle at Mike and
calculation and some sort of primal desire for
hit him in the back. Mike charged the stands to generativity has kicked in.
take revenge.
Second, they have what Baylor’s Paul
Both went on to lead successful lives. Bo
Froese calls existential urgency, and obsessive
played for the Cincinnati Bengals for eight
connection to a social problem. When Gallup
years before returning to Shreveport to work
asked people around the world in 2007 if they
as a financial adviser. Mike created one of the
felt a sense of meaning in their lives, Liberia
city’s most successful dental practices.
came out as the nation where most people felt
And things went on that way for a few
they led meaningful lives and the Netherlands
decades. Until they didn’t.
came out last. It’s not that life is always easy
Bo joined a group of 14 guys who had
in Liberia, but people are gripped by an urgent
breakfast together every week. The friendships and communal desire to address the problems
opened his heart. Then in 2009 he was driving around them.
with his preteen son with a .45 automatic
Finally, they speak in the middle voice.
rattling around on the dashboard. Bo heard an
Sometimes we speak in the passive voice,
explosion and felt a pain in his leg worse than
when things are happening to us. Sometimes
anything he’d experienced in the NFL.
we speak in the active voice, when we’re
His son called 911 and drove the car
lecturing and taking charge. But mature
to a place where they could be met by an
activists speak in the middle voice, which
ambulance. The EMT looked at Bo and said,
is receiving and volleying, listening and
“In all my years of doing this, I’ve never seen
responding, the voice of equal and intimate
a guy as lucky as you.” The emergency room
relationship.
doctor and nurse said the same thing. If the
Mike says his younger self would have
bullet had gone one way it would have hit an
looked at his current self as some sort of crazy
artery and killed him. If it had gone the other it person. “I was unused to crying all the time.”
would have meant amputation. Bo was left in
But leaving the practice “was the greatest
his hospital room to think about life.
decision I ever made.” People change all
Meanwhile, Mike was prospering in the
along the way.
normal way, serving his patients, going to
■
church and playing golf. But internally, he was
David Brooks has been a senior editor at
troubled. He heard about Arnold Toynbee’s
The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at
theory of civilizational decline and worried
Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly, and he is
about America. Personally, he felt unfulfilled.
currently a commentator on “The Newshour
When he went to the Pearly Gates would St.
with Jim Lehrer.”
They’ve gone
through a sort of
moral puberty, as
if a switch turned.
They’ve lost most
of their interest in
egoistic calculation
and some sort of
primal desire for
generativity has
kicked in.
YOUR VIEWS
Economic growth doesn’t
come to those who wait
City officials have touted the savings
in time and money by upgrading all their
computer software in public works. Now we
need $503,000 to gather data for our street,
sewer and storm drain systems to establish a
database of some sort. That includes counting
and evaluating street signs and their reflective
condition, and also counting trees. Looks like
we’ll be sending most of that money to an
engineering firm in La Grande. Now here’s the
good news: It’s already in the budget except
for about $95,000.
They’ve come up with a simple solution.
Rather than cut the giveaways like the
Downtown Business Association or Rivoli
Theater restoration, it’ll be coming out of the
street maintenance fund so we can still pay
for the more important stuff like moving the
Eighth Street bridge to Main Street. Perhaps
we could keep some of that money in Pend-
leton if the city could get those people that are
leading the charge to get listed in the Tree City
USA program to volunteer to count all those
trees. With the popularity and community
support behind this program, getting those
trees counted should be no problem.
Have you heard of Project Pearson? It’s the
code name for a high tech company looking
to possibly locate in the area. According to
Bill Elfering, it would bring 120 to 200 good
paying jobs. However, don’t look for it here in
Pendleton. It’s a high power consumer, which,
due to the short-sighted leadership and lack
of support from Pacific Power in the past, has
left us holding the short end of the stick when
it comes to sufficient power availability for
industrial development.
I guess it looks like we’ll just have to
depend on the success of the drone program,
and of course the Rivoli Theater restoration,
for our economic future. The way we continue
to source business outside the community for
city projects will insure a steady outflow of
capital needed for economic prosperity, and
leave us with lousy streets.
Rick Rohde
Pendleton