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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 29, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Friday, June 29, 2018 CHRISTOPHER RUSH Publisher KATHRYN B. BROWN Owner DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 Tip of the hat, kick in the pants A tip of the hat to the Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Activists, who are revamping the idea of connecting rail service between Portland and Boise. It would include stops in Pendleton, Hinkle, La Grande and Baker City as it traveled between the growing metropolises to the east and west of us. The group is not making promises at this point of the game. They know it will be a long, hard slog to get train service up and running once again in Eastern Oregon — a smaller version of the Amtrak Pioneer rail of yore. But it’s good to know someone is working on the project, and organizing people with a shared interest in restoring train service. As driverless cars become the norm, and as car ownership percentages begin to dip in coming generations, trains may once again prove to be a preferred mode of travel. It’s worth thinking about that, planning for future changes, and keeping our options open. We only wish previous generations would have kept the infrastructure that allowed passenger train travel to be a viable option for traveling across our region for more than a century. A tip of the hat to the decision by the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality to revoke the waste management permit for Lost LIMEY PASTOR Staff photo by E.J. Harris A Union Pacific freight train passes the Heritage Station Museum, which was origi- nally constructed as Pendleton’s train depot in 1909. Valley Farm outside Boardman. This decision was a long time coming and the right one to make. The public had lost faith in Lost Valley, and the large dairy was putting the environment and human health at risk. “Over the last year we have used every regulatory tool available including civil penalties to gain compliance,” said ODA Director Alexis Taylor in a statement. “We believe the owner is not willing or unable to meet the conditions of his permit that helps protect human health and the environment.” Owner Greg Te Velde may yet appeal the decision, but in our opinion what’s done is done. Let’s pack out the ownership structure associated with Lost Valley, and start again from scratch with what is best for Oregon. OTHER VIEWS America is guilty of The wars of the laws neglecting children: our own T I his has been a painful and to enter life with one eye than to fearful time when we have have two eyes and be thrown into seen terrible things happen the fire of hell. See that you do not to families in the name of the law despise one of these little ones. For — a new variant of immigration I tell you that their angels in heaven law demanding the separation of always see the face of my Father in parent and child, perhaps even heaven.’” permanently, as if the law must This week, the President’s Colin be obeyed mindlessly, heartlessly wife and daughter felt compelled Brown and soullessly by people acting as to launch their own campaign Faith automatons and agents of a devilish of persuasion on their family operation — and used to terrorize politician, which did affect the God’s smallest citizens in his world, president, for which I give thanks, and their parents. The shocking sound for it means that his heart is softened of children crying and alone, bereft of by compassion. That is very good. I am human touch, echoes in our ears leading to actually feeling quite sorry for him as I nightmares. don’t think he had this on his radar. My friend Dennis reminded me that And things have changed, and I expect this is not new. Our native born children they will continue to change. Nothing is are also being taken from more powerful than a child families, gone never in need of rescue and many to return from Oregon of us will come running households too — at a rate seeing a child in danger. that is twice the national That is also a very good average, I understand. thing. It is a hopeful thing. Dumped in state facilities and deprived of In regard to the rising anger of the loving contact with their own. It is obvious people, the Attorney General felt moved to that this also is cruel for the child who is quote the Apostle Paul and he misquoted extracted from an Oregon family and kept Romans 13, using a version with a modern apart permanently from their parents. We idiom that used the word “law” for the term have heard no squeaks of dispute about “governing authorities.” As if to rise up these, mostly lower class children of the against injustice is against God’s will. The poor, from the media folk. We ignore this consequence of this is that the Attorney because it is uncomfortable to know. They General Jeff Sessions is being called before are the invisibles. the ecclesiastic court of his own Methodist Both of these cruelties must end. church for teaching false things. (Don’t A month ago I spent time consoling a worry, he is not being burned at the stake). young American woman who had three Romans: 13 “Let everyone be subject children pulled from her care, her eldest son to the governing authorities, for there is being given psychotropic drugs to subdue no authority except that which God has him, creating permanent damage. She isn’t established. The authorities that exist have getting them back. A legal kidnapping has been established by God. Consequently, taken place for this family. whoever rebels against the authority is So let us not forget the horrible rebelling against what God has instituted, treatment also given to offspring of our and those who do so will bring judgment on own land, which I notice the press does not themselves.” include in the focus of this week’s show of This language of Paul was given by horrors. him to prevent an early bloodshed of his Jesus said these things to us: own flock by the Romans and local rulers. Matthew 18:1-10: “At that time the He was a political man as well as a devout disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who, man. You know things are getting messed then, is the greatest in the kingdom of up when the Roman political arena is heaven?’ He called a little child to him, and affecting our own modern day situation. placed the child among them. And he said: Martin Luther promulgated the doctrine ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and of “Two Kingdoms” to create some become like little children, you will never semblance of order between religious enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, authorities and political authorities, whoever takes the lowly position of this between religious law and civil law: child is the greatest in the kingdom of compulsion being the hallmark of civil law, heaven. And whoever welcomes one such and voluntary obedience being the hallmark child in my name welcomes me. If anyone of the Gospel kingdom. It reflects Paul’s causes one of these little ones — those who thinking. believe in me — to stumble, it would be But even in Luther’s 16th century world, better for them to have a large millstone the barbarism of removing children from hung around their neck and to be drowned their parents was not conceived of. in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world I have been thinking very hard of what because of the things that cause people to needs to be preached for the safety of stumble! Such things must come, but woe the people and out children. I will speak to the person through whom they come! of these things next. May you all be the If your hand or your foot causes you to protectors of God’s loving law. stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It Amen. is better for you to enter life maimed or ■ crippled than to have two hands or two Colin Brown is the former pastor feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it Boardman. You can reach him at colin. out and throw it away. It is better for you brown@usa.net. These cruelties must end. 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. t’s not just the kids at the advanced countries. border. Since about 1970, however, as America systematically other countries provided universal shortchanges tens of millions of health care and built up social safety nets, American kids have been dying children, including homegrown at higher rates. A child is 57 percent kids. The upshot is that American more likely to die by the age of 19 in kids are more likely to be poor, to U.S. than in our peer countries, drop out of high school and even to Nicholas the according to a study published this die young than in other advanced Kristof year in Health Affairs. countries. Comment Half a million American kids still We tear apart homegrown suffer from lead poisoning each year. families, too, through mass And Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical disease incarceration, excessive juvenile detention specialist at Baylor’s College of Medicine, and overuse of foster care. One black warns that here in the United States, child in 10 spends time in foster care — “Millions of children living in poverty and 61,000 foster kids have simply gone may be affected by toxocariasis, a parasitic missing since 2000. roundworm infection.” Like immigration, the mistreatment Why do we stiff of children is an old kids? Why do we problem that President provide universal health Donald Trump is care for senior citizens exacerbating. Here’s (which is expensive) a rule of thumb in but not for children America for any (which would be shortage of resources or cheap)? conflict over priorities: The simple answer: Kids get screwed. Kids don’t vote. They “A shockingly high depend on us, and we number of children fail them. in the U.S. live in poverty,” the United If we can broaden the current outrage Nations special rapporteur on extreme to the plight of all children in America, we poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, could transform lives. declared in a scathing report. Almost one- In Arkansas, I once dropped in on the fifth of American children live in poverty, home of a struggling 13-year-old boy. It he noted, and they account for more than was a filthy flophouse for drug users in a one-fifth of homeless people. gang-ridden area. There were no books in Alston told me that “there’s a very the house, and no food; the only reason direct link” between the mistreatment of the power wasn’t cut off for nonpayment immigrant children at the border and the was the pit bull kept to scare off the utility indifference toward low-income children crew. all across the country. The core reason, he These are difficult problems but not suggested, is a lack of compassion. hopeless ones, and we know what works. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to Early childhood programs in particular the United Nations, protested the U.N. make a huge difference: parent coaching, report, saying, “It is patently ridiculous for high-quality prekindergarten, lead the United Nations to examine poverty in poisoning interventions, social worker America.” visits, and mentoring. Really, Ambassador Haley? World Bank President Jim Yong Kim Yes, it’s weird that a U.N. official cites a study indicating that if the U.S. tasked with poverty investigates the most invested in effective early childhood powerful country in the world — and programs, the lifelong benefits would be finds that kids here have worms. I’m so transformative that American inequality glad that the U.N. speaks up not only for could be reduced to Canadian levels. impoverished children in Congo, but also We already have a model: When Tony for those in, say, South Carolina (where Blair was the British prime minister he a newborn black child has a shorter life undertook a major campaign against child expectancy than a child born in China). poverty and cut it nearly in half. Two researchers, Kathryn Edin and Unfortunately, Trump is moving in the Luke Shaefer, have found that some 3 million American children live in “extreme opposite direction, cutting benefit programs in ways that will hurt poor kids. Trump’s poverty,” with a cash income of less than $2 per person per day, the global metric for tax cuts add to the deficit — meaning that we are partying and sticking children with extreme poverty. That’s not to say that poverty in America the bill. A national, bipartisan outcry forced is comparable to that in poor countries. Trump to back down from tearing American kids may go to bed hungry, but immigrant children from their parents’ very few are stunted from malnutrition, arms at the border; that was a shared compared with 38 percent of children in outpouring of compassion that represented India. our country’s best. Now we need a similar The paradox is that the United States outcry on behalf of all of America’s historically was a safe and nurturing place for children. America helped lead the world children. ■ in mass education, and in 1960 children Nicholas Kristof, New York Times here died at lower rates than in most other Why do we provide universal health care for senior citizens, but not for children? 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.
