Page 4A
East Oregonian
Thursday, January 18, 2018
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
New attitude in town
Three relatively new Pendleton city
councilors and mayor John Turner spoke
with the East Oregonian earlier this
week.
Jake Cambier had been on the council
for a year and a half, while Scott Fairley
and Dale Primmer have had their seats
as long as Turner — a year on the nose.
And while the four men come at the job
from different backgrounds and with
different goals, each said they appreciate
the camaraderie and teamwork of the
current council.
And each has high hopes that all
those oars pulling in the same direction
will bring population growth, economic
development and new housing to a
city that has struggled with stagnation
and chicken-and-egg, cart-and-horse
problems that have stifled development.
Those hopes aren’t for progress down
the road — they want to see it this year.
The men are part of a dramatic shift
in the council in the last year, a shift
that will certainly continue. Current
council president Neil Brown has
said he will not run for re-election.
Longtime councilor John Brenne is up
for re-election, too. If those two seats
are filled by new councilors, it will be an
almost entire set of new faces than was
there in 2016.
When these big changes come to any
organization, it can take a while for the
dust to settle, for interests to align and
newcomers brought up to speed.
That doesn’t seem to be the case
in Pendleton. An initial goal-setting
strategy that included plenty of public
input got the council focused on what
was most important to most residents.
That kicked off a renewed commitment
in city administration to the basics
of good government: infrastructure
upkeep, quality customer service, clear
communication and improved relations
with organizations that share a common
goal.
This is not to say that Pendleton is
out of the woods just yet. Important,
EO file photo
difficult decisions are down the line and
those votes will likely not be unanimous
— the city budget just isn’t big enough
to fund everything each councilor (and
each resident) would like to do.
But we are happy to see that new
ideas and fresh vigor have been injected
into Pendleton council deliberations.
And it’s good to see that new energy has
been harnessed in a productive manner.
Since 2018 is the time to see
results — to measure success — we’re
optimistic about what the year has in
store for Pendleton.
OTHER VIEWS
While you were sleeping
D
YOUR VIEWS
Trump inspires people to run
against him and defeat him
We, the majority voters of this
country, are looking for a few good
men and women to serve as our elected
governmental representatives. We need
the best and brightest people possible
to inspire the best and brightest ideas
for solving this country’s most pressing
problems. Those issues will always involve
respect for all people and the planet. You
do not need to be a plaster saint, but you
cannot be a hypocrite who pretends to hold
decent, family and worker values but then
advocate policies that enrich yourself and
harm your constituents. Do not be like
Donald Trump.
If you are so corrupt that you must
seek the help of foreign adversaries to get
elected, then do not run for public office.
If you have a history of laundering
money, and have refused to pay your
workers, then do not run for public office.
If you will not show your taxes to prove
there is no “conflict of interest,” then do
not run for public office.
If you do not have a basic understanding
of our history and constitution, then do not
run for public office.
If you have ever bragged about
assaulting the opposite sex, then do not run
for public office.
If you tried to avoid military service,
then do not run for public office.
If you made up spurious accusations
about the birthplace of a sitting President,
then continued lying to appeal to racists,
then do not run for public office.
If you are not mentally stable enough
to express your anger appropriately and
diplomatically, but instead “tweet” threats
to dangerous world leaders, then do not run
for public office.
If you are a self-centered egomaniac
who believes you, and your family, are
above the rule of law, then do not run for
public office.
However, if you want to serve the
residents and taxpayers, and you possess
wisdom, justice, courage, compassion and
humility, then we desperately need you.
This year will be a turning point. Politics
has sunk to such an extreme low that it
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the
East Oregonian editorial board. Other
columns, letters and cartoons on this page
express the opinions of the authors and
not necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
cannot continue to decline. Please show up
and be counted at one of the hundreds of
Anniversary Woman’s Marches across the
country on Saturday, Jan. 20 and Sunday,
Jan. 21. Additionally, this November let’s
power to the polls.
Dale and Judy Wendt
Pendleton
Vote yes on Measure 101
I urge all eligible voters to vote “yes”
on Measure 101. We need to fund our
share of the cost of Medicaid now, not
refer it back to the Legislature for further
discussion about the funding. I think
the Legislature did a good job of talking
with representatives of all of the kinds
of organizations that will need to pay the
assessment. Most of them agree this needs
to be done.
This approach will cost us less than
any other available way of getting health
care for low income people. Yes, some of
us might have preferred that the necessary
funds be found by reassigning state income
currently assigned to other programs. But
none of us want to see the state-funded
services we use reduced or eliminated, and
someone feels that way about each and
every state program. While there is always
opportunity for improved efficiency in state
services, that isn’t going to fund this need.
Keep fighting the good fight to reduce
waste of state tax dollars, but get health
care for poor families while that is
happening. Let’s not try to second guess the
Legislature. Vote yes on Measure 101.
Lindsay Winsor
Milton-Freewater
Quick takes
Car crashes into Big Lots
So... it’s a drive-thru now? Cool, that’ll
save me some time.
— Ashley Haapla
What kind of sale were they having?
— Jonathan Hale
onald Trump poses a huge
entanglement and superposition — to
dilemma for commentators:
process information,” explains MIT
to ignore his daily outrages
Technology Review. The result is
is to normalize his behavior, but to
computers that may one day “operate
constantly write about them is to
100,000 times faster than they do
stop learning. Like others, I struggle
today,” adds Wired magazine.
to get this balance right, which is
Talia Gershon, an IBM researcher,
why I pause today to point out some
posted a fun video explaining the
incredible technological changes
Thomas power of quantum computers to
happening while Trump has kept
Friedman optimize and model problems with
us focused on him — changes
an exponential number of variables.
Comment
that will pose as big an adaptation
She displayed a picture of a table at
challenge to American workers as
her wedding set for 10 guests, and
transitioning from farms to factories once
posed this question: How many different
did.
ways can you seat 10 people? It turns out,
Two and half years ago I was researching she explained, there are “3.6 million ways to
arrange 10 people for dinner.”
a book that included a section on IBM’s
Classical computers don’t solve “big
cognitive computer, “Watson,” which had
versions of this problem very well at all,”
perfected the use of artificial intelligence
she said, like trying to crack sophisticated
enough to defeat the two all-time
encrypted codes, where you need to try a
“Jeopardy!” champions. After my IBM
hosts had shown me Watson at its Yorktown massive number of variables, or modeling
molecules where you need to account for
Heights, New York, lab, they took me
an exponential number of interactions.
through a room where a small group of
Quantum computers, with their exponential
IBM scientists were experimenting with
processing power, will
something futuristic
be able to crack most
called “quantum
encryption without
computing.” They left
breaking a sweat.
me thinking this was Star
It’s just another reason
Wars stuff — a galaxy
China, the NSA, IBM,
and many years far away.
Intel and Google are
Last week I visited
now all racing — full of
the same lab, where my
sweat — to build usable
hosts showed me the
quantum systems.
world’s first quantum
Look at where we are
computer that can handle
today thanks to artificial
50 quantum bits, or
intelligence from digital
qubits, which it unveiled
computers — and the
in November. They still
amount of middle-skill
may need a decade to
and even high-skill work
make this computer
they’re supplanting — and then factor in
powerful enough and reliable enough for
how all of this could be supercharged in a
groundbreaking industrial applications, but
decade by quantum computing.
clearly quantum computing has gone from
As education-to-work expert Heather
science fiction to nonfiction faster than most
McGowan (www.futureislearning.com)
anyone expected.
points out: “In October 2016, Budweiser
Who cares? Well, if you think it’s
transported a truckload of beer 120 miles
scary what we can now do with artificial
with an empty driver’s seat.... In February
intelligence produced by classical binary
2017, Bank of America began testing three
digital electronic computers built with
‘employee-less’ branch locations that offer
transistors — like make cars that can drive
themselves and software that can write news full-service banking automatically, with
access to a human, when necessary, via
stories or produce humanlike speech —
video teleconference.”
remember this: These “old” computers still
It’s why IBM’s CEO, Ginni Rometty,
don’t have enough memory or processing
remarked to me in an interview: “Every job
power to solve what IBM calls “historically
intractable problems.” Quantum computers, will require some technology, and therefore
we’ll need to revamp education. The K-12
paired with classical computers via the
curriculum is obvious, but it’s the adult
cloud, have the potential to do that in
retraining — lifelong learning systems —
minutes or seconds.
that will be even more important.”
For instance, “while today’s
Each time work gets outsourced or tasks
supercomputers can simulate ... simple
molecules,” notes MIT Technology Review, get handed off to a machine, “we must
reach up and learn a new skill or in some
“they quickly become overwhelmed.” So
ways expand our capabilities as humans
chemical modelers — who attempt to come
in order to fully realize our collaborative
up with new compounds for things like
potential,” McGowan said.
better batteries and lifesaving drugs — “are
Anyway, I didn’t mean to distract
forced to approximate how an unknown
from the “Trump Reality Show,” but I
molecule might behave, then test it in the
just thought I’d mention that Star Wars
real world to see if it works as expected.
technology is coming not only to a theater
The promise of quantum computing is to
near you, but to a job near you. We
simplify that process by exactly predicting
need to be discussing and adapting to its
the structure of a new molecule, and how it
implications as much as we do Trump’s
will interact with other compounds.”
Quantum computers process information, tweets.
■
using the capabilities of quantum physics,
Thomas Friedman, a New York Times
differently from traditional computers.
columnist, was awarded Pulitzer Prizes
“Whereas normal computers store
for international reporting one for
information as either a 1 or a 0, quantum
commentary.
computers exploit two phenomena —
Look where we’re
at today thanks
to artificial
intelligence and
then factor in
how all this could
be supercharged.
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
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Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.