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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 13, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, September 13, 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 Harvey, Irma, Jose .... and Noah I Staff photo by Kathy Aney Members of the 2017 Hermiston High School graduating class celebrate at the end of last year’s graduation ceremony in the high school gym. Graduation without a home The Hermiston School Board has to answer why a full $10,000 toward gym prep is added to the cost of the found itself wedged between a rock and hard place in regards to the 2018 local outdoor venues. A quick survey of graduation days (June 10, for ease graduation ceremony. The rock is the terribly of comparison), shows an average undersized school gym, which is no high temperature of 80 degrees, .03 inches of rain and winds blowing at longer suitable to host a graduation for Hermiston’s senior class. That about 10 miles per hour. The nastiest is a widely held opinion — the June 10 in the past decade was in district has made it clear it’s time to 2008, with temperatures topping out move and a majority at 55 degrees, with .14 of respondents in an inches of rain and 16 online survey said they Whatever mph winds. The hottest were “very dissatisfied” in 2015, when decision the was with the venue. the mercury reached The hard place is the school board 93 degrees in the lack of consensus about afternoon. It has only makes, some sprinkled four times where to go instead. The Eastern Oregon the past decade, and people will in surpassed a tenth of an Trade and Event Center inch just once. arena, the most popular be upset. If the district decides venue in the survey, to move outdoors, as doesn’t have the Pendleton did a few years back, infrastructure to host such an event only at its very worst should the in 2018, according to the center’s weather push graduation back interim manager Nate Rivera. The Toyota Center in Kennewick, inside. Family and friends brave the district’s preferred venue, was the Eastern Oregon elements all the most polarizing in the survey, school year to watch football games, with 36 percent strongly in favor and marching band performances, track 37 percent strongly opposed. And and field meets and more. Spending Kennison Field, the crown jewel of $10,000 each year on the off chance Hermiston athletic facilities, may be a thunderstorm or truly sweltering viable but isn’t particularly popular morning hits is an expensive with anyone because of its relatively insurance policy. few additional seats and potential Nostalgia and the best interest damage to the field and track. of the seniors are less tangible, While the public survey has made but can’t be ignored. And local the decision messier, we commend economic impact, while cited, hasn’t the district for asking the question. been explored. Each year the school district puts out a release about the On Monday the board decided positive impact of local sporting to delay its vote until October. As board chair Karen Sherman said, no events being hosted in school district decision is going to please everyone. facilities, but it hasn’t included But we know it’s more than that: graduation week. Restaurants Any decision is going to anger a lot and hotels are a big part of the of people. Hermiston community, and if they In the coming month, the board expect to take a hit if the ceremony must decide which criteria is most moves out of state that should be important and communicate that. considered. Arguments have been made based The school board will meet in on expense, weather, nostalgia, local October, and must be ready to make economic impact, logistics and even a decision for 2018. It’s a one-year the best interest of the graduates decision with room to change for themselves. 2019, and after all this due diligence all we can ask for is clarity on why If expense or weather are most important, the district must be able the final decision was made. 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. s there anything we can learn from build the world. You just do it. “If I hurricanes, storms and floods? had been there I would have smashed People have been asking that down [the doors of] the ark and taken question for thousands of years, and myself out,” said the second-century telling stories that try to make sense of scholar Rabbi Judah bar Ilai. natural disasters. These flood myths Now God gives Noah a covenant. are remarkably similar to one another. Moral laws are handed down, A researcher named John D. Morris and Noah is told to go off and David collected more than 200 of them, from re-create. Noah seems to flee from Brooks this responsibility. Perhaps he has ancient China, India, Native American Comment cultures and beyond. He calculates survivor’s guilt. He gets drunk. His that in 88 percent of the tales there is sons find him lying naked and passed a favored family. In 70 percent, they out. survive the flood in a boat. In 67 percent, Noah is a good man, but his story is a the animals are also saved in the boat. In 66 lesson in the dangers of blind obedience. The percent, the flood is due to the wickedness of God of the Hebrew Bible wants respect for man, and in 57 percent the boat comes to rest authority and deference to law. But He doesn’t want passive surrender. on a mountain top. Sacks writes, “One of the strangest features The authors of these myths are trying to make sense of vast and powerful of biblical Hebrew is that — forces. They are trying to figure despite the fact that the Torah out what sort of world they contains 613 commands — there live in. Is it a capricious world, is no word for ‘obey.’ Instead where cities are destroyed for the verb the Torah uses is no reason? Or perhaps it’s a shema/lishmoa, ‘to listen, hear, just but merciless world, where attend, understand, internalize, civilizations are wiped out for respond.’ So distinctive is this their iniquity? word that, in effect, the King The most famous story, of James Bible had to invent an course, is the biblical story of Noah. As the English equivalent, the word, ‘hearken.’” story begins, the human race is living without Today we live amid many floods. Some, law, and as a result is living violently and like Harvey or Irma, are natural. Others are badly. But there was one righteous man, Noah. man-made. God tells Noah to build an ark because He is People are still good at acting individually going to wipe out the rest of humanity with a to tackle problems. Look at how many great deluge. Houstonians leapt forth to care for their What does Noah say when he hears this? neighbors. But we have trouble with collective Nothing. Abraham protested to God when the action, with building new institutions, or city of Sodom was under threat of destruction. reviving old ones, that are big enough to deal Moses protested when God was going to harm with the biggest challenges. the Israelites. But Noah is silent. He doesn’t That’s because we have trouble thinking try to save his neighbors or argue with his about authority. Everybody seems to have an God. outsider mentality. Social distrust is at record Rabbis and scholars have often judged highs. Many seem to swerve between cheap, Noah harshly for this. “He is incurious, anti-establishment cynicism, on the one hand, he does not know and does not care what and a lemming-like partisan obedience on the happens to others,” Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg other. writes. “He suffers from the incapacity to The answer is the “hearken” mentality speak meaningfully to God or to his fellow that Sacks describes. This is where Abraham human beings.” succeeds and Noah fails. Abraham listens “Noah was righteous but not a leader,” deeply to God and derives everything from his Rabbi Jonathan Sacks observes. A leader takes identity on down from Him, but pushes out responsibility for those around him and at ahead of the shepherd. least tries to save the world, even if people are To hearken is to be faithful but also too wicked to actually listen. Moral integrity responsible, to defer to just authority but also demands positive action against evil. Noah, to answer the call of individual conscience, to by contrast, opts to withdraw from the corrupt work within the system but as a courageous, world, in order to remain untainted. creative force. Noah and his family get on the ark and Floods are invitations to re-create the Noah gently cares for the animals. Then the world. That only happens successfully rain stops and it is time to go out and remake when strong individuals are willing to yoke the earth. themselves to collective institutions. What does Noah do now? Once again, ■ Noah is silent. He does nothing. He sits in David Brooks became a New York Times the ark for another seven days twiddling his Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He thumbs. He is waiting for God’s permission to has been a senior editor at The Weekly disembark. Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek Once again, the rabbis are critical of Noah’s and the Atlantic Monthly, and is currently a passivity. One doesn’t need permission to go commentator on PBS. Floods are invitations to re-create the world. YOUR VIEWS Kudos to decision to keep Confederate flag off Main I’ve never written a letter to the editor before, and there’s been no shortage of opinions offered about the Main Street Cowboys’ decision to deny vendor space on Main Street to Liberty Flags & Gifts. But after reading Donald Lien Jr.’s letter in the Sept. 6 edition of the East Oregonian (Confederate Flag is not racist, should be welcome), I could not remain silent. Mr. Lien presented a series of half-truths in an attempt to distort the whole truth, and I thought his effort to rewrite history shouldn’t go unchallenged. Although the flag in question may have originated as the battle flag of Northern Virginia, it was adopted by several Confederate armies during the Civil War, and later became so completely identified with the Southern cause that it became popularly known as the Confederate Battle Flag, and has long been recognized by almost everyone, including Southerners, as the primary symbol of the Confederacy. Mr. Lien’s assertion that the flag’s design was only meant to convey the message that the southern states wanted to be “crossed out of your union” completely ignores the reason for that message in the first place, the reason they undertook a “secession movement” to begin with — namely, the right to buy, sell, own and treat other human beings as property. Despite revisionist attempts to frame the Civil War as a battle over states’ rights, it was always about the “right” of the Confederate States to own slaves. Without the issue of slavery, there would have been no secession movement and no Civil War. To insist, as Mr. Lien did, that this flag did not “actually represent slavery, hatred, white supremacy or something worse” should cause one to wonder just who the “biased and uneducated people” really are. To insist, as Mr. Lien did, that “This flag is not racist. Never has been. Never will be” is to be either dishonest or ignorant about both history and the truth. Again, in his own words, “All that people need to have to be able to see and understand this truth is a basic knowledge of history and an ounce of common sense.” For what it’s worth, I think the Main Street Cowboys made the right decision. Scott Little 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 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.
