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OPINION
East Oregonian
Friday, August 25, 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 Stanfield School District for seizing a once-in-
a-generation opportunity Monday to connect students to the universe in
an engaging way.
The solar eclipse landed on the first day of school for Stanfield, which
is usually a day where calm and order are
emphasized to build productive habits for
the year that follows. The schools decided
to throw all that out the window and instead
theme a day’s worth of lessons around the
eclipse.
What better way to show what school is
about — developing a passion for learning
— than by getting excited about the world
around us.
There will be plenty of time for bringing
order to the classroom, but experiencing
the eclipse together with new classmates and teachers will be a memory that
lasts all year and beyond.
A kick in the pants to the Stanfield School District for its mishandling
of a very real tax problem for its district.
Somehow between the time a $5.4 million school bond was passed by
voters in 1999 and the audits of the last few years, the levy began failing to
bring in enough money to cover the
amount due by 2019, when the bond
will expire.
It’s unclear, according to
Superintendent Shelley Liscom, where
the problem originated, though she did
offer that it’s an inherited problem from
an unnamed previous administration.
Now that problem has come to a
head, and Stanfield taxpayers will feel
it in their pocketbooks. While they will
essentially be making up missed tax
payments on behalf of the district, it
won’t make shelling out double what they’ve been paying toward the district
any easier. That’s nearly $150 extra for the average homeowner in Stanfield.
Liscom’s note to taxpayers, a half sheet of paper with no return address,
official letterhead, signature or financial details, could easily be mistaken as
either a scam or invite to the PTA barbecue. The letter was an unacceptable
and unprofessional way to own up to a serious mistake — no matter who’s
at fault — and provide information to correct it.
A tip of the hat to the Oregon Education Association for naming John
Larson as its new president.
Larson has plenty of Eastern Oregon connections — he worked most
recently in the Hermiston School District
and before that in Morrow County. And
he knows the issues out here better than
educators who have spent their careers in
urban districts.
It’s also important that Larson
is committed to making the OEA a
welcome place for members of all
political persuasions. We know plenty of
conservative teachers and school staff who
are deeply committed to public education,
and it’s important that they have a voice in
the union.
Making the OEA a bipartisan group that reflects the diversity of their
membership can make it a more powerful organization. And we hope a
strong OEA means a strong Oregon education system.
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
Removing Montana’s Confederate
fountain was the right choice
Bozeman (Mont.) Daily Chronicle
M
ontanans should support Helena
city officials’ decision to
remove a Civil War memorial
in a city park there. The monument,
a granite fountain
donated in 1916 by the
United Daughters of
the Confederacy and
placed in the city’s Hill
Park, was taken down
last week on orders
from the Helena City
Commission.
Let’s not oversimplify
this. It was not an easy decision. The
national controversy of removing
Confederate Civil War monuments
is fraught with passion. Advocates
have been vocal in their calls for the
removals. Critics decry this as an effort
to rewrite history.
But the latter arguments ignore
reality.
Literally miles of shelves in the
libraries of our communities and
universities are filled with tomes about
the events leading up to, during and
following the Civil War. Civil War
histories continue to be hot sellers.
Curious and thinking Americans
continue to pore over those books to try
to understand this most wrenching era of
American history. Scholars have devoted
entire careers to this war. And so they
should. The Civil War should never and
will never be forgotten.
But the monument issue is wholly
separate.
We erect statues and monuments to
remember and to honor historic figures
who acted selflessly and
bravely for the greater
good. Monuments erected
in memory of members of
the Confederacy invoke
legitimate outrage from
those whose ancestors the
Confederates fought to
keep in slavery.
Some have argued the
monuments have artistic value. But to
maintain Confederate war memorials
on aesthetic grounds reduces them
to the status of mere ornaments and
glosses over the fate of millions of black
Americans who suffered unspeakable
wrongs at the hands of their oppressors.
This is not to say these artifacts
should be destroyed. They are relics of
a different era and should be preserved.
But they should be preserved in a
museum setting where the curious can
seek them out to learn from them. They
should not be on display in public parks.
Around the nation, decisions about
the fate of Confederate war memorials
will be made on a local basis. Helena
city commissioners did that for their
community and our state. And they
made the right decision.
These relics
should not be
on display in
public parks.
OTHER VIEWS
Watching the eclipse in Oregon
S
ALEM — It was a lovely August
astronomers are masterful at taking
morning here in Salem, with a
apart the celestial clocks.
warm sun blazing from a blue
Scientists know to the minute
sky, when the world began to end.
when eclipses will happen many years
Or that’s what it felt like.
from now. This scientific precision
Imperceptibly the sky darkened, and
diminishes the sense of superstitious
instead of growing hotter, the air grew
fear and awe that accompanied
cool. It was as if dusk began at 9:30
such past events. In Shakespeare’s
a.m.
Nicholas “Macbeth,” the murder of King
Then, abruptly, in just a few
Kristof Duncan seems to lead to a solar eclipse
minutes, a bit after 10 a.m., night
that turns the day dark and reflects the
Comment
spread across Salem, where I was
horror and evil of human misconduct;
watching the eclipse with my family.
today, the punctual arrival of an eclipse
(I’m originally from Oregon.) Cars were
seems a tribute less to superstition than to
obliged to use their headlights, and I had to
mathematical exactitude.
pull out my headlamp. The throngs of eclipse-
Second, there was no controversy about
watchers on the state Capitol grounds cheered the arrival of this eclipse; we all accepted
and roared with approval.
the scientific consensus about its timing and
Eclipse-mania has shadowed Oregon for
swarmed to the best viewpoints. So why
many days. Flights have been
is there such resistance to the
jammed full, and some cars
similar scientific consensus
are said to be renting for many
about other foretold events —
hundreds of dollars a day. Shops
such as climate change?
ran out of eclipse sunglasses,
My Times colleague Justin
and customers began lining
Gillis made this point in a
up before 4:30 a.m. in front of
notable article: We as a society
a coffee shop that gave away
clearly trust scientists in their
eclipse glasses with coffee
predictions about eclipses but
(later it recalled the glasses as
ignore the scientific warnings
ineffective!).
about the far more dire
With many hotels full,
consequences of our cooking the
farmers rented their fields to
planet. As Gillis notes, it’s not
campers. As we drove to Salem
as if such cautions are new, for
— Kate Brown,
on back roads, we saw people
scientists have been discussing
Oregon governor
setting up lawn chairs hours
global warming since 1897. Nor
early to get prime eclipse-
is the problem that the climate
watching sites on farmers’ fields.
warnings have not been verified,
The “totality” of the eclipse lasted almost
for global average temperatures have indeed
two minutes. Venus and Jupiter appeared
risen almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit since then.
in the “night” sky, and confused birds
“The scientists told us that the Arctic would
reportedly began to sing their evening songs.
warm especially fast,” Gillis noted. “They told
I understood why the ancient Chinese thought us to expect heavier rainstorms. They told us
that an eclipse reflected dragons eating the
heat waves would soar. They told us that the
sun. Or why the Arapaho Indians thought that
oceans would rise. All of those things have
darkness came because the sun and the moon
come to pass.”
were having sex in the sky.
I chatted with Brown during the eclipse,
“It was incredible!” said Zoey Castillo, a
and she dryly made the point: “In Oregon, we
9-year-old who was part of a group of Girl
actually make public policy based on science
Scouts invited to watch the eclipse from the
and data.” It would be nice if Congress did the
balcony of Gov. Kate Brown’s office. “I’m so
same.
glad I got to watch it one time in my life!”
Obviously, there remains a range of climate
Miranda Trentzsch, also 9, said the Girl
possibilities ahead, partly because feedback
Scouts had been told that the next total solar
loops are difficult to predict and uncertainty
eclipse in Salem would come in 2108 and
is inevitable. There’s also a legitimate debate
added: “If I live to be 100, then my kids can
about the best policy responses to climate
watch the next solar eclipse with me!”
change — but our national response so far
The greatest drama only lasted about
has been little more than a shrug, and that’s
five minutes — the sudden darkening, the
difficult to reconcile with the scientific
disappearance of the sun behind the moon,
consensus about the risks ahead.
and then its reappearance and what seemed
It’s a new day in Salem again. We now
the breaking of a new day — but the crowds
understand that a solar eclipse isn’t an
of watchers oohed and aahed and roared their
apocalypse, and our confidence that the world
approval.
isn’t ending is a reminder of our increasing
After viewing my first total solar eclipse, a
understanding of the vast universe around us.
couple of reflections:
As the light returns and the sky warms,
First, the appeal of the solar eclipse is not
I’ll be celebrating not just the majesty of the
just its rarity, but the way it puts us in our
heavens but also the wisdom of the scientists.
place. It disrupts the routines we rely on and
I wish I had similar confidence in the rest of us
reminds us of the vastness, beauty and rigor of to recognize other atmospheric risks that will
the solar system.
be far more consequential for our planet.
One moment we are the masters of the
■
universe. The next, the moon occludes the
Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and
sun and we have to wait for light to reappear.
cherry farm in Yamhill. Kristof, a columnist for
Yet there’s also a majesty in the way scientists The New York Times since 2001, writes op-ed
predict eclipses with such precision. We
columns that appear twice a week. He won the
may not be masters of the universe, but our
Pulitzer Prize two times, in 1990 and 2006.
“In Oregon,
we actually
make public
policy based
on science
and data.”
YOUR VIEWS
REACH has good goals, but
keep it way from city facilities
There has been a lot of speculation about
the reasons for transferring the McCune
Recreation Center to a private organization
called REACH, ranging from social to
religious to financial. I understand from
meetings I’ve attended that the program is
designed to help “at risk” children and young
adults, an honorable program.
It sounds much like the YMCA, a program
historically separate from city functions,
and that’s my point. It sounds to me like
Pendleton’s city manager is attempting
to cross that boundary using a financial
justification. He claims the terms of the
proposed lease contract, no actual price
made public, will require REACH to cover
all maintenance and operation expenses of
the building, relieving the city of the burden.
With no visible means of funding, I just don’t
see this as a viable proposition even with the
requested six months of free rent and probably
a rental rate well below market value.
The city recently gave away a $300,000
piece of rental property to a local nonprofit,
and they have other empty and unused
facilities available without dismantling the
program Parks and Recreation have worked
so hard to implement. Let’s put a stop to
this now.
Rick Rohde
Pendleton
Sick to see Walden raise funds
in Portland after health vote
Ain’t that just peachy. Greg Walden and Paul
Ryan, the primary architects of the effort to
shaft millions of Americans out of health care
coverage, are going to have a fundraiser. Guess
where? Walden’s district? Of course not. They
will be doing their thing in the oft-despised
city of Portland. Why, one would ask; is the
local district money not good enough? Perhaps
because there is not enough of it. So we go
to the big money city to find our rich friends
who are also interested in dis-advantaging the
middle class Americans. After all, if we can’t
gut health insurance — Obamacare, if you
remember — how can we shift billions of tax
dollars to the super-wealthy?
Also note that the location of the fundraiser
is a secret. We surely don’t want a bunch of
those dopey middle class Americans showing
up to express their opinion in this matter. No,
public wish be damned. We’ll take care of our
own and no one else.
Fred Brown
Dallas