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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 19, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, August 19, 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 OUR VIEW Privatize BPA redux Rick Perry, the former Texas governor with aspirations for the presidency and now head of the Department of Energy, visited Umatilla County last week. He stopped at McNary Dam and toured the Bonneville Power Administration transmission facility operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That tour was off limits to reporters, but Perry was joined by congressmen Greg Walden (R-Oregon) and Dan Newhouse (R-Washington), when they briefly addressed the press outside the dam. Perry said hydroelectricity will continue to play an important role in America’s energy strategy, even though the Trump administration has proposed selling off the BPA to private energy companies. Northwest lawmakers — including Walden and Newhouse — have roundly criticized that plan, saying it will raise rates for consumers and affect reliability in rural areas. Yet Perry was mum when asked where he stood on the issue, saying only that they should not be afraid to have that conversation. There’s no need to be afraid, and in fact the Northwest has been having that discussion for decades. We’ve thought about it and argued about it, and lawmakers of both political parties now agree that privatizing the BPA is a bad idea. To new minds in Washington D.C., the short-term windfall of a selloff has them salivating. But those of us who have to live with the result — not just for a political term — know that in the long run, the BPA must remain as is. The real American heritage efore they die, before they be next, Trump said, using a line that disappear into the opaque mist neo-Nazis throw around at their hate of history, the last Americans to fests. fight Nazi Germany have to face one The founders, flawed but brilliant more blast of something they thought men, put their lives at risk to create they’d eliminated in the bloodiest war a nation built on principles that took of all time. a long time to realize. Robert E. Lee Every day we lose an average of was a traitor, the best general of a war 362 World War II veterans — the boys Timothy that killed more Americans than any from the Bronx, the farmers from other. His statue no more belongs on Egan Nebraska, the kids yanked from late- a pedestal than does that of Hitler’s Comment adolescent languor to fight a monster. most proficient military man. I asked one of them, Caesar Civitella, History and culture are what Nazi-killer and son of an Italian immigrant, Civitella embodies, for his story is the American story. His father, an immigrant from how it felt to see Hitler’s flags paraded over Italy, died when Caesar was our soil last weekend. young. With the call of war, And make no mistake, those were the flags of he volunteered for jump a genocidal force in the school at Fort Benning, Charlottesville, Virginia, Georgia. Then the Office rally last weekend, the one of Strategic Services, a spy in which some “very fine service that did much more people,” in President Donald than snoop and decode, Trump’s infamous words, selected him for especially participated. The polo-shirt dangerous duty. Civitella fascists were brandishing jumped into occupied Othala rune and Black Sun France. Working with the symbols — both used by the French Resistance, he killed SS, the paramilitary muscle his share of Nazis, he said, behind the slaughter of 6 and helped capture 4,000 of million Jews. them. “These neo-Nazis, Next up was a mission whatever you call them — I to go after Mussolini. But thought we’d ended all as the son of an Italian that,” Civitella said, sounding both mournful immigrant, his loyalty was challenged. “I was and feisty. “These people have nothing to do asked if I would hesitate to kill an Italian who with American values.” worked with the Nazis. I said, nope.” I found this soldier of World War II at his His generation includes George H.W. Bush, home in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he is another war hero, the exact age as Civitella. a local hero for living a life that deserves a This week Bush, with his son George W., movie. He will be 94 on Aug. 21, the day of released a simple, decent statement on the the total solar eclipse — “Jesus Christ’s way toxicity of racial hatred. of saying happy birthday,” he said. No such message came from the empty Within a generation’s time, nearly all of shell of Donald Trump, a man who once the 16 million American veterans who served said his own personal Vietnam was avoiding in World War II will be gone. And the biggest sexually transmitted diseases in the wilds insult, the gravest disservice of Trump’s giving of Manhattan. Warming the hearts of the comfort to Hitler sympathizers, is to those little Hitlers this week, Trump claimed to who fought to save the world from evil more have looked carefully at the hatemongers in than 70 years ago. Charlottesville and found many good citizens. “Because I’m old, now 94, I recognize He must have missed the chants of “Jews these omens of doom,” wrote Harry Leslie will not replace us!” and “blood and soil,” a Smith, a Royal Air Force veteran, in an essay favorite of Hitler’s murderous legions. Or he this week in The Guardian. “Chilling signs are must have overlooked the thugs brandishing everywhere, perhaps the biggest being that the semi-automatic rifles and chanting “sieg U.S. allows itself to be led by Donald Trump, heil” outside the Congregation Beth Israel a man deficient in honor, wisdom and just synagogue in Charlottesville. simple human kindness.” It doesn’t take much to find the sources To those grave deficiencies, you can of the best American culture and history. add one more: historical illiteracy. In his You won’t find them in the “beautiful statues grievance-burst of a news conference this and monuments” — Trump’s words this week, Trump had this to say about those week — of slaveholders and traitors. Look who showed up to protest the neo-Nazis and instead to those like Civitella, who are not yet neo-Confederates: “You are changing history, cast in bronze but deserve to be — the living you’re changing culture.” memory. In truth, it was the raising of statues in the ■ early 20th century — when the Lost Cause Timothy Egan worked for 18 years as a whitewash of the confederacy of slaveholders writer for The New York Times, first as the was in full swing — that tried to change both Pacific Northwest correspondent, then as a culture and history. George Washington will national enterprise reporter. B Every day we lose an average of 362 World War II veterans — the kids yanked from late-adolescent languor to fight a monster. Tread safely, interstellar travelers We are as ready as can be for Monday’s total solar eclipse, which will bring more visitors to Eastern Oregon than the Round-Up, Whisky Fest, Bike Week and the county fair combined. It’s a massive influx of people, and you have likely noticed them already — filling area highways and gas stations and restaurants. Likely you’ve heard some foreign accents if you waltzed down Main Street. By now, you’ve either made plans or you haven’t. We hope those who have their plans set in stone can get to where they need to go, and are adequately prepared for whatever emergency is thrown their way. For those without them, we hope your new plan is to follow along with our journalists. Reporter George Plaven and photographer E.J. Harris have been dispatched to John Day, right in the thick of the zone of totality. They will report on the gathering crowds throughout the weekend and on eclipse day proper. The town of 2,000 has two gas stations and one grocery store — and is expecting more than 20,000 visitors. Opinion page editor Tim Trainor and East Oregonian intern Emily Olson have a different plan. They will leave Pendleton at 6 a.m. Monday and drive towards the zone of totality, come what may. They will document their journey on Facebook Live, with updates throughout the trip. Visit East Oregonian’s Facebook page to follow along, and maybe if the traffic is light you’ll be inclined to jump in your car and join them. Wherever you are: Wear your glasses! 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. Solar show proves you can’t eclipse the American spirit S ituated on a busy mind-blower. thoroughfare and I don’t mean oh so romantically astronomically — moon named, the 1st Interstate smothers sun, day turns Motel in Casper, to night, birds freak Wyoming, could stand out, all of that. I mean improvement. Eight of entrepreneurially. What’s its nine reviewers on Trip happening in the heavens is Advisor gave it the lowest a bonanza here on Earth, in Frank rating possible, and they this money-minded patch Bruni weren’t shy about their of purple mountains, fruited Comment reasons. “Absolutely plains and Donald Trump- filthy.” “Two empty branded properties called the liquor bottles under the bed.” “Foul United States. smell.” “Horrible smell.” “Hell Our response affirms that we hole.” Americans haven’t completely But you can snag a room this lost our savvy or our way. True, coming Sunday and Monday for we failed to sniff out and stanch only $1,211 a night, according to a presidential disaster in the my recent search on hotels.com. making, and we’re stuck for now A bargain! No, really. The with a morally bankrupt plutocrat initially advertised rate was so defensive and deluded that $1,346 for two queen beds. For a he’s urging more nuance in the kitchenette as well, it was $1,616, appraisal of neo-Nazis. But we later discounted to $1,454. Act now still know a prime interplanetary while supplies last. opportunity when we see one. What the 1st Interstate Motel The eclipse is precisely that. has in lieu of an endurable odor is I’m not well versed in matters of an exalted latitude: Casper lies on the cosmos — I’ve never even the path of towns and cities from made it through a whole episode Oregon to South Carolina that are of “The Big Bang Theory” — so set to experience a total eclipse on I’ll describe its rareness in a Monday. And this eclipse is a total vocabulary that I and most of you probably better understand. Envision a month in which the president didn’t golf. Imagine a sentence in which he didn’t brag. Fantasize a speech of his that made you proud. The eclipse is that rare. Contradicting its name, it reveals rather than obscures many aspects of the American character. It’s a portal to the crafty, stagy, venal sum of us. We Americans are marketers above all else. I wasn’t more than a few minutes into my eclipse research when I learned of the claim that Hopkinsville, Kentucky, makes to being “the point of greatest eclipse,” a reference to how long the eclipse will last there: 2 minutes 40 seconds. To exploit this blessing, Hopkinsville has rebranded itself “Eclipseville,” built a snazzy website using that term and orchestrated an array of events. You can combine eclipse viewing with bourbon tasting, which didn’t surprise me, or with scuba diving, which did. When I think Kentucky, I somehow don’t think coral reefs. You can of course purchase Eclipseville swag: fleece blankets, twill caps, T-shirts in sizes going all the way up to XXXL. We Americans merchandize, and we Americans swell. We Americans splurge. For sale on a popular site for handmade crafts, there’s a $1,224 “solar eclipse diamond ring” with a series of gems that change colors incrementally from yellow to black and back again, thus evoking “the moon’s journey as it eclipses the sun.” We Americans congregate. All along the eclipse’s path, there are small outdoor theaters and large outdoor stadiums in which eclipse watchers will come together, each with his or her own protective eclipse eyewear, of which there seem to be thousands of varieties. I’ve yet to order mine. We Americans procrastinate. There are eclipse concerts, too. In Jefferson City, Missouri, a band will play selections from a particular Pink Floyd album, and if anyone out there is guessing “The Wall” or “Animals” and not “Dark Side of the Moon,” you’re eclipse- grounded and must stay indoors. In Columbia, South Carolina, a philharmonic orchestra will perform the soundtrack from a certain intergalactic epic. Savor the “Star Wars Musiclipse.” We Americans sometimes connive, if we’re being honest and not letting our vanity eclipse the truth. In Oregon in particular there have been complaints that hotels canceled or “lost” reservations made long ago so that they could jack up prices, then blamed ... computer glitches! That’s my new preferred explanation for Trump’s election. We Americans are resourceful — evident in how many are poised to wring dough from their domiciles. According to Airbnb, there will be more than 50,000 “guest arrivals” tied to eclipse viewing, in comparison with fewer than 11,000 in the same geographic area a week earlier. A week after the eclipse, a room at the 1st Interstate Motel reverts to $63 a night. That’s savings of more than $1,000 from the eclipse rate! Amazing what a galactic phenomenon will do — and what we Americans will do with it. ■ Frank Bruni, has been an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times since 2011.