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OPINION
East Oregonian
Thursday, September 28, 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
This is Jeopardy!
“Jeopardy!,” the classic background noise of the TV dinner, last week
featured a question that every East Oregonian reader would have known
immediately.
The category was “Not their first rodeo.” The answer: “‘Let ‘er buck’ is
the slogan of the Round-Up in this Oregon town also famous for the plaid
products of its woolen mills.”
The contestant got the answer right, pocketed the dough and the game
continued. But it got us thinking, why isn’t there a Umatilla County-centric
Jeopardy! category? Certainly we locals would school the academic
high-flyers in that subject, before the tables are turned against us with 16th
Century Opera or something of the sort.
Since Jeopardy! won’t do it, we decided to do it ourselves . The category
is “Umatilla County towns.” Good luck, and remember: Your answers must
always be in the form of a question.
$100
$200
THIS TOWN IS HOME
TO THE
SMALLEST SCHOOL
DISTRICT IN THE
STATE.
SETTLED BY
CONFEDERATE
SOLDIERS AFTER THE
CIVIL WAR, THIS TOWN
WAS NAMED AFTER A
VICE PRESIDENTIAL
HOPEFUL FROM OHIO
$300
$400
THESE TWO TOWNS
COMBINED IN 1951 TO
FORM ONE CITY
THIS FARMING
COMMUNITY
CELEBRATES ITS
SCOTTISH HERITAGE
WITH A KIRKIN
O’ THE TARTAN
$500
$600
THIS TOWN WAS
NAMED FOR ITS
PROMINENT BASALT
FORMATION USED AS
A LANDMARK ON THE
OREGON TRAIL
THIS FORMER COUNTY
SEAT SOLD SUPPLIES
TO MINERS ON THEIR
WAY TO THE GOLD
FIELDS OF OREGON
AND IDAHO
$700
$800
THIS TOWN WAS
SETTLED BY
PORTUGESE SHEEP
HERDERS AND NAMED
AFTER THE DAUGHTER
OF TOWN FOUNDERS
INCORPORATED IN
1907, THE NAME OF
THIS TOWN WAS
INSPIRED BY A
ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON NOVEL
$900
$1,000
ORIGINALLY CALLED
“FOSTER,” THIS TOWN
CHANGED ITS NAME IN
1909 TO HONOR A
LOCAL ELECTED TO
THE U.S. SENATE
FORMER RESIDENT
NARD JONES BASED
HIS NOVEL “OREGON
DETOUR” ON THIS
TOWN, CAUSING A
LOCAL FUROR IN 1930
$1,100
$1,200
THIS TINY TOWN WAS
NAMED AFTER A PART
OF THE EAR, BECAUSE
OF A PROMINENT
RESIDENT’S SURGERY
IN 1880
THIS TOWN BECAME
A WHEAT SHIPPING
STATION IN THE 1890S
WHEN THE RAILROAD
CONNECTED PENDLETON
AND WALLA WALLA
Answers: $100, What is Ukiah? $200, What is Pendleton?
$300, What are Milton and Freewater? $400, What is
Athena? $500, What is Pilot Rock? $600, What is Umatilla?
$700, What is Echo? $800, What is Hermiston? $900, What
is Stanfield? $1,000, What is Weston? $1,100, What is Helix?
$1,200, What is Adams?
Looking for more local history? “Out of the Vault:
Historical Vignettes from the East Oregonian” by
Renee Struthers is available as a Kindle e-book at
amazon.com.
OTHER VIEWS
The lecture that Trump needs
’m thrilled that Jeff Sessions is such
petty, can prescribe what shall be
an evangelist for free speech.
orthodox in politics, nationalism,
Now if only he could convert his
religion or other matters of opinion.’”
boss.
Our highest official is also our
On Tuesday afternoon, with much
pettiest, and his attack on athletes
fanfare, Sessions strode onto a stage
smacks of such an attempted
at Georgetown University and decried
prescription. So did the statement of
the rise of a creature with an insatiable
his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee
appetite for affirmation, a distressing
Sanders, that the ESPN host Jemele
Frank
inability to respect the other side and
Hill’s characterization of the president
Bruni
an ugly impulse to silence anyone who
as a “white supremacist” constituted
Comment
dwells there. He meant today’s college
a “fire-able offense.” That’s between
student. He could have been describing
ESPN and Hill. The government —
today’s president.
meaning the White House — shouldn’t be
While decency and decorum are dying
getting involved.
in this administration, irony and hypocrisy
And Trump’s onetime suggestion that
thrive: Sessions’ defense of the
flag burning be made a crime:
First Amendment came just days
How does that square with the
after Donald Trump needlessly
Constitution’s fixed star?
went to war against professional
“A shelter for fragile egos.”
athletes who were exercising
That’s how Sessions
the very rights it protects. When
portrayed the college campus.
pressed on this dissonance in
Make “egos” singular and the
a question-and-answer period
phrase defines the Oval Office
after his remarks, Sessions
now. This president has such
simply refused to recognize it.
an overweening investment in
He fell unswervingly in line
his own glory, or rather in the
with Trump, contradictions
illusion of it, that he distorts
be damned. To serve in
truth (the size of his inauguration
this administration is a
crowd) and invents facts (the
transcendently speech-freeing
voter fraud that supposedly gave
thing.
Hillary Clinton the popular vote)
There’s no dispute that many
to sustain it.
campuses are illiberal enclaves
As news organizations call
of bluntly enforced groupthink,
him out on these and all of his
and there’s no doubt that many
— Jeff Sessions, other lies, he doesn’t merely
students deserve the stern words
push back at the stories one by
U.S. Attorney General one. He tweets and bleats that
that Sessions aimed at them.
But they’re still green and still
the media is an “enemy of the
growing. What’s Trump’s excuse?
American people,” trafficking in “fake news.”
Given his office and capacity for
He tries to intimidate given reporters and news
destruction, he needs the lecture that Sessions
organizations.
delivered most of all. So let’s redirect it from
He has called for changes in the law to
its intended audience to its ideal one, from
make it easier to sue news organizations for
the ivory tower to Trump Tower, and look at
libel. At rallies, he has encouraged crowds to
Sessions’ remarks through the prism of his
rant at reporters. On Twitter, he has shared
ruler.
violent imagery in regard to CNN.
“There are those who will say that certain
No president in my lifetime has so
speech isn’t deserving of protection. They will thoroughly rejected the media’s role as a vital
say that some speech is hurtful — even hateful pillar of democracy and so assertively sought
… But the right of free speech does not exist
to discredit it as an institution. Freedom of the
only to protect the ideas upon which most of
press is mentioned snug alongside freedom of
us agree.”
speech in Sessions’ beloved First Amendment,
Bull’s-eye, bingo and hallelujah. The
but you’d never know it from Trump’s
right of free speech protects whatever Colin
behavior.
Kaepernick has to say and whatever he
“The university is supposed to be the place
intended to communicate by kneeling during
where we train virtuous citizens.”
the national anthem. Trump may not be fond
The White House is supposed to be the
of that particular gesture. I myself never was.
place to which we elevate the most virtuous
And as Sessions correctly noted, the president ones of all, at least in happy theory. But can
is free to make those thoughts known.
you show me the honor in a president who
But he went so much further, exhorting
warps reality itself to his advantage and
team owners in the National Football League
savages all who get in the way? And where
to fire players who didn’t listen to the anthem
in that ruthlessness is respect for the lofty
and salute the flag in the manner that Trump
principles that Sessions so disingenuously
would like. The First Amendment says
espoused?
that the government mustn’t prohibit free
Administration, heal thyself.
expression, and his campaign against pro
■
athletes, threatening them with the loss of their
Frank Bruni, an Op-Ed columnist for
livelihoods, edges up to that territory.
The New York Times since 2011, joined the
“As Justice Robert Jackson once explained, newspaper in 1995. Over his years, he has
‘If there is a fixed star in our constitutional
worn a wide variety of hats, including chief
constellation, it is that no official, high or
restaurant critic and Rome bureau chief.
I
“The right of
free speech
does not
exist only to
protect the
ideas upon
which most
of us agree.”
YOUR VIEWS
Oregon prisons incapable of
providing good medical care
I wish to comment on the letter written by
Ms. Engstrom. She is right in many ways. The
prisons are incapable of providing the much
needed medical care that is needed
The last I knew, EOCI had one physician
for approximately 1,700 inmates. Safe? I think
not.
They apparently allow nurses to make
medical diagnoses, which is against the law,
and most definitely outside their scope of
practice, which might allow their license to be
revoked. I do have examples of this.
Many inmates live with the pain or disease
rather than go to sick call, because they know
that either nothing will be done, and or it will
take forever to see a doctor, or when they do
see the doctor nothing will be done.
Many will say they don’t deserve medical
care — well you know what, they do. I am not
their judge and jury, I try to leave that to God.
They are put there by a state that is controlled
by the district attorneys and the legislature is
to cowardly to do anything about the Measure
11 that has put many there for long-term
sentences that probably could have been
solved by a shorter prison term, probation,
etc. I am not soft on crime; obviously repeat
and violent offenders such as Measure 11 was
meant for should be there.
How many deaths at Two Rivers lately?
Unexpected? How many more must suffer
and/or die because of a cowardly legislature
and DOC that refuses decent medical care to
inmates? I have heard legislatures say that
they don’t want to appear soft on crime or
they won’t get re-elected. That tells me they
are more worried about getting re-elected
then doing the right thing. We are being made
to pay for murdering babies by abortion, but
heaven forbid we give medical care to people
who are alive.
Barbara Dickerson
Milton-Freewater
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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letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
or email editor@eastoregonian.com.