VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, April 14, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 5A
Celebrating National Poetry Month
I
t’s here again — April, National Poetry
Month. People (well, mostly English
teachers and poets) tucking a poem into
your pocket; people talking online about
trying to write a poem every day for 30 days.
Poetry readings everywhere you turn.
It’s a lot of fun. Unless you happen to
think poetry is a test that everyone passes but
you. That’s not fun.
I liked to start my American Lit poetry
unit with Lucille Clifton’s “Homage to My
Hips:” “these hips are big hips. / they need
space to / move around in. / they don’t fit
into little / petty places /… these hips have
never been enslaved. / they go where they
want to go / they do what they want to do …
I have known them / to put a spell on a man
and / spin him like a top.” We had a video,
too, so we could see and hear her. Suddenly
everyone was sitting up straighter. If poetry
was a test, they had all passed. What was not
to like?
And we didn’t have to explain it. We just
had to take it in. Feel it. Believe it, maybe.
At least we had the feeling that’s what
Clifton wanted us to do.
Of course, the students didn’t enjoy every
poem we shared. I don’t like every poem,
either. Or every song, though I love music.
Or even every kind of ice cream. You get the
idea.
But I have liked a lot of the poems
I’ve heard in Pendleton lately. Keyshawn
Jackson’s and Giovana Angel’s performance
poem at the student-led March for Our Lives
put me right under a desk hearing gunshots
and screams as I imagined texting my own
mother “I’m scared” and then imagined
texting my own child to “run, hide, don’t
panic.”
Maggie Chula’s reading at First Draft
in March moved me, too. Inspired by the
Japanese fabrics, colors, and symbols in a
quilt Cathy Erickson had titled “Radiance,”
Chula and Erickson began working in
“Both carpentry and
poetry are crafts. I
mean, you take raw
materials — whether it’s
a stack of lumber or a
dictionary — and you
put them together and
you make something.”
collaboration on a series of quilts and
poems in the voices of Japanese-American
internment camp survivors — a quilt and
a poem for each of the camps. In Chula’s
“Equilibrium,” a former newspaperman finds
himself stuffing newspaper in the cracks of
the tarpaper-shack barracks to keep out the
sand and wind and rattlesnakes of the Topaz,
Utah, camp. Then he salvages scrap lumber
left in a pile from the camp’s construction to
make a crude table and chairs. The poem’s
last stanza begins, “I have learned how to
face a sandstorm with a strip of cardboard
/ plastered with glue, then to use this
sandpaper to smooth out / the incongruities
of our lives.”
Chula happened to be reading to a
master quilter and to a fine furniture maker
in the audience — and as Colleen and Jeff
Blackwood listened, I thought ahead to next
First Draft, when Clemens Starck will be our
featured writer. According to Starck, who
worked as a carpenter to support his life as a
poet, “both carpentry and poetry are crafts. I
mean, you take raw materials — whether it’s
a stack of lumber or a dictionary — and you
put them together and you make something.”
Or, as he says in Journeyman’s Wages,
“The country is / going to hell, but a good
mechanic / can always find work.”
Clem Starck writes about many things,
but human work — whether it’s “Studying
Russian on Company Time” or laying “Slab
on Grade” (“For years people will walk on
it, / hardly considering that it was put there /
on purpose, /on a Thursday in August / by
men on their knees”) — is the subject of the
poems that touch me most.
Starck lives near Dallas, Oregon, but he’s
no stranger to the Dry Side. When he left
Princeton to study on his own, he worked on
a railroad section line between La Grande
and Pendleton, then as a ranch hand in Grant
County, where he read literature by kerosene
lamplight in a homesteader’s shack and
B ette H usted
FROM HERE TO ANYWHERE
began teaching himself to write poems.
You’ll like him. April 19, 7 p.m. at
Pendleton Center for the Arts. Four winners
of BMCC’s Arts and Culture Festival poetry
contest will read at the open mic, too. And
it’s free. Happy National Poetry Month!
■
Bette Husted is a writer and a student of
T’ai Chi and the natural world. She lives in
Pendleton.
Trade war, trade talks A business tax fairy tale
T
I
hroughout his successful
there. In a Mach 14 New York Times
campaign, President Trump
column, Tom Friedman, a leading
persistently focused on the
cheerleader for globalization, agreed
U.S. trade deficit and what he termed
there is a real trade problem with
failed and unfair trade agreements. As
China. Fareed Zakaria, another
President, he pulled out of the Trans-
influential commentator with an
Pacific Partnership negotiations
internationalist vision, has expressed
and moved to renegotiate free trade
similar views.
agreements with Canada and Mexico
Higher tariffs and stricter policies
Kent
(NAFTA) and South Korea.
on
investment are likely to lead to
Hughes
This past March, the President
serious
negotiations with China. It is
Comment
imposed tariffs on steel imports (25
much less clear, however, that China
percent) and aluminum (10 percent).
will change its policies that have
After a chorus of complaints, most exporters
served it so well. China poses a systemic
around the world were given exemptions,
challenge that will require a strategic
with the very noticeable exception of China.
response by the United States.
Trade tensions with China have been
China has a long-term strategy to become
building for a long time. For years, the United the global economic power and the global
States has been complaining about currency
leader in innovation. Every year China
manipulation, restrictions on U.S. exports,
devotes a higher percentage of its growing
and limitations on U.S. companies seeking
economy into research and development.
access to the Chinese market. One study
It makes serious investments in education
points to Chinese exports to the United States and aims to develop a series of world class
as responsible for at least a quarter of U.S.
universities. Their “Made in China 2025”
manufacturing jobs lost since China joined
policy sets targets for leadership in 10
the World Trade Organization in 2001.
high-technology industries. These same
Over the last few
industries define America’s
years, U.S. policy makers
economic future as well.
have focused on the
In part, China’s growth
loss of U.S. intellectual
draws on the Soviet
property — at a cost of
heritage of state-owned
many hundreds of dollars.
companies and borrows
President Trump recently
from the industrial
threatened to impose tariffs
strategy pioneered
on almost $50 billion in
by Japan. China has
Chinese imports. China
developed active domestic
then threatened tariffs on
markets and competes in
almost $50 billion of U.S.
global markets. Global
exports. The President then
investments initially
threatened to impose tariffs
targeted needed raw
on an additional $100
materials, but have
billion of Chinese imports.
more recently focused
China has threatened
on acquiring leading
further retaliation.
technology firms.
Oregon’s interests
How should the
will affected by a battle
United States respond?
of tariffs. In its initial
First, the United States
list, China targeted soybeans and other
needs to adopt a competitiveness approach
agricultural products. Eighty percent of
that focuses on productivity raising
Oregon’s soybeans are exported to China.
investments in such areas as range research,
Wheat? Umatilla raises more wheat than any infrastructure, education and training, and
other county in Oregon. President Trump
export promotion. Second, the United States
has already asked Secretary Sonny Perdue to needs to adopt an industrial strategy that
take every possible step to protect American
promotes the key economic growth engines
agriculture.
of our future. Third, we need to complement
Economists, the financial world, and
the growth strategies of the states, recognize
many global industries contend that tariffs
the imperatives of national security and
are the wrong tool. Instead they call for
innovation, and prepare for the challenges
bringing complaints to the World Trade
of new technologies and advancing
Organization and acting in concert with allies competitors. Finally, we need to make sure
in Europe and Asia.
that the benefits of national growth and
What is most striking, however, is that
global engagements are broadly shared.
U.S. opinion overwhelmingly agrees that
We need to be acting now.
China’s trade practices are a major problem
■
and something must be done. Recent reports
Kent Hughes is a public policy fellow at
by the U.S. and European Union chambers
the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington,
of commerce in China raise complaints
D.C. He is a 1958 graduate of Pendleton
about the less welcoming environment
High School.
We need to
make sure that
the benefits of
national growth
and global
engagements
are broadly
shared.
nconceivable! This word rang
to decide. On April 6, she let the
out time and time again from the
people of OregonMyOregon know
lips of Vizzini when I recently
she planned to sign it into law.
watched “The Princess Bride” on
Inconceivable!
DVD while riding my exercise bike
But do not fear, good people of
off to nowhere. I had not watched
OregonMyOregon, the battle is not
this classic movie since its release in
over. Besides being a bad and an
1987, more than 30 years ago. The
unfair law for the 192,000 small
story was epic then, and is epic still,
business owners, Princess/Governor
Bill
in my opinion.
Hansell Kate and her supporters still have
Then on April 6, another story
serious opposition. The battle will
Comment
unfolded — unfortunately very
continue, because the counts and
real — which could have concluded
countesses who did not support SB
with a happy ending, but it did not. So,
1528 do not want a bad ending to this story.
what happened? With my apologies to “The
The next stop is the courts. Stay tuned as
Princess Bride,” let me explain it this way:
this unfolds.
In the castles far away on the Potomac
Many people of the land are upset, and
River, King Donald in his White Castle and
a petition for a referendum is beginning
the counts and countesses in their very large to be circulated. Because it took Princess/
Castle on the Hill passed and signed into
Governor Kate 30 days to finally sign the
law tax breaks for their subjects and small
bill, a month was lost to collect signatures,
businesses throughout the land. The small
making it more difficult to get in on the
shop owners, located in every village, both
November ballot. Princess/Governor Kate is
large and small, would receive a federal tax
no dummy.
break. It was received with great rejoicing
Three issues the courts of the land will be
from sea to shining sea.
asked to determine:
But in the section of the nation governed
1. Tax laws, by law, have to begin in
by Princess/Governor Kate, all was not
the House of Representatives. This bill
well in her Salem Castle, which she
unlawfully originated in the Senate. Notice
shares with the counts and countesses
the “SB” not “HB”, on SB 1528. Some have
of OregonMyOregon, as this part of the
called it taxation without representation, and
nation is sometimes known. Princess/
that is never a good ending to any story.
Governor Kate and those loyal to her did
2. OregonMyOregon’s constitution
not want to give the federal tax break to
requires 60 percent vote of the counts
the 192,000 small business owners across
and countesses in each chamber to pass
OregonMyOregon. Inconceivable!
tax measures. SB 1528 never received
The amount of gold coins these
60 percent of the vote in any chamber.
businesses could have kept in their own
Inconceivable!
pockets, over the next six years, was worth
3. Some of the advisers to the ruling party
$1.3 billion. Princess/Governor Kate wanted advised SB 1528 was not a tax increase. Tell
to keep the gold in the state coffers instead
that to the 192,000 small businesses and
leaving the coins with the hardworking
shop keepers across the state. But the ruling
taxpayers who had earned it in the first
party liked that advice and passed the bill,
place. Inconceivable!
even though that was not the only advice
All that needed to be done was to
offered to the discussion. The courts will be
not connect OregonMyOregon’s tax
asked to determine what tax bills and issues
code to the new federal one. The 2018
fall under the Constitution.
OregonMyOregon legislative short
One last edict Princess/Governor
session provided the venue to disconnect,
Kate has done is to call all the counts and
even though many citizens feel the short
countesses across OregonMyOregon to
session was never intended for this type of
the Salem Castle in June to figure out what
legislation.
to do, costing $50,000 a day to conduct
But rumors began to circulate during the
business. That is a fair amount of coin.
short session in the Salem Castle. Princess/
Inconceivable!
Governor Kate was not happy with her
“The Princess Bride” story ends happily,
counts and countesses in the two legislative
with Buttercup and Wesley marrying, Inigo
Montoya avenging his father, and the heroes
chambers. After all, it was an election year
riding off on white horses. The story of SB
and she might be defeated in the upcoming
1528 is not over, and it has the opportunity
election if this kind of legislation were to
pass. The counts and countesses of her party to end much better, for there are several
issues still in play.
paid little or no heed to Princess/Governor
But at the very least the governor’s race
Kate, and passed SB 1528 without an
just got a whole lot more interesting.
affirmative vote of any of the counts and
■
countesses of the other party. It was sent to
State Senator Bill Hansell has represented
the desk of Princess/Governor Kate. She
Senate District 29 for the past six years. He
had three choices. She could veto it, sign
and his wife Margaret live in Athena where
it, or put in her desk drawer and it would
become law anyway. She had 30 days
he was raised on a wheat and cattle ranch.