Page 4A
East Oregonian
Thursday, February 8, 2018
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
The state of our state
How is Oregon doing as a state?
Gov. Kate Brown answered that
question only in the broadest sense during
her State of the State speech this week:
“Oregon’s rising economic tide should be
lifting all boats. Yet many hardworking
families are still under water.”
Her answer is a plan she dubbed
“Future Ready Oregon,” including:
• Focus the state’s economic
development efforts on people of color
and rural Oregonians.
• Address Oregon’s housing shortage
for working families.
• Make it easier for construction
workers to start their own business,
especially if they will build low-income
housing in rural areas.
• Invest more in career-technical
education and hands-on learning.
• Expand apprenticeships in
good-paying jobs that need workers
— information technology, health care,
advanced wood manufacturing and
high-tech manufacturing.
• Make it easier for individuals to enter
the health care field, enabling them to
train for various health-care sectors at
once.
These goals are worthwhile, and align
with Eastern Oregon’s interests and
needs. Anyone making these statements
at the opening of a legislative session
should be applauded.
Rural Oregonians and people of color
were left behind amid the economic
boom experienced in Portland and other
metro areas. Meanwhile, much of Oregon
suffers from a shortage of housing for
low- and middle-income residents. And
certainly, Oregon’s education and training
systems should better align with projected
job opportunities. As Brown said, “The
goal is to close the gap between the
workforce that we have and the workforce
that we need to fuel Oregon’s economy.”
She went on to say, “Over the course
of the next year, through a series of
executive actions, policy positions
and legislation, Future Ready Oregon
will build these pathways for adults to
get the right skills for the right jobs of
Oregon’s future.”
Brown spoke in broad terms that
left many people in the Oregon
Capitol, including some of her fellow
Democrats, wondering what she had
in mind. And despite Brown’s calling
her plan “a new way of thinking about
the economy,” previous governors,
Molly J. Smith/Statesman-Journal via AP
Gov. Kate Brown, center, greets members of the Oregon Senate as she arrives for
the State of the State address Monday at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem.
education officials and business leaders
have said similar things.
That’s where Brown must distinguish
herself, and show rather than tell. It’s an
election year and she would like to keep
her job come November. Serving the
greater good of all Oregonians won’t be
of much interest to her urban Democratic
base, but will define her credibility with
the rest of us.
In Umatilla and Morrow counties,
we feel deeply the need for housing
and workers in both the construction
trades and health care. A defined and
executed plan to improve both would be
a welcome change.
This was not a bold speech. But it was
a pragmatic speech. Oregon — both rural
and urban — will benefit if Brown can
make these ideas stick.
OTHER VIEWS
Gulp. I’m guilty of treason.
fter more than five decades
are substantively dangerous.
of reasonably virtuous living,
Never has a president been
I’m now told that I have
so gifted at projection, the
betrayed my country and committed
psychological tic by which a person
the ultimate crime.
divines in others what’s so deeply
I did not clap during President
embedded in himself. Democrats,
Donald Trump’s State of the Union
he said, were “selfish,” putting their
address.
own feelings above the country’s
Granted, my hands were
welfare. The man who signed tax
Frank
otherwise engaged. They pounded
legislation that benefits his business
Bruni
my laptop’s keyboard as I frantically
empire and spends roughly one of
Comment
took notes: “clean coal,” “disastrous
every three days at a Trump-branded
Obamacare.” And I’m limited in
property wouldn’t know anything
my appendages and much too clumsy to
about that.
approximate applause with my feet.
He doesn’t engage the substance of any
But even if could, I wouldn’t have.
opposition to him or investigation of him.
That’s not because I’m rooting against
He just invalidates the agents of it. That
America. It’s because I’m rooting for
diverts the discussion from facts to name-
it — and believe that we deserve better
calling, which is a game that nobody ever
wins.
than a leader who uses
If journalists are
language as sloppily and
poisonously as Trump
Maybe the president documenting his
falsehoods, they
does, who reacts to every
is cheapening the
themselves must be
unwelcome message by
fabulists. If judges rule
smearing the messenger,
term. When he
against him, they must
and whose litmus test for
degrades language, be biased. If federal law
patriotism is this and this
enforcement officials
alone: Do you worship
he diminishes its
have suspicions about
me?
On Monday afternoon
potency against him. him or people who
worked for him, they
he visited a manufacturing
must be corrupt hacks.
plant outside Cincinnati,
If Democrats don’t congratulate him for
where of course he complimented himself,
making America great again, they must be
lavishly. He complained as he often does
traitors.
about the insufficient credit that he gets.
Soon there is no one to trust but Trump,
He mused with audacious selectiveness
or no one to trust at all. That’s the point.
about all the blessings he was bringing to
He’s inoculating himself, and no price —
us. No plummet of the Dow punctures his
self-regard.
not the reputations of individuals who have
But something that he said stood out, not behaved honorably, not the viability of
just because it went so ludicrously far, even institutions that are crucial to the health of
by Trumpian standards, but because it so
our democracy — is too steep to pay.
perfectly captured his distinctive madness
Treason: It’s a word that he has used
and meanness.
before, to characterize an FBI agent whose
Recalling that many Democrats sat on
text messages made his distaste for Trump
their hands for much or all of his speech
clear. Maybe the president is cheapening
before Congress last week, he pronounced
the term. When he degrades language, he
them “un-American,” adding: “Somebody
diminishes its potency against him.
said ‘treasonous.’ I mean, yeah, I guess,
But if you accept his loose definition
why not? Can we call that treason? Why
of treason, hasn’t he committed it? I’m
not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to
not referring to Russia; I’m referring to
love our country very much.”
his effort to delegitimize President Barack
My favorite touch is the “somebody.”
Obama by insisting, with no evidence,
With Trump, the darkest and most
that he was born outside the United
conspiratorial notions are never his doing
States. That’s infinitely more defiant and
or responsibility. He heard it somewhere.
destabilizing than Nancy Pelosi’s inert
He read it someplace. And he’s merely
hands and anguished mien as Trump
assenting in his open-minded and agreeable delivered his big speech. But he doesn’t
way. “I guess.” “Why not?” Far be it from
mention it anymore, so we, as good
him to challenge this unspecified wisdom
Americans, are supposed to forget about it,
out there.
too.
That meandering air masks a considered
I think it does the country a greater
ploy: As a distraction and deflection, he
service to remember. I think it’s more
routinely accuses his adversaries of the
patriotic to withhold applause than to grant
very wrongdoing that can more credibly be
it too readily.
attributed to him. “Treason” is a word too
Do I wish for Trump to be an excellent
grand to be thrown around casually, but it
president? Yes, and I’ll clap heartily —
applies better to a president who minimizes
with my hands and my feet — if that
and denigrates clear evidence that a foreign
happens. Until then I decline, and if that’s
power meddled in an American election
treason, I plead guilty.
— and makes no real effort to prevent that
■
from happening again — than it does to a
Frank Bruni, an Op-Ed columnist for
The New York Times since 2011, joined the
bunch of lawmakers who decline to salute
him. Their actions are largely theatrical. His newspaper in 1995.
A
YOUR VIEWS
IPC over-forecasting
their energy need
After reading the article from Mitch
Colburn of Idaho Power touting their
analysis that shows a need for the proposed
B2H transmission line, may I please remind
them of the following:
In a meeting in March of 2009, Mark
Stokes, IPC’S power supply planning
manager, stated that IPC had a need for
increased transmission capability. Then
on February 5, 2015 (six years later), that
same company stated at a PURPA meeting
in Idaho that there was no need, that IPC
could meet their peak demands through
2021 and beyond ... they won’t need
anything. It has been recently learned that
IPC is consistently under-reporting their
energy conservation and over-forecasting
their energy need. From information
gathered from the United States Energy
Information Administration, the question
was asked: “How fast is electric demand
increasing in the United States?” Answer:
“It isn’t. Electric sales are flat. Total
electricity sales fell in 2015 for the fifth
time in the past eight years.”
They (IPC) also speak of their regional
partners for this proposed B2H project,
i.e., Bonneville Power Administration
and Pacific Corp. As a participant in the
video/phone conference before the Oregon
Public Utility Commission on Thursday,
February 1, 2018, it came to light again at
that conference that, so far, neither Pacific
Corp nor Bonneville Power have agreed
to construction. Idaho Power is asking to
start preliminary construction before a
site certificate is issued. No rules being
followed here.
When the dams were built on the Snake
River, one of the requirements was that
fish ladders be constructed on these dams.
Again, no rules followed here as IPC chose
to build these dams without the required
fish ladders. How they got away with the
blatant disregard for those requirements is
still very questionable.
The proof is in the pudding. Everything
sounds rosy and peachy-keen when
presented by IPC, but, in light of the above,
I question their integrity.
JoAnn Marlette
Baker City
Habitats are being destroyed
How much is enough? Regarding
the newly-cleared area upstream from
Riverfront Park and under the West
Highland bridge: there was plenty of room,
near the bridge, for entering the small
area that used to belong to Oregon Fish &
Wildlife, for parking, and for a new path
to extend under the bridge west into the
downstream park areas; even already in
place, a put-in/take-out area for rafters.
Who decided to slash and burn the entire
area upstream to the boundary? Such a
small area that could have been left wild!
Public parks need the wild areas too.
Clearing and burning that small upstream
area changed it forever. You destroyed a
red fox den with kits due soon. You cleared
out and burned a number of California
quail shelters, burned and cleared grazing
areas for herds of mule deer and white-
tails. You destroyed nesting sites along the
banks that dozens of mergansers and wood
ducks used for longer than any of us can
remember. I know, because the neighbors
along Quick Road have watched all that
activity and protected it from human
encroachment for at least 80 years! Just
how much is enough?
Janet Boyd
Hermiston
CONTACT YOUR SENATORS
Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
La Grande office: 541-962-7691
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.
Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753
Pendleton office: 541-278-1129
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. 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.