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
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