VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, August 26, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 5A
Adults look but never leap
I
’ve never been a huge fan of trampolines,
especially as an adult. There is something
about the lack of control one has when
others are jumping next to them that just puts
knots in my stomach.
Maybe because when I was about 22 years
old, I found myself with an
ankle swollen to three times the
normal size after a fun “jump
off” with my friend Chad and
walked around in an aircast for
weeks. Yes, I’m pretty certain
that absolutely has something to
do with it.
My boys, on the other hand,
would love it if the whole world
was a giant trampoline. They
would run and jump everywhere
— flipping, twisting, turning
and casting all their trust in the rebound,
knowing and believing that with each bounce
the momentum won’t stop, the adrenaline will
keep them going and they’ll always bounce
back — even if they stumble.
Something happens when we “grow up”
that takes the trust right out of the jump. We
quit doing it. We quit jumping like we should,
which means we quit trusting like we should,
too. The next time you’re near a trampoline,
notice all of the “grownups” just watching.
Why, as adults, do we reach this place where
we are afraid to jump or trust that we’re going
to land safely? Why do we not want to take
risks in front of a crowd? Why do
we watch instead of participate?
Life isn’t a spectator sport.
One of the last times I took
my kids to the trampoline park, I
questioned why I hadn’t brought
my sweats with me as I watched
their joy and happiness explode
with every bound. And then I
laughed to myself just picturing
what it would look like jumping
with my boys while all the other
“watchers” watched this grown
woman absolutely make a fool out of herself.
I can’t jump worth a darn any more. In
fact, I’d be out of breath before I could even
get out of the first pit — I’m sure of it. The
point is though, I shouldn’t be afraid to jump.
I should not be listening to the loudest voice
in my head, but the truest one. I may not be as
young as I once was or as physically capable
I should not
be listening
to the loudest
voice in my
head, but the
truest one.
of bouncing from one surface to another with
ease, but there certainly are a lot of areas in
my life where “jumping” should be the only
option. Participating rather than watching,
doing instead of observing.
In my opinion, there’s nothing worse than
just watching and not doing anything about it.
So let’s jump. It may be grabbing a pen and
a journal to start writing or sketching or even
making a list of the areas we need to be bolder
and braver in — without the fear of failure.
It may be pulling out a map and circling the
places we need to be jumping to.
It may be a list of names of people we’d
like to have jumping with us. Whatever it is,
we need to do it. Let’s jump and soar our way
through those places where we feel like we’re
sinking.
Let’s bound after those dreams we’ve
hidden away because they seemed too silly
to catch. Let’s glide into a new place, with a
faith that trusts we’re going to land safely and
securely because we know that God doesn’t
compare our leaps. He simply delights in our
attempts, and we should, too.
■
Lindsay Murdock lives in Echo.
L indsay M urdock
FROM SUN UP TO SUN DOWN
Sportsmen can thank themselves Walden should open the door
for the attack on public lands
to experimental medical care
Board of Game has unleashed
“I’m a Teddy Roosevelt
a withering attack on bears and
conservationist,” declares Interior
wolves that is wholly at odds with
Secretary Ryan Zinke.
America’s long tradition of ethical,
Really? Roosevelt pushed and
sportsmanlike, fair-chase hunting.
ultimately signed the Antiquities
… There comes a time when the
Act of 1906 that gave presidents
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
the authority to create national
must stand up for the authorities
monuments. He then established
and principles that underpin our
18 of them. But now, at President
Ted
work and say, ‘no.’”
Trump’s request, Zinke works to
Williams
That thinking doesn’t compute
open national monuments to fossil
Comment
with Congress or the Trump
fuel extraction.
administration. In April, the
Hunters and anglers say they
president signed legislation
are astonished and outraged. But
repealing the federal wildlife agency’s
without their support, Trump wouldn’t be
Alaska refuge rule. On federal lands
president and Zinke wouldn’t be running
Alaska now allows the shooting of grizzly
Interior. If sportsmen read newspapers
and brown bears over bait, shooting
instead of hook-and-bullet rags, they’d
have understood that state seizure of public mother bears with cubs as well as killing
the cubs themselves,
lands is a plank in the
shooting bears and
GOP platform and that
wolves from planes, and
state lands get sold off or
dispatching wolves and
reserved for extractive
wolf pups in their dens.
industry.
When the Association
In a Petersen’s Hunting
of Fish & Wildlife
piece entitled “Why
Agencies attacked Ashe
Sportsmen Should Vote
for Donald Trump” the
for standing up for the
magazine’s editor reveals
wildlife that belongs to
his reaction to meeting the candidate: “My all Americans it was joined by The Pope
heart started to pound, my breath coming
and Young Club, Quail Forever, Orion
in short gulps.”
the Hunters Institute, Pheasants Forever,
Wild Sheep Foundation, Rocky Mountain
A group calling itself Sportsmen for
Trump offered this: “Mr. Trump is the only Elk Foundation, Boone and Crockett
Club, Ducks Unlimited, Quality Deer
candidate that will represent our values.”
Management Association and Safari Club,
“We as hunters, anglers and Americans
to mention just a few.
can chalk this day up as a win for our
The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.
sport,” effused Outdoorhub on Trump’s
Consider some of the pious statements
inauguration.
issuing from these same groups on the
“Zinke a Good Choice as Interior
issue of public lands remaining in public
Secretary,” proclaimed Bowhunting.com.
hands:
As a condition for entering the Union,
Pope and Young Club, Quail Forever,
most Western states agreed to disclaim all
Orion the Hunters Institute, Pheasants
right to unappropriated public lands. In
Forever, Wild Sheep Foundation: “As
exchange, the federal government gave
sportsmen-based organizations, we are
them “trust lands” with which to generate
alarmed that some decision makers are
revenue through sale and development.
promoting the idea that federal public
So far, Utah has sold off 4.1 million acres
lands should be transferred to individual
of its trust lands, New Mexico 4 million,
states.”
Montana 800,000, Idaho 1.5 million,
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation:
Colorado 1.7 million, Arizona 1.7 million.
“Transferring or selling these lands to
Of the 3.4 million acres given to Oregon,
states … may also close the door to public
only 780,000 remain.
One might suppose that the state
access for hunters, anglers, hikers and
wildlife professionals who belong to the
others.”
Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies
Boone and Crockett Club: “Federal
would work for the best interests of the
lands are the foundation of the most
hunting- and fishing-license buyers who
successful conservation system in the
help pay their salaries. Instead, they led the world.”
successful charge against the U.S. Fish and
Ducks Unlimited: “We do not believe
Wildlife Service rule to reassert control
it would be constructive to … liquidate
of the American public’s 73 million acres
the national interest in federal land
of national wildlife refuges in Alaska.
management.”
Necessitating that rule was the board’s
Compounding their hypocrisy, these
attempt to convert both federal and state
groups were virtually silent about the
lands to a vast Stop & Shop for moose
felonious, 41-day armed occupation and
and caribou meat by killing off bears and
trashing of the Malheur National Wildlife
wolves.
Refuge in Oregon.
Traditionally, the Fish and Wildlife
With friends like the publications that
Service has allowed states to manage
“educate” them and the organizations that
wildlife on the agency’s refuges, but
“represent” them, hunters and anglers
things got so out of hand in Alaska it had
don’t need enemies.
to protect the public’s wildlife from the
■
board’s 1920s-style predator jihad. As
Ted Williams is a contributor to Writers
then-Director Dan Ashe wrote in the Aug.
on the Range, the opinion service of High
3, 2016, Huffington Post: “The Alaska
Country News.
Hunters and
anglers say they
are astonished
and outraged.
By TED ABRAM
FreedomWorks
S
ay you’ve got some rare disease and
your health has been tanking for a year,
even with all the best medical attention,
tests and care. Your doctors have diagnosed
you, and there’s just not a cure available. You
have one month to live and no options.
There is a potential cure, but it has only
been tested on mice effectively and is not
available because it is still being tested by
the Food and Drug Administration. You’re
going to die because bureaucrats have not
determined that this drug is safe for humans.
It might kill you; it also might cure you like
it did those mice
Ten-year-old Diego Morris found
himself in a similar situation five years ago.
After being diagnosed with a particularly
aggressive form of cancer and being
treated with chemotherapy, he still needed
treatment. His family and family friends
found something that might save his life: a
drug called Mifamurtide. It was available in
other countries, but wasn’t permitted here.
Dedicated to saving Diego’s life, his family
traveled to London to get the treatment.
Diego is now in remission — and
cancer-free. He went on to become the
honorary chair of the Goldwater Institute’s
right to try campaign, and in 2016 testified
before the United States Senate on the need
to pass right to try laws that allow terminal
patients access to drugs that haven’t received
full FDA approval.
Without this unapproved drug, none of
this would have happened. Diego would
most likely be dead.
Right to try has gained great momentum
at the state level. In 2014, five states passed
right to try. In 2015, eighteen states passed it.
In 2016, six more became right to try states.
And already in 2017, seven more states join
the ranks of right to try states.
What’s more, both President Trump and
Vice President Pence have expressed their
support for such laws. Pence signed right to
try into law in Indiana in 2015, and in his
typically powerful and direct style, President
Trump spoke out in favor of right to try laws
earlier this year: “One thing that’s always
disturbed me, they come up with a new drug
for a patient who is terminal, and the FDA
says ‘we can’t have this drug used on the
patient.’ But they say, ‘But the patient within
four weeks will be dead.’ [The FDA] says,
‘Well, we still can’t approve the drug and
we don’t want to hurt the patient.” But the
patient is not going to live more than four
weeks.”
With right to try laws in 37 states and
support from the White House, you would
think many senators and representatives
from these states would support it at the
national level and vote in favor of the right to
try bill. And in fact, the Senate recently did
just that.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-Ohio) recently
moved to bring right to try up for a vote, and
it passed with overwhelming support. Now
the bill awaits approval by the House.
But one man is stopping the legislation
designed to make potentially life-saving
treatments available to patients. Our
congressman, Chairman Greg Walden,
heads the House Energy and Commerce
Committee. The bill is stalled in his
committee, even with bipartisan committee
support. People’s lives are literally hanging
in the balance, and he is sitting on his hands.
I encourage you to contact Congressman
Walden and tell him we want to open up the
path to life-saving medical care for those
who are on their deathbeds. Giving them this
right is simply the right thing to do.
■
Ted Abram is a retired judge and a
FreedomWorks board member who lives in
Klamath Falls, in Oregon’s Second District.
Can you catch fish during an eclipse?
By LLOYD PIERCY
For The East Oregonian
M
y grandsons Forest, Jim and friend
Sam were given a choice between
a 40-minute drive to eclipse totality
or fishing as a science experiment under 99
percent totality. They chose fishing.
The boys — all between 12 and 13 years
old — had been fishing the day before and
the early morning of the eclipse. Decent
fishermen all, they caught and released
in excess of 40 smallmouth bass, mostly
one-pounders with a few approaching four
pounds. The bite had been particularly good
in the mornings and evenings with low light.
They even spent the night with catfish rods
on the beach at Hat Rock State Park.
Fishing the rock structure around Hat
Rock State park in kayaks, they worked the
edges of the islands coaxing the bass from
their crannies, a decent control for our fishing
experiment.
A check of the internet showed that others
have experimented with fishing during an
eclipse: wild stories of strange fish behavior
were easy to find, whetting our interest.
As the light softened the color of the water
became more clear green, visibility in the
water increased was really a unique, beautiful
set of colors I had never seen in my years
living on this riverbank. The temperature
dropped dramatically to 53 degrees. Birds
circled and settled in the trees and began to
chatter as they would in the pre-dawn.
The boys, splitting their time between
their viewing glasses and their fishing,
worked the bank hard. They caught a large
perch — the only one they caught — and
two bass. On the Columbia River at Hat
Rock, the fishing was not discernibly
different during this eclipse, in the hands of
our young scientists.
I hope when they are around 30 years old
they will travel to another eclipse to continue
their research, watching the spectacular
sight of the orb around the sun was amazing.
That’s Farmer Lloyd’s take on things.
■
Lloyd Piercy lives in Echo.