Page 4A
East Oregonian
Saturday, June 30, 2018
CHRISTOPHER RUSH
Publisher
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Discovering new places, seeking out backroads
W
henever I’ve had the pleasure
of moving to a new town, I’ve
always tried to be very receptive
to the good advice offered by folks who
have lived there for awhile and know the
ways and customs of their community.
That is certainly true of my first few
weeks here in northeast Oregon.
I relocated here in May after spending
three years on the west (and wetter) side
of the state in Coos Bay/North Bend. Prior
to that, my 26-year newspaper career
has taken my family to small cities like
Bentonville, Ark., Aberdeen, Wash., and
Bartlesville, Okla. Although dramatically
different in climate, culture and economic
fortunes, each of the communities in which
I have lived and worked shared something
in common: They are all fiercely proud of
their unique heritage and the niche they
occupy in the world.
I have discovered this to be true
here in northeast Oregon as well. In the
brief time I have been here, I’ve had the
opportunity to visit numerous towns in the
region: Pendleton, Hermiston, Stanfield,
Umatilla, Echo, Milton-Freewater, Athena,
Weston, Tollgate, Elgin, Wallowa, Lostine,
Enterprise, Joseph, Pilot Rock,
County, Kansas. Further down the
Ukiah, Long Creek, Mount Vernon,
road, the tourist town of Joseph,
John Day and La Grande. I still have
originally named Silver Lake or
Irrigon, Boardman, Helix, Heppner,
Lake City, eventually adopted its
Lexington, Baker City and other
name for the legendary chief of the
towns on my to-visit list.
Nez Perce.
Each community usually hangs
In Grant County, John Day
its proverbial hat on something
takes its name for a member of the
Chris
that sets it apart. For instance, I
famous 1811 Astor Expedition. A
Rush
now know that watermelons play
renowned hunter and fur trapper,
Comment
an important part of Hermiston’s
his name is well remembered in the
branding identity: “Where life is
state as it is attached to multiple
sweet.”
river branches in Oregon as well as the John
Of course, everyone identifies Pendleton Day Fossil Beds National Monument.
with a bronc-riding — “Let ‘er Buck” —
But perhaps my favorite name so far is
cowboy image, but as Mayor John Turner
the quaint hamlet of Echo, “Where History
pointed out to me recently, the actual city
Blooms.” It was named by one of the
seal honors the city’s woolen products
town’s founding fathers, J. H. Koontz, for
heritage with an image of a sheep.
his then three-year-old daughter in 1880.
I see that the hamlet of Athena honors
Her Victorian image, as an adult, still
its 19th-century Scottish settlers with the
adorns the city’s signage and marketing
annual Caledonian Games “to preserve
materials.
and perpetuate Scottish social manners and
But beyond the cities and towns, it is
customs.” The event is scheduled for July
clear to me that the land of Eastern Oregon
13-15 this year, by the way.
is a special place. I’ve taken the opportunity
According to Wikipedia, Wallowa
on weekends to steer my four-wheel drive
County’s Lostine was named after a short-
down some unpaved and unmarked roads in
lived place by the same name in Cherokee
the beautiful Blue Mountains that surround
us. The views from a mountain meadow at
4,000 feet in elevation can be breathtaking.
Most recently, I discovered the joy of
taking the slow route from Deadman Pass
down Cabbage Hill via the narrow and
winding Poverty Flat Road (now, there’s
some interesting names for you!). If you’re
not in a hurry and the weather is clear, I
highly recommend it.
Once down the mountain and back
onto the gently rolling plains of golden
wheat fields, the drive through the Umatilla
Indian Reservation is enlightening. The
Confederated Tribes are doing some
extraordinary things with their facilities and
services. And I truly believe I’m getting
closer every day to the correct pronunciation
of “Tamastslikt.”
It’s clear that we live in an incredibly rich
and diverse area and I can’t wait to continue
my education and exploration here.
Here’s to a safe and happy Independence
Day holiday to everyone!
■
Chris Rush is regional publisher of the
East Oregonian, Hermiston Herald, Wal-
lowa County Chieftain and Blue Mountain
Eagle newspapers.
OTHER VIEWS
Anthony Kennedy and the
privatization of meaning
A
YOUR VIEWS
Rep. Greg Walden has
led his flock astray
This week Greg Walden sent me a letter
to tell me how he was instrumental is passing
the Federal Right to Try Act. Forgive my
skepticism for thinking your actions were
more motivated by your Big Pharma donors
rather than your compassion. You compound
the irony by quoting the Bible and parable
of the lost sheep and telling me that every
opportunity to save a life matters.
Where are you now when children are
being used as pawns in a manipulated crisis
at our borders? A refugee crisis has become a
humanitarian crisis. As Walden tells me, the
shepherd cares about every one of us. Those
people fleeing violence in Guatemala are
us. Trump and Fox News would have you
believe they are all criminals.
How soon we forget that we are a nation of
refugees and immigrants. How soon we forget
the shameful past of Japanese-American
internment and turning away Jewish refugees
in World War II. The blatant hypocrisy of a
President whose grandfather, mother, and
wives are all immigrants and refugees.
“What would Jesus do?” still holds up
pretty well as a test for right and wrong.
I am not a churchgoer, but having been
raised with what I assumed were universal
Christian values, I continue to try and live
my life according to those teachings. What
has happened to us? When did we stop being
the good guys?
Every day Trump attacks our core values,
our institutions, our allies and anyone who
dares to disagree with him. His petty attacks
are not based on fact but are slimy and
vulgar attacks on the person. He repeats lie
after lie until we are numb to it. For those
who say everybody does it, there is simply
no comparison or moral equivalent for the
sheer volume of his lies and attacks. He
has turned the Republicans into a party of
grievance and revenge.
I hear no pushback when he says
things daily that if uttered by a Democrat
would cause an insurrection. Winning an
election or stacking the Supreme Court
with conservatives seems to be worth any
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.
degradation or adherence to societal norms.
If we inflict unnecessary suffering on
others in our quest, we can turn away and
blame the victims. Sadly, I feel evangelical
conservatives in particular have lost the
argument for the type of society they say
they want. And at what price to their spiritual
souls? At what price to our nation?
Somewhere, Greg Walden, we have
become the sheep that have lost their way.
Anita Burrows
Pendleton
Rep. Walden serves,
supports military veterans
I recently heard an ad via an internet
news link that is grossly inaccurate. “News”
such as this sickens me. I ask the veteran
whose voice is on the radio ad to do better
research before attacking our representative.
I too am a veteran and proud of it, and my
integrity is important to me.
You say Greg Walden voted against the
Clay Hunt SAV Act. The truth is he voted
for it. Twice. The second time it became law.
You say he has done nothing to help veter-
ans, but he led the fight in Congress to end
veteran homelessness. He has fought for the
Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program,
leading the effort to increase funding for it
each year until this year — when he suc-
ceeded in receiving full funding for this pro-
gram for the first time in its history.
Under his leadership the VA has seen
more funding than ever before, and he
fought to bring technology and practices
most doctors outside the VA use to help
veteran care become more effective and
efficient.
Sir, as a veteran, we must hold ourselves
to higher standards. I have met with Con-
gressman Walden in his D.C. office, at town
hall meetings, and emailed him for support.
His response? He continues to support vet-
erans and currently serving military person-
nel. Check his voting record. You will see he
is a very strong supporter for all veterans in
our great state.
John Wrinkle
Redmond
merica’s founders certainly
of existence, of meaning, of the
believed in individual
universe, and of the mystery of
liberty, but they believed
human life.”
that liberty happens within a
Wow! That requires a lot of
background reading. If your name is
shared community. They began the
Aristotle or Nietzsche, maybe you
Constitution with the phrase, “We
can do it, but for the rest of us it’s
the People.” We are all one thing —
going to be tough. We’re busy!
a people, a nation, a collective.
You wind up with a society
That people shares a moral order
David
— rules that are true for all people
Brooks in which the schools, the public
Comment
culture, even the parents say: It’s not
in all times and that govern us in our
our job to instill a shared morality
freedom. Among them, for example,
and worldview from scratch. That’s
is the idea that all people are created
something you have to do on your own.
equal.
That people shares a common enterprise. The practical result, given this impossible
task, is that most people wind up without
We are a self-governing nation, and we all
a moral vocabulary, with only scattered
play a role in that enterprise by fulfilling
shards of values, with no firm foundations
the roles that define us — father, mother,
for when times get tough.
neighbor, citizen and legislator. We are
Moreover, we’re much more problematic
parts of a covenant and pass down our
creatures than Kennedy’s sentence seems to
shared order to our posterity.
acknowledge. The old philosophers realized
Over the decades, that sense of we-ness
that the first threat to liberty is actually
began to turn into a sense of I-ness
the tyranny of our own desires. People
or you-ness. You can see it in today’s
get enchained to alcohol,
commencement clichés:
to drugs, to empty calories.
Follow your passion, march
They get enchained by their
to the beat of your own
own selfishness, vanity and
drummer, listen to your own
greed.
heart, you do you.
Most of us require
Justice Anthony Kennedy
communal patterns and
didn’t invent the shift from
shared cultural norms and
community to autonomy,
certain enforced guardrails
but in 1992 he articulated
to help us restrain our desires
it more crisply than anyone
and keep us free.
else: “At the heart of liberty
Which leads to the
is the right to define one’s
third big problem with the
own concept of existence,
“mystery of life” passage. You’d think it
of meaning, of the universe, and of the
would lead to a very small state that would
mystery of human life.”
leave a lot of freedom for people. In fact,
In this sentence, which became famous
as the “mystery of life” passage, there is no it leads to a big, intrusive state. If you strip
away all the communal commitments that
sense that individuals are embedded in a
help people govern themselves from within,
social order. There is no acknowledgment
then very soon you find you have to pass all
of the parts of ourselves that we don’t
sorts of laws to govern them from without.
choose but inherit — family, race, social
If you privatize meaning so that people get
roles, historical legacies of oppression, our
to follow their unrestrained desires, they
bodies, the habits that are handed down to
immediately start tramping on one another,
us by our common culture.
and public pressure grows for restrictive
There’s no we. We are all monads who
laws, like hate speech regulation, to keep
walk around with our own individual
things from getting out of control.
opinions about existence, meaning and
Any society has to perform at least two
the universe. Each person is a self-created
big related tasks — raising the young and
choosing individual, pursuing individual
desires. There is no sense that we are part of pursuing of the good. It takes a village
a common flow connecting the past, present to do both these things. As Yuval Levin
reminded us in an essay in First Things
and future; instead, each of us creates our
a few years ago, people are only capable
own worldview anew.
of exercising responsible freedom when
The first problem with this definition of
they are embedded in and formed by social
freedom is that it pushes society toward a
institutions — like family, schools that take
tepid relativism. There are no truths, only
morality seriously and a shared civic order.
“concepts.” You define your concept of
It’s not a do-it-yourself job.
the meaning of the universe, and I define
The autonomy ethos forgets this.
mine, and who are any of us to judge,
Kennedy channeled it in its purest form.
let alone impinge upon, that of another?
■
Furthermore, it’s a short road from getting
David Brooks became a New York Times
to define your own truth to getting to define
Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He
your own facts.
has been a senior editor at The Weekly Stan-
The second problem is that Professor
dard, a contributing editor at Newsweek
Kennedy gives us a homework assignment
and the Atlantic Monthly, and is currently a
that almost none of us can actually fulfill.
commentator on PBS.
Each of us has to define our own “concept
A sense of
we-ness
began to turn
into a sense
of I-ness
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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